Darkness swallowed the room as the overhead lights snapped off with an audible click. Lena stood frozen, her fingers still clutching the photograph of Adrian Blackwood. The silence was sudden and absolute, broken only by the sound of her own ragged breathing.
She fumbled for her phone, swiping to activate the flashlight. A pale beam of light cut through the gloom, flickering as though resisting her will. She scanned the archive room—the shelves, the dusty files, the empty space between her and the door.
Nothing.
But the whisper still lingered in the air, like smoke curling around her mind.
Lena Mercer… you shouldn't have come here.
Her grip tightened around the phone. She refused to be afraid. Fear was what Adrian wanted. Whoever—or whatever—he was, he thrived in the shadows. Lena had to be the one who walked into them willingly.
She returned the photo to her bag and snatched the oldest case file. It was dated 1891. A child named Thomas Welling had vanished. His home burned down a week later. Blackwood's name was listed in the margins, hand-written in hurried ink. No rank. No role. Just a presence.
But that wasn't the strangest part.
The case officer's notes described seeing Adrian Blackwood in the crowd outside the burning home. His description—pale, ageless, dark eyes like coal—matched the photo perfectly.
"How the hell is he still alive?" Lena muttered.
A creak echoed through the room.
She spun around, flashlight aimed, breath caught in her throat.
A figure stood in the doorway. Silhouetted. Still. Watching.
Lena's voice came out hoarse. "Who's there?"
No answer.
Her heart slammed against her ribs. "I have a weapon." A lie.
The figure didn't move. Then it spoke, a voice like dry leaves.
"You seek the flame… but do you know what it costs to touch it?"
She stepped back. "What do you want from me?"
The figure took one slow step forward. "You already carry the mark. You've seen him. You've heard the whisper."
Lena's fingers brushed her wrist—where the burn had appeared after the fire. The symbol that hadn't healed.
"What is it?" she asked. "Why me?"
The figure tilted its head. "Because you burned brighter than the others. And moths always chase the brightest flame."
In a blink, the figure vanished.
Lena staggered out of the room, case file in hand, heart pounding in her throat. She burst into the main library, startling Ms. Carmichael, who had been dozing.
"Are you alright, dear?" the librarian asked, worry etched across her face.
Lena nodded, gasping. "I need to know everything you've ever heard about Adrian Blackwood. Everything."
Ms. Carmichael hesitated. Then, she locked the front door and drew the curtains.
"Then you'd best sit down, child. It's time someone told you the truth about the man who doesn't die… and the flame that never stops burning."
---
They sat across from each other in the library's reading room. The air felt thick with old secrets, dust motes swirling in the dim lamplight. Ms. Carmichael poured Lena a cup of lukewarm tea and began to speak.
"I first heard his name when I was a girl, younger than you are now. My grandmother told me the story—not a bedtime tale, but a warning. A myth, she said, of a man who made a pact with something ancient. A thing older than God."
Lena blinked. "A pact?"
Ms. Carmichael nodded. "There are always rumors. That he traded his soul for immortality. That he walks from century to century, feeding on pain, on fire, on fear. The stories said wherever he goes, something burns. Not just homes—but people. Lives. Hope."
"But why the fires?" Lena whispered.
"Because the fire is his curse," the old woman said. "And his power."
She retrieved an old leather-bound journal from a hidden drawer beneath the desk. Its cover was cracked with age, the pages yellow and fragile.
"This belonged to a woman named Evelyn Sayer. A historian who tried to map Blackwood's presence across the years. She traced him back as far as 1650—Salem, Massachusetts. He was there during the witch trials. And before that? Even less traceable. Whispers from Europe. Plague towns. Burned churches. Always the same man."
Lena flipped through the journal. Sketches, notes, maps, and symbols littered the pages. In the margins, the phrase kept repeating:
"The moth never learns."
"Evelyn vanished in 1973," Ms. Carmichael continued. "Her apartment was found charred to the foundation. No body. No remains."
Lena's skin crawled. "He's covering his tracks."
"Or perhaps," the librarian said, "he's warning the rest of us."
Lena leaned back, eyes scanning the shelves filled with knowledge and half-truths. "Do you think I'm next?"
Ms. Carmichael met her gaze. "You've seen him. You've touched the flame. The question now, dear, is whether you can outrun it… or become it."
Outside, the wind howled like a scream, rattling the old windows.
And far off in the city's heart, something began to burn.