Hey everyone, for this chapter I am adding a Trigger Warning because it approaches, mental abuse and gas lighting, this is written in the context of a Gothic Horror... so please avoid if it is a sensitive topic for you.
Into the Darkness: Chapter Seven - Previous Chapter
Chapter 8.
The apartment gleamed like a confession she couldn’t stop repeating. Every surface shone; every shadow kept its distance. Order was her prayer, and she prayed constantly: wipe, fold, align, breathe.
She’d been cleaning since dawn. The air smelled of lemon and exhaustion. Her knees ached, but she couldn’t stop — not yet, not while there were corners left that might still betray her.
The clock told her it was nearly six when she finally sat down, breathing in the silence she had earned. It lasted less than a minute.
The door opened.
He stumbled in, boots heavy with mud, muttering to himself. The first print struck the clean floor like a slap. Another followed.
“Don’t start,” he said, before she could even draw breath. “You’ve no idea the day I’ve had.”
She stared at the dirt bleeding across her tiles. “Could you—please—take them off? I’ve been—”
“Unbelievable,” he snapped, kicking one heel against the skirting board. “Always about the floor. Never about me.”
She felt something twist in her chest. “You forgot my birthday,” she said quietly.
He turned then, eyebrows raised, as though she’d accused him of blasphemy. “I what?”
“My birthday. Today.”
He scoffed. “You could have reminded me. You know what I’m like. You love setting me up to fail.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t,” he cut in. “Not after the day I’ve had. You always make it about you.”
The argument folded itself in circles, a serpent devouring its own tail. Every word he spoke became a mirror angled toward her, reflecting blame. She tried to stand her ground, but her voice withered each time it met his.
He threw himself onto the couch with a theatrical sigh. “You make me feel like a bad person,” he muttered, half to himself. “And I’m not. I’m trying.”
She stood motionless, the cloth still clutched in her hands. The mud on the floor was drying now, staining the clean white tiles with veins of brown. Her throat burned. For a moment, she imagined pressing her hands flat against the mess, just to feel something out of place.
Outside, the wind shifted.
Far beyond the city lights—or perhaps in the space between her breaths—Damien emerged from the shadow realm.
The air was colder here, thinner. Darkness peeled off his shoulders like smoke. He landed in a field slick with dew, the night sky hanging low and bruised.
In the distance, a block of flats hunched beneath the weight of clouds. Their windows glowed like tired eyes.
He began to walk. The grass whispered against his boots, and somewhere far ahead, a dog barked once and fell silent. A wire fence loomed, twisted and rusted. He found a hole and stepped through, the metal snagging briefly at his coat before letting go.
He stopped when he reached the cracked pavement.
From the ground floor came the sound of voices — muffled, but sharp. A woman’s tone breaking, a man’s anger filling the gaps. The sound carried through the damp air, a vibration that seemed to pulse through the ground itself.
Damien looked up. The bulb above him flickered — once, twice, and then steadied, humming faintly.
He watched it, expression unreadable. Then he whispered, “That’s where it begins.”
And he started toward the building.
Inside, she stood in her immaculate kitchen, staring at the smear of mud she couldn’t bring herself to clean. Her reflection in the kettle looked pale, unfamiliar.
“If nothing else remembers me,” she murmured, “at least the house will.”
The corridor smelled of damp plaster and old paint. Damien moved through it without sound, the shadows bending just enough to let him pass. A faint buzzing came from a light somewhere down the hall, fluttering against the silence like a trapped moth.
He stopped before the right door. His hand rose to knock, then froze.
A man’s voice seeped through the wood—low at first, then rising into that sharp, nasal whine particular to self-pity.
“You twist everything, you know that? You want to make me the bad one.”
The woman answered, weary but steady. “I just want you to leave me alone for a while.”
The man laughed, wounded and theatrical. “See? There it is. You can’t stand me being upset. You need me to be the villain.”
Her tone shifted—tired steel beneath the exhaustion. “Go home. Sleep somewhere else tonight.”
Then, softer, she called a name, a whistle barely audible. A dog’s claws clicked on the tile, then a quiet huff, loyal and ready.
Damien leaned back into the dim recess of the corridor as the lock turned. The door opened slowly. The woman stepped out first, coat pulled tight, her face pale in the flickering light. The small dog followed at her heels, eyes bright as coins.
She didn’t see Damien; few did when he chose to stand between shadows. She moved down the hall, shoulders stiff, each step a fragile declaration of freedom.
Outside, the night swallowed her whole. The air smelled of rain. She dug into her pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and tried to strike the lighter. The flame flared weakly, then died. Again. Again. Each failed spark echoed the trembling in her fingers.
From behind her came a small sound—the click of a lighter, smooth and certain.
A steady flame bloomed in the dark.
She turned slightly. A tall man stood a few paces away, coat dark against the streetlight’s ghostly pulse. His face was calm, unreadable, the eyes reflecting the flame.
She leaned forward, lit her cigarette. “Thank you,” she whispered. The words left her mouth like smoke.
He nodded once. The lighter snapped shut.
For a moment, they said nothing. The dog sat between them, tail curled neatly around its feet. Then the tears came—slow, soundless, tracing clean paths down her cheeks. She didn’t hide them.
Damien’s gaze stayed on the horizon, on the flickering streetlight that had called him here. “Sometimes,” he said quietly, as if to the night itself, “the dark sends its own kind to fetch the broken pieces.”
The woman drew on her cigarette, exhaled a thin ribbon of smoke that the wind immediately stole. “I don’t know what that means,” she murmured.
“You will,” he replied.
And the streetlight flickered once more, bright enough to show how utterly alone the street had become.
A noise stirred in the corridor behind them — a dull thud of footsteps, heavy and uneven. The dog gave a low whine, ears flattening.
Damien turned slightly, eyes narrowing toward the sound. “Brace yourself,” he murmured. His voice was level, almost kind, but something beneath it vibrated like a warning.
The main door swung open. Her partner filled the doorway, shoulders hunched, face creased with irritation.
“Are you coming back inside now?” he demanded.
She didn’t turn to face him. “No,” she said quietly. “The dog still hasn’t been for a wee.”
He gave a sharp, humourless laugh. “You’ve been out here for ages.”
Her patience cracked. “Five minutes,” she said, exhaling smoke like punctuation.
That’s when he noticed Damien — the tall stranger standing by the railings, hands in his coat pockets, the dim light catching on his eyes.
“Oh, what’s this?” the man sneered. “Your new boyfriend? Out here slagging me off again, are you?”
Damien lifted his gaze. The movement was small, but the air seemed to shift with it. His expression didn’t change; no anger, no threat. Just the stillness of something that had seen far worse. His eyes met the man’s and held them there — cold, depthless.
The man faltered mid-step. A flicker of confusion crossed his face, then something closer to fear. He stumbled back a half-pace, mumbling under his breath.
The woman flicked her cigarette to the ground and ground it out beneath her shoe. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft but steady. “Thanks for the light.”
Damien gave a slight nod.
She whistled, and the dog trotted obediently toward the open door. She followed it inside without looking back.
For a moment, Damien stood alone on the walkway. The man lingered in the doorway, uncertain, caught between anger and unease.
Then the streetlight flickered again — once, twice — and the man’s shadow seemed to shiver against the wall.
He turned sharply, muttered something under his breath, and slammed the door.
Damien remained still, eyes fixed on the closed door, listening to the muffled voices within fade into silence. The night air around him felt charged, almost humming. Whatever had drawn him here wasn’t finished. Not yet.
The door clicked shut, the sound small but final.
Damien stayed where he was. Rain began again, a thin drizzle that painted the pavement with silver veins. He didn’t flinch; the water slid from his coat without soaking it.
Behind the door, muffled voices stirred—the same rhythm as before, the rise and fall of accusation—but softer now, as though the walls themselves were tired of carrying them. Then came the thud of a cupboard, the scrape of a chair, the faint whimper of the dog.
Damien watched the window above. The yellow light still burned, but faintly, flickering as if it too struggled to keep breathing. In its pulse he saw what the house had gathered: years of unshed words, every swallowed protest, every apology she had been trained to make. They hung in the air like dust motes, visible only to those who knew how to look.
He drew a slow breath and closed his eyes. The shadows around him moved, subtle as smoke, listening. When he spoke, it was to them.
“She’s reached the edge,” he murmured. “The next silence will break her.”
The darkness rippled once—agreement, perhaps—and then settled.
He turned towards the exit, boots echoing softly on the concrete. Each step he took left no trace, yet the lights above him flickered as if acknowledging his passing. On the landing he paused, glancing back toward the door. Through the thin layer of paint and wood, he could feel the vibration of a heart trying to stay small.
“You’re not alone anymore,” he said quietly, though no one could hear him. “The house remembers.”
Then he descended, the rhythm of his steps fading into the hum of the rain. By the time he reached the street, the drizzle had thickened into a steady fall. He walked until the building was a blur behind him, the single flickering window swallowed by night.
And somewhere in the upper flat, the woman sat on the floor beside her dog, hand resting on its back, listening to the storm. For the first time in months, she noticed that the silence between thunderclaps didn’t feel empty—it felt watchful.
Mid-morning sunlight struck the street in harsh rectangles, bouncing off wet asphalt and the chrome of parked cars. Damien lingered in the shadows along the sidewalk, watching.
A car rattled out of a driveway. She was in the passenger seat, quiet, hands folded in her lap. He gripped the wheel, knuckles white, jaw tight. The engine rumbled impatiently as they tried to pull into the street. Another vehicle slowed to let them out.
“Get out of my fucking way!” he shouted, slamming the horn. “Learn to drive, you prick!”
The woman flinched, pressed back into her seat. She didn’t answer; there was nothing to say. Damien shook his head slowly, observing. Every movement, every shout, had the rhythm of a ritual. He followed at a pace that seemed impossible, gliding through the street’s edges, blending with shadow and distance alike.
They moved in tandem through the city, the man driving like a predator in a cage, the woman quietly enduring. They pulled into a coffee drive-through. Her fingers drummed nervously on the console as they ordered.
A mistake—a simple miscount—set the man off. His voice cracked and rose, sharp as glass.
“No! I said two coffees, two! Make it right! Fresh coffee! Now! And my money back!”
The woman reached over, touching his arm, her voice a soft plea.
“Babe, leave it… let’s go… it’s okay.”
Her words were swallowed by his fury. Damien stepped closer, unseen by her, slipping into the coffee shop itself, moving silently across the tiles. He paused at a window, looking straight at him. Not a word. Not a sound.
The man froze mid-grab of the money from the counter. For the first time, he felt the weight of eyes like stone pressing down on him. He didn’t turn fully, didn’t speak, but the tension shifted. The employees watched uneasily.
Then, with a heavy hand, he snatched the freshly brewed coffee, shoved the cash into his pocket, and stormed back to the car. The engine roared to life.
The woman exhaled, pressing her face into her hands as he drove off, leaving a trembling line of warmth and fear in the car’s wake. Damien stayed in the doorway for a moment longer, gaze lingering, before slipping back into shadow.
The city carried on around him, indifferent, unaware of the quiet judgement he had passed—and the woman, trapped within the car, felt it too, though she could not name it.
They pulled into the driveway. The man’s mood hadn’t softened during the ride home; it was etched in the slump of his shoulders, the heavy set of his jaw as he climbed from the car, slamming the door with a metallic clang that rattled the windows.
The apartment held its breath in the silence that followed. For a moment, it seemed she might finally have those ten minutes she craved—just ten minutes alone, a bath, a sliver of quiet in a day that had left her frayed and raw.
Then his voice cut through, sharp, demanding, loud enough to echo in her skull.
“Babe! How long do I put the potatoes in the air fryer for? How long should I cook the steak for?”
She let the bathwater run over her hands, hoping he would leave it alone.
“I’m in the bath!” she called, her voice tight. “Put the potatoes in for twenty minutes. You cooked steak before—how long did you cook it last time?”
Her words were swallowed in the tidal wave of his whining, the voice he reserved for himself when he wanted pity or attention. Each question was an accusation; each tone a test. All she wanted was a few moments to herself, a bubble of stillness where she could breathe.
He escalated, twisting the simplest exchange into argument, tone sharp, accusatory, claiming she was unhelpful, claiming she was impossible. The calm she had tried to summon dissolved like steam into the bath.
Finally, she had enough. The bathwater had gone cold on her skin, but her voice was iron. “Leave,” she said. “Just leave!”
He froze for a second, shocked, but then launched into his rehearsed rebuttal, whining and accusing, demanding sympathy he had not earned. She stood her ground. Her decision was final.
With a huff, he stormed out the door, slamming it behind him, and walked to his car in the driveway. The air fryer and grill inside were left on, unattended—a storm of heat and smoke waiting. And as always, she would have to clean the consequences of his immaturity, his carelessness, as if she were responsible for the chaos of someone grown, someone who should know better.
Minutes ticked by. The bath had long drained, the steam settling into the corners. Then the front door creaked open again. He returned, voice immediately slipping back into its whining, self-pitying cadence, the one he used to coerce attention, to claim he was the victim in every argument. She braced herself, sinking back into the silence she had only briefly tasted, the exhaustion of being expected to care for someone who refused to care for himself pressing down again.
The apartment air was thick with the faint sting of the abandoned air fryer, the smell of his sweat, and the tension coiled in her shoulders. She had hoped the storm of his anger had spent itself, that a few moments alone—ten minutes, maybe—would let her breathe.
Then he appeared, as if drawn by some inner fire. His face loomed over hers, a predator crossing a line that had long gone unchallenged. “You think you can ignore me?” he shouted, spittle flying at the edge of the counter. “You think I’m some idiot? You’re always testing me!”
She pressed herself against the cabinet, clutching the dog to her side. “Please… stop…” she whispered, voice fragile.
“Stop?” he roared. “You’re always so difficult! So… controlling! You make everything about yourself!”
That’s when Damien stirred in the shadows. The corner he had occupied seemed to thicken, the air vibrating in a way the man couldn’t feel but that the world around him could. Damien did not move, did not speak. He simply reached into the edges of the man’s mind, opening the smallest fracture, just enough to slip a mirror inside.
At first it was a cold pressure behind his eyes, like glass settling against his skull. Then the images came, harsh, fragmentary, impossible to ignore.
A face appeared: small in stature but monumental in cruelty. A black mustache, sharp and exacting, like a blade above the upper lip. The jaw, rigid, every line set for command. The eyes—cold, unblinking, calculating—locked on him and stripped away his pretence of authority.
Orders whispered through his skull. Parade squares, flags slicing the air like knives, boots striking the pavement in rhythm with the tightening of his chest. Faces he had never known crowded around him, and each one bore the same expectation: obedience, domination, power.
He gasped mid-shout, frozen. Sweat stung his eyes. His throat constricted, and the world narrowed to that figure, that stance, that cold precision. For the first time, he saw himself reflected in history’s monsters—not just a resemblance, but a kinship, a pattern repeated in miniature in every tiny tyranny he had enacted in her presence.
Damien’s presence pressed like winter against his spine. The visions screamed without sound. Every attempt to shout, to assert control, failed. He couldn’t. The weight of history had descended, relentless and absolute.
The woman, pressed against the cabinet, dared to breathe. The dog whimpered softly at her feet. She sensed, vaguely, a shift: the man’s fury had paused mid-word, his hands trembling, jaw tight, posture crumbling.
When he finally left the apartment, coat half-hung, hair wet with sweat, it was not in defeat but in bewilderment. He could no longer find the words that would normally cut, belittle, or coerce. The images lingered behind his eyes, clawing at his mind, leaving him obsessed with one impossible goal: proving he was not like them.
Every subsequent day, history returned to him: tyrants, conquerors, abusers whose cruelty had shaped the world. Each face, each echo, forced him to measure himself, to act, to control—but now with a restless, maddening desire to distance himself from what Damien had shown him. The obsession grew, consuming him quietly, reshaping him in ways he could not yet name.
Inside the apartment, she finally exhaled. The little dog brushed her ankle, warm and constant. The air seemed lighter. For the first time in months, she could breathe without flinching. Damien lingered in the hallway, shadow stretching and settling, a quiet witness to the aftermath. Then he slipped away, leaving history and its judgement behind him, patient and inexorable.
The next morning, the apartment felt different. Not lighter, exactly, but taut, as if the walls themselves were listening. He moved through the rooms with an edge to his motions, eyes darting to corners, mirrors, even the polished surfaces she maintained so meticulously. Every step, every word, became measured, as though he were constantly assessing himself against some invisible standard he could neither name nor shake.
At breakfast, he paused mid-bite, fork suspended in the air, staring at her with a strange intensity. “How long should I cook the steak?” he asked, not in anger this time, but in something that felt like fear of getting it wrong. When she answered, he nodded once, slowly, as if memorising the process for some internal ledger. Later, he found himself rereading the news, pausing on stories of tyranny, cruelty, and power. Names flickered behind his eyes, faces pressing in, and he could not look away. He began cataloguing, comparing, planning ways to prove, to measure himself, to escape the reflection Damien had forced upon him—but the more he tried, the more haunted he became.
The obsession was quiet, insidious. His fury still erupted, but now it was shadowed by this trembling, restless self-scrutiny. And every time he tried to reclaim the dominance he once wielded, a chill would crawl along his spine, a whisper of all those who had come before, reminding him that history was watching—and he could never fully escape the mirror Damien had set in motion.
Into the Darkness: Chapter Seven - Previous Chapter
Chapter 8.
The apartment gleamed like a confession she couldn’t stop repeating. Every surface shone; every shadow kept its distance. Order was her prayer, and she prayed constantly: wipe, fold, align, breathe.
She’d been cleaning since dawn. The air smelled of lemon and exhaustion. Her knees ached, but she couldn’t stop — not yet, not while there were corners left that might still betray her.
The clock told her it was nearly six when she finally sat down, breathing in the silence she had earned. It lasted less than a minute.
The door opened.
He stumbled in, boots heavy with mud, muttering to himself. The first print struck the clean floor like a slap. Another followed.
“Don’t start,” he said, before she could even draw breath. “You’ve no idea the day I’ve had.”
She stared at the dirt bleeding across her tiles. “Could you—please—take them off? I’ve been—”
“Unbelievable,” he snapped, kicking one heel against the skirting board. “Always about the floor. Never about me.”
She felt something twist in her chest. “You forgot my birthday,” she said quietly.
He turned then, eyebrows raised, as though she’d accused him of blasphemy. “I what?”
“My birthday. Today.”
He scoffed. “You could have reminded me. You know what I’m like. You love setting me up to fail.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t,” he cut in. “Not after the day I’ve had. You always make it about you.”
The argument folded itself in circles, a serpent devouring its own tail. Every word he spoke became a mirror angled toward her, reflecting blame. She tried to stand her ground, but her voice withered each time it met his.
He threw himself onto the couch with a theatrical sigh. “You make me feel like a bad person,” he muttered, half to himself. “And I’m not. I’m trying.”
She stood motionless, the cloth still clutched in her hands. The mud on the floor was drying now, staining the clean white tiles with veins of brown. Her throat burned. For a moment, she imagined pressing her hands flat against the mess, just to feel something out of place.
Outside, the wind shifted.
Far beyond the city lights—or perhaps in the space between her breaths—Damien emerged from the shadow realm.
The air was colder here, thinner. Darkness peeled off his shoulders like smoke. He landed in a field slick with dew, the night sky hanging low and bruised.
In the distance, a block of flats hunched beneath the weight of clouds. Their windows glowed like tired eyes.
He began to walk. The grass whispered against his boots, and somewhere far ahead, a dog barked once and fell silent. A wire fence loomed, twisted and rusted. He found a hole and stepped through, the metal snagging briefly at his coat before letting go.
He stopped when he reached the cracked pavement.
From the ground floor came the sound of voices — muffled, but sharp. A woman’s tone breaking, a man’s anger filling the gaps. The sound carried through the damp air, a vibration that seemed to pulse through the ground itself.
Damien looked up. The bulb above him flickered — once, twice, and then steadied, humming faintly.
He watched it, expression unreadable. Then he whispered, “That’s where it begins.”
And he started toward the building.
Inside, she stood in her immaculate kitchen, staring at the smear of mud she couldn’t bring herself to clean. Her reflection in the kettle looked pale, unfamiliar.
“If nothing else remembers me,” she murmured, “at least the house will.”
The corridor smelled of damp plaster and old paint. Damien moved through it without sound, the shadows bending just enough to let him pass. A faint buzzing came from a light somewhere down the hall, fluttering against the silence like a trapped moth.
He stopped before the right door. His hand rose to knock, then froze.
A man’s voice seeped through the wood—low at first, then rising into that sharp, nasal whine particular to self-pity.
“You twist everything, you know that? You want to make me the bad one.”
The woman answered, weary but steady. “I just want you to leave me alone for a while.”
The man laughed, wounded and theatrical. “See? There it is. You can’t stand me being upset. You need me to be the villain.”
Her tone shifted—tired steel beneath the exhaustion. “Go home. Sleep somewhere else tonight.”
Then, softer, she called a name, a whistle barely audible. A dog’s claws clicked on the tile, then a quiet huff, loyal and ready.
Damien leaned back into the dim recess of the corridor as the lock turned. The door opened slowly. The woman stepped out first, coat pulled tight, her face pale in the flickering light. The small dog followed at her heels, eyes bright as coins.
She didn’t see Damien; few did when he chose to stand between shadows. She moved down the hall, shoulders stiff, each step a fragile declaration of freedom.
Outside, the night swallowed her whole. The air smelled of rain. She dug into her pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and tried to strike the lighter. The flame flared weakly, then died. Again. Again. Each failed spark echoed the trembling in her fingers.
From behind her came a small sound—the click of a lighter, smooth and certain.
A steady flame bloomed in the dark.
She turned slightly. A tall man stood a few paces away, coat dark against the streetlight’s ghostly pulse. His face was calm, unreadable, the eyes reflecting the flame.
She leaned forward, lit her cigarette. “Thank you,” she whispered. The words left her mouth like smoke.
He nodded once. The lighter snapped shut.
For a moment, they said nothing. The dog sat between them, tail curled neatly around its feet. Then the tears came—slow, soundless, tracing clean paths down her cheeks. She didn’t hide them.
Damien’s gaze stayed on the horizon, on the flickering streetlight that had called him here. “Sometimes,” he said quietly, as if to the night itself, “the dark sends its own kind to fetch the broken pieces.”
The woman drew on her cigarette, exhaled a thin ribbon of smoke that the wind immediately stole. “I don’t know what that means,” she murmured.
“You will,” he replied.
And the streetlight flickered once more, bright enough to show how utterly alone the street had become.
A noise stirred in the corridor behind them — a dull thud of footsteps, heavy and uneven. The dog gave a low whine, ears flattening.
Damien turned slightly, eyes narrowing toward the sound. “Brace yourself,” he murmured. His voice was level, almost kind, but something beneath it vibrated like a warning.
The main door swung open. Her partner filled the doorway, shoulders hunched, face creased with irritation.
“Are you coming back inside now?” he demanded.
She didn’t turn to face him. “No,” she said quietly. “The dog still hasn’t been for a wee.”
He gave a sharp, humourless laugh. “You’ve been out here for ages.”
Her patience cracked. “Five minutes,” she said, exhaling smoke like punctuation.
That’s when he noticed Damien — the tall stranger standing by the railings, hands in his coat pockets, the dim light catching on his eyes.
“Oh, what’s this?” the man sneered. “Your new boyfriend? Out here slagging me off again, are you?”
Damien lifted his gaze. The movement was small, but the air seemed to shift with it. His expression didn’t change; no anger, no threat. Just the stillness of something that had seen far worse. His eyes met the man’s and held them there — cold, depthless.
The man faltered mid-step. A flicker of confusion crossed his face, then something closer to fear. He stumbled back a half-pace, mumbling under his breath.
The woman flicked her cigarette to the ground and ground it out beneath her shoe. Her voice, when she spoke, was soft but steady. “Thanks for the light.”
Damien gave a slight nod.
She whistled, and the dog trotted obediently toward the open door. She followed it inside without looking back.
For a moment, Damien stood alone on the walkway. The man lingered in the doorway, uncertain, caught between anger and unease.
Then the streetlight flickered again — once, twice — and the man’s shadow seemed to shiver against the wall.
He turned sharply, muttered something under his breath, and slammed the door.
Damien remained still, eyes fixed on the closed door, listening to the muffled voices within fade into silence. The night air around him felt charged, almost humming. Whatever had drawn him here wasn’t finished. Not yet.
The door clicked shut, the sound small but final.
Damien stayed where he was. Rain began again, a thin drizzle that painted the pavement with silver veins. He didn’t flinch; the water slid from his coat without soaking it.
Behind the door, muffled voices stirred—the same rhythm as before, the rise and fall of accusation—but softer now, as though the walls themselves were tired of carrying them. Then came the thud of a cupboard, the scrape of a chair, the faint whimper of the dog.
Damien watched the window above. The yellow light still burned, but faintly, flickering as if it too struggled to keep breathing. In its pulse he saw what the house had gathered: years of unshed words, every swallowed protest, every apology she had been trained to make. They hung in the air like dust motes, visible only to those who knew how to look.
He drew a slow breath and closed his eyes. The shadows around him moved, subtle as smoke, listening. When he spoke, it was to them.
“She’s reached the edge,” he murmured. “The next silence will break her.”
The darkness rippled once—agreement, perhaps—and then settled.
He turned towards the exit, boots echoing softly on the concrete. Each step he took left no trace, yet the lights above him flickered as if acknowledging his passing. On the landing he paused, glancing back toward the door. Through the thin layer of paint and wood, he could feel the vibration of a heart trying to stay small.
“You’re not alone anymore,” he said quietly, though no one could hear him. “The house remembers.”
Then he descended, the rhythm of his steps fading into the hum of the rain. By the time he reached the street, the drizzle had thickened into a steady fall. He walked until the building was a blur behind him, the single flickering window swallowed by night.
And somewhere in the upper flat, the woman sat on the floor beside her dog, hand resting on its back, listening to the storm. For the first time in months, she noticed that the silence between thunderclaps didn’t feel empty—it felt watchful.
Mid-morning sunlight struck the street in harsh rectangles, bouncing off wet asphalt and the chrome of parked cars. Damien lingered in the shadows along the sidewalk, watching.
A car rattled out of a driveway. She was in the passenger seat, quiet, hands folded in her lap. He gripped the wheel, knuckles white, jaw tight. The engine rumbled impatiently as they tried to pull into the street. Another vehicle slowed to let them out.
“Get out of my fucking way!” he shouted, slamming the horn. “Learn to drive, you prick!”
The woman flinched, pressed back into her seat. She didn’t answer; there was nothing to say. Damien shook his head slowly, observing. Every movement, every shout, had the rhythm of a ritual. He followed at a pace that seemed impossible, gliding through the street’s edges, blending with shadow and distance alike.
They moved in tandem through the city, the man driving like a predator in a cage, the woman quietly enduring. They pulled into a coffee drive-through. Her fingers drummed nervously on the console as they ordered.
A mistake—a simple miscount—set the man off. His voice cracked and rose, sharp as glass.
“No! I said two coffees, two! Make it right! Fresh coffee! Now! And my money back!”
The woman reached over, touching his arm, her voice a soft plea.
“Babe, leave it… let’s go… it’s okay.”
Her words were swallowed by his fury. Damien stepped closer, unseen by her, slipping into the coffee shop itself, moving silently across the tiles. He paused at a window, looking straight at him. Not a word. Not a sound.
The man froze mid-grab of the money from the counter. For the first time, he felt the weight of eyes like stone pressing down on him. He didn’t turn fully, didn’t speak, but the tension shifted. The employees watched uneasily.
Then, with a heavy hand, he snatched the freshly brewed coffee, shoved the cash into his pocket, and stormed back to the car. The engine roared to life.
The woman exhaled, pressing her face into her hands as he drove off, leaving a trembling line of warmth and fear in the car’s wake. Damien stayed in the doorway for a moment longer, gaze lingering, before slipping back into shadow.
The city carried on around him, indifferent, unaware of the quiet judgement he had passed—and the woman, trapped within the car, felt it too, though she could not name it.
They pulled into the driveway. The man’s mood hadn’t softened during the ride home; it was etched in the slump of his shoulders, the heavy set of his jaw as he climbed from the car, slamming the door with a metallic clang that rattled the windows.
The apartment held its breath in the silence that followed. For a moment, it seemed she might finally have those ten minutes she craved—just ten minutes alone, a bath, a sliver of quiet in a day that had left her frayed and raw.
Then his voice cut through, sharp, demanding, loud enough to echo in her skull.
“Babe! How long do I put the potatoes in the air fryer for? How long should I cook the steak for?”
She let the bathwater run over her hands, hoping he would leave it alone.
“I’m in the bath!” she called, her voice tight. “Put the potatoes in for twenty minutes. You cooked steak before—how long did you cook it last time?”
Her words were swallowed in the tidal wave of his whining, the voice he reserved for himself when he wanted pity or attention. Each question was an accusation; each tone a test. All she wanted was a few moments to herself, a bubble of stillness where she could breathe.
He escalated, twisting the simplest exchange into argument, tone sharp, accusatory, claiming she was unhelpful, claiming she was impossible. The calm she had tried to summon dissolved like steam into the bath.
Finally, she had enough. The bathwater had gone cold on her skin, but her voice was iron. “Leave,” she said. “Just leave!”
He froze for a second, shocked, but then launched into his rehearsed rebuttal, whining and accusing, demanding sympathy he had not earned. She stood her ground. Her decision was final.
With a huff, he stormed out the door, slamming it behind him, and walked to his car in the driveway. The air fryer and grill inside were left on, unattended—a storm of heat and smoke waiting. And as always, she would have to clean the consequences of his immaturity, his carelessness, as if she were responsible for the chaos of someone grown, someone who should know better.
Minutes ticked by. The bath had long drained, the steam settling into the corners. Then the front door creaked open again. He returned, voice immediately slipping back into its whining, self-pitying cadence, the one he used to coerce attention, to claim he was the victim in every argument. She braced herself, sinking back into the silence she had only briefly tasted, the exhaustion of being expected to care for someone who refused to care for himself pressing down again.
The apartment air was thick with the faint sting of the abandoned air fryer, the smell of his sweat, and the tension coiled in her shoulders. She had hoped the storm of his anger had spent itself, that a few moments alone—ten minutes, maybe—would let her breathe.
Then he appeared, as if drawn by some inner fire. His face loomed over hers, a predator crossing a line that had long gone unchallenged. “You think you can ignore me?” he shouted, spittle flying at the edge of the counter. “You think I’m some idiot? You’re always testing me!”
She pressed herself against the cabinet, clutching the dog to her side. “Please… stop…” she whispered, voice fragile.
“Stop?” he roared. “You’re always so difficult! So… controlling! You make everything about yourself!”
That’s when Damien stirred in the shadows. The corner he had occupied seemed to thicken, the air vibrating in a way the man couldn’t feel but that the world around him could. Damien did not move, did not speak. He simply reached into the edges of the man’s mind, opening the smallest fracture, just enough to slip a mirror inside.
At first it was a cold pressure behind his eyes, like glass settling against his skull. Then the images came, harsh, fragmentary, impossible to ignore.
A face appeared: small in stature but monumental in cruelty. A black mustache, sharp and exacting, like a blade above the upper lip. The jaw, rigid, every line set for command. The eyes—cold, unblinking, calculating—locked on him and stripped away his pretence of authority.
Orders whispered through his skull. Parade squares, flags slicing the air like knives, boots striking the pavement in rhythm with the tightening of his chest. Faces he had never known crowded around him, and each one bore the same expectation: obedience, domination, power.
He gasped mid-shout, frozen. Sweat stung his eyes. His throat constricted, and the world narrowed to that figure, that stance, that cold precision. For the first time, he saw himself reflected in history’s monsters—not just a resemblance, but a kinship, a pattern repeated in miniature in every tiny tyranny he had enacted in her presence.
Damien’s presence pressed like winter against his spine. The visions screamed without sound. Every attempt to shout, to assert control, failed. He couldn’t. The weight of history had descended, relentless and absolute.
The woman, pressed against the cabinet, dared to breathe. The dog whimpered softly at her feet. She sensed, vaguely, a shift: the man’s fury had paused mid-word, his hands trembling, jaw tight, posture crumbling.
When he finally left the apartment, coat half-hung, hair wet with sweat, it was not in defeat but in bewilderment. He could no longer find the words that would normally cut, belittle, or coerce. The images lingered behind his eyes, clawing at his mind, leaving him obsessed with one impossible goal: proving he was not like them.
Every subsequent day, history returned to him: tyrants, conquerors, abusers whose cruelty had shaped the world. Each face, each echo, forced him to measure himself, to act, to control—but now with a restless, maddening desire to distance himself from what Damien had shown him. The obsession grew, consuming him quietly, reshaping him in ways he could not yet name.
Inside the apartment, she finally exhaled. The little dog brushed her ankle, warm and constant. The air seemed lighter. For the first time in months, she could breathe without flinching. Damien lingered in the hallway, shadow stretching and settling, a quiet witness to the aftermath. Then he slipped away, leaving history and its judgement behind him, patient and inexorable.
The next morning, the apartment felt different. Not lighter, exactly, but taut, as if the walls themselves were listening. He moved through the rooms with an edge to his motions, eyes darting to corners, mirrors, even the polished surfaces she maintained so meticulously. Every step, every word, became measured, as though he were constantly assessing himself against some invisible standard he could neither name nor shake.
At breakfast, he paused mid-bite, fork suspended in the air, staring at her with a strange intensity. “How long should I cook the steak?” he asked, not in anger this time, but in something that felt like fear of getting it wrong. When she answered, he nodded once, slowly, as if memorising the process for some internal ledger. Later, he found himself rereading the news, pausing on stories of tyranny, cruelty, and power. Names flickered behind his eyes, faces pressing in, and he could not look away. He began cataloguing, comparing, planning ways to prove, to measure himself, to escape the reflection Damien had forced upon him—but the more he tried, the more haunted he became.
The obsession was quiet, insidious. His fury still erupted, but now it was shadowed by this trembling, restless self-scrutiny. And every time he tried to reclaim the dominance he once wielded, a chill would crawl along his spine, a whisper of all those who had come before, reminding him that history was watching—and he could never fully escape the mirror Damien had set in motion.
Into the Darkness: Chapter 9
Chapter 9. London dripped. The rain never fell cleanly here; it oozed down the glass and neon, thick with exhaust and regret. Damien stood beneath a buzzing streetlamp outside King’s Cross, the paper limp in his hand. TWELVE MEN MISSING IN NORTH LONDON — POLICE BAFFLED. The headline shouted...
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