In the shadows, truths are born.In the depths, they rot.But once you've seen them, you can never unsee them.
The figure in the distance was no illusion.It wasn't a trick of the fog, nor a figment of his fractured imagination. Asher knew that feeling far too well—the way the air turned cold, the way his skin itched like a thousand crawling spiders, the way the shadows seemed to press inward rather than stretch out.
He had felt it before. That instinctive, choking sense of dread.
This wasn't just darkness. It was presence.
And now, it stood before him again—tall, impossibly tall—its silhouette warping the fog around it like heat above a dying battlefield. Jagged around the edges, its body seemed to flicker in and out, like a damaged recording replaying over itself.
Asher's fingers twitched. He didn't recognize the figure's face—there was no face to see—but somehow, impossibly, he knew this entity. Knew it like the sound of his own heartbeat.
Then the air thickened. The alley tilted. Time itself seemed to slow to a crawl.
His body trembled.
His power reacted before he did—pulling, resisting, yearning all at once.
"No..."Asher's voice cracked in the frozen air. A whisper—but in his mind, it echoed like thunder.
The figure took a single step forward.
That was all it took.
With it, the entire alley trembled. The walls groaned like dying beasts. The fog split and reformed around the being, each swirl pulled toward its outline like moths to a flame.
The darkness around it didn't just follow—it worshipped it.
Each step lengthened the shadows, turning them into spears that stretched along the cobbled ground. They dragged themselves across Asher's boots, rising like serpents trying to climb their way back inside him.
And still, he couldn't move.
Frozen—not by fear, but by memory.
"You're here," the figure finally spoke, its voice resonating from every angle—behind him, inside him, beneath his feet. It wasn't one voice. It was many. And yet, somehow... it felt singular. Personal.
Familiar.
The moment it spoke, pain slammed into Asher's skull like a blunt instrument. A jolt so sudden he nearly dropped to his knees.
Images. No—memories.
A rose garden.The laughter of a child.The feel of leather gloves tightening around his hands.A mask—white, expressionless, dripping with blood. His blood.
His breath hitched. His vision blurred.
"Stop it," he hissed, squeezing his eyes shut. "Get out of my head."
But it was already too late.
The floodgates had opened.
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Creepy Moment – The Whispering Eyes
The voice deepened.
"Do you remember now?"
When Asher opened his eyes again, the figure had vanished—but the fog hadn't.
It moved with intent now, swirling unnaturally, coiling like a beast that had caught its prey. From the mist, shapes emerged—eyes. Dozens of them. Hundreds.
All glowing with that same eerie crimson.
Each blink was synchronized, rhythmic, as if orchestrated by some unseen will.
Asher turned in place, blade half-drawn, every breath shaking in his lungs. But the eyes were not afraid. They only watched. Waiting.
"You can't escape us, Asher,"the whisper said again, closer now. A collective murmur that crawled under his skin."The past always comes back. It never lets go."
His grip faltered. The sword in his hand felt foreign. Useless. The shadows had no fear of steel.
Asher's mind reeled, lost in the rising pitch of whispers now pouring from every crevice, every crack, every space the light failed to reach.
"You're not just running from the shadows," the voice intoned, softer now. Crueler."You're running from yourself."
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The Revelation – Embracing the Darkness
"No," Asher growled, voice thick with defiance. "I'm not like you."
He didn't know who he was speaking to. The voice? The figure? The shadows? Himself?
"I'm not afraid of this anymore."
The red eyes blinked.
And then, laughter—dark, melodic, rising like bile from the pit of a broken dream.
"We don't need to control you, Asher.We already do."
The fog rippled as the figure reappeared, this time not a silhouette—but a mirror.
It wore a mask.
White. Cracked down the middle. The right eye missing.And Asher knew that mask.He had worn that mask.
Every nightmare. Every hallucination. Every fragment of fear.
That mask had always been there.
"You," he whispered. "You're me."
The figure tilted its head.
"No," it replied. "I'm what's left of you."
Its eyes gleamed gold now—no longer red. Sickly and bright. They cut through Asher like knives.
"I'm what you buried when you chose to run. When you chose to forget. But I never left. I've always been waiting."
The air collapsed around Asher. His lungs seized. The mask pulsed with power. And then—
The memories came.
Rushing. Tearing. Unforgiving.
The day he broke the seal.The day he first heard the whispers.The pact.The price.
And above all—the thing he had traded away for power.
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Asher screamed.Not aloud—but deep within. A silent, soul-rending cry.
His knees gave way, hitting the ground with a thud. The blade slipped from his fingers.
The figure leaned forward, its hand stretching toward him. And when it touched his forehead, the world shattered into colorless fragments of memory.
The truth spilled out like ink across an old page.
He had never been a victim of the darkness.
He had invited it in.
"You can't fight it, Asher," the voice whispered."Because you are it."
And then—
Everything went black.
[End of Chapter 17]
Preview:
Chapter 18 – The Mask's Truth
Asher awakens in a place beyond light, beyond sound—a realm where memory and reality collapse into one. The truth behind the masked figure is revealed, but will accepting it strengthen him… or finally break what little is left of who he used to be?