"Mom! Dad!"
Rosaline's scream ripped through the night like a jagged blade slicing velvet.
It began on the cursed night of October 13th, when the moon bled crimson and the town of Raventhorn forgot how to breathe.
The air was too still—too thick—like the world itself had paused in terror. Fog slithered through the streets like phantom serpents, wrapping their icy bodies around the houses. The wind carried whispers—ancient names no one dared speak anymore.
And then she saw them.
Her parents stood hand-in-hand with their two best friends under the flickering streetlight—smiling. But not warmly. No, their smiles were stretched too wide, teeth too white, eyes too empty.
"Mom?" she breathed. "Dad? I thought… I thought you were in a coma…"
The smiles didn't falter. They only… twisted.
From the corners of their mouths, something black began to drip—thick, tar-like blood. It oozed from their eyes, their nostrils, their lips, painting their skin in grotesque rivers of midnight.
"You're not supposed to live, Rosaline,"
they said in voices not their own—raspy, broken, as though something was speaking through their hollow shells.
She screamed.
And ran.
Barefoot, she tore down the empty street, gravel slicing her soles. Shadows clung to her like predators, snarling in the corners of her vision. No matter how fast she ran, they were there—her family, her tormentors—always smiling, always bleeding, always just behind.
Up ahead, a crooked house loomed like a secret.
Home?
She didn't stop to wonder. She flew through the rotting doorway, slammed it shut behind her, and barricaded it with whatever her trembling hands could grasp—chairs, drawers, her own breathless panic.
And then—
Laughter.
Low. Echoing. Wrong.
Footsteps creaked on the old wood floor—slow, deliberate.
She stumbled back into her room, her spine pressed to the wall, whispering her grandmother's prayers through sobs. But the prayers were swallowed by silence. The kind of silence that listens.
Then—
CRACK.
A hand burst through the door like it was made of paper. Pale. Human-shaped. Not human. It seized her throat, nails digging into her skin like hooks.
She kicked, clawed, gasped—
Blood welled in her mouth.
"You're not supposed to live…"
With a desperate scream, she broke free and crawled across the room, collapsing in a corner, her body shivering violently. She covered her face with trembling hands, praying it would all end.
But through the slits between her fingers—
She saw it.
A black umbrella.
She slowly lowered her hands.
A tall figure stood in the splintered doorway. Drenched in shadows. Cloaked at midnight. The umbrella he held glistened with raindrops that weren't falling.
He was ethereal. A living myth. Beauty sharpened to a deadly point.
His coat was a deep, regal black, trimmed with velvet that whispered against the wind. His hair—long, silky, darker than night—framed a face sculpted like temptation. His skin was porcelain pale, flawless and cold. His eyes… oh, his eyes. Deep pools of black, with glints of crimson flickering beneath, like embers hiding in ash. They watched her—not with pity, but with curiosity, as if she were a riddle written in blood.
"Katherine…?"
His voice was low, laced with an accent as rich and ancient as forgotten kingdoms.
"You're not her… are you?"
A breath. A sigh. Disappointment curved his lips—lips too perfect, too sinful.
Then—his eyes blazed red.
Before she could move, a stream of black, smoke-like magic spiraled from his hand, diving straight into her mouth. It filled her lungs, her veins, her very soul—fire and ice burning her from the inside out.
She choked.
He glided forward, graceful, terrifying. His fangs shimmered like blades under the broken moonlight.
He knelt before her, lifting her chin between his fingers. They were cold, like marble. Like death.
"Forget everything you saw tonight…"
he whispered, his breath brushing her lips like a kiss from the grave.
"Because if you don't..."
And just like that—
Darkness claimed her.
Rosaline jolted awake, gasping like a woman who had drowned and clawed her way back to the surface. Her bedsheets were tangled around her legs, her skin soaked in sweat. Her chest heaved as if her heart had become a caged beast.
She touched her neck.
Marks.
Blood.
The pain was real.
The terror hadn't left with the dream.
And somewhere, beyond the walls of her bedroom,
She knew that everything was real.