Chapter 1: The Hour of the Wolf

Chapter 1: The Hour of the Wolf

The numbers on the digital clock bled red in the darkness: 2:37 AM.

Liam didn’t need to see them. He was already awake, ripped from a shallow, sweat-soaked sleep by a force more punctual than any alarm. It was the hour of the wolf, the dead of night when the world held its breath. For him, it was the hour of the crash.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the phantom sound of screeching tires and shattering glass. His hands, clenched into fists at his sides, still felt the ghost of the steering wheel—the sickening, violent jerk that had wrenched their lives off course four days ago.

Grief was a physical thing. It was a weight on his chest, a chill in his bones, a constant, low hum of dread that vibrated through the floorboards of the house he and Elena had built. He had designed it himself, every open-plan space, every large window intended to let the light in. Now, the house felt like a tomb, and every window was a potential ambush.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the motion stiff and robotic. He needed water. His throat was a desert, scraped raw by a scream he’d swallowed in his dream. But the path to the kitchen was a gauntlet.

His gaze flickered instinctively towards the large, ornate mirror hanging over Elena’s dresser. He recoiled, his eyes snapping shut. Two nights ago, he had made the mistake of looking. In the dim moonlight filtering through the blinds, he hadn’t seen his own haggard reflection. He had seen hers. Elena, her beautiful face twisted into a silent, contorted scream, her pregnant belly a ghostly curve in the silvered glass. Behind her, a smudge of darkness, a shape that was tall and wrong, had seemed to loom. He’d blinked, and it was just him again—a hollowed-out man with haunted eyes.

He hadn’t looked at his reflection since.

Now, he moved with the practiced stealth of a prisoner. He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, tracing the patterns in the hardwood. He knew the layout of this house better than the lines on his own hand. As an architect, he understood its angles, its sightlines. Now, that knowledge was a curse. He knew exactly where every reflective surface lay in wait.

The bedroom door creaked open. The hallway beyond was a river of shadows. To his left, the living room. The 65-inch television screen was a black mirror, a void waiting to show him things he couldn’t bear to see. To his right, the hallway stretched towards the kitchen, its walls lined with framed photos from their wedding, their travels, their life. Each pane of glass was a tiny, treacherous portal.

He hugged the wall, using his sense of touch to guide him, his shoulders brushing against the cool plaster. The house was silent, but it wasn't a peaceful silence. It was the predatory quiet of a hunter. He could almost feel it watching him, waiting for him to slip up, to catch a glimpse of himself in the polished chrome of a light switch or the darkened glass of the oven door.

Elena had loved this house. She had filled its silence with music, its emptiness with laughter and the smell of oil paints. Now, the only sound was the frantic thumping of his own blood in his ears.

He reached the kitchen, his hand fumbling for a cabinet. He didn't turn on the light. The faint glow from the streetlamp outside was enough. He grabbed a glass, his movements clumsy, and filled it from the tap. He drank it down in three ragged gulps, the cold water doing little to soothe the fire in his throat.

He leaned against the counter, his head bowed. The guilt was an acid in his stomach. I fell asleep. The thought was a constant refrain, the self-inflicted lash of a whip. Just for a second. That’s all it took. He remembered the gentle weight of Elena’s head on his shoulder, her soft breathing, the curve of her hand resting on her stomach. They had been so close to home.

But was that all it was? A moment of exhaustion? The memory of the wheel jerking felt wrong. It hadn’t felt like nodding off. It had felt like something pulled it.

He squeezed his eyes shut, pushing the thought away. It was easier to blame himself. Self-hatred was a familiar pain, a clean wound compared to the terrifying, irrational fear that had taken root in his soul since the mirror incident. One was grief. The other felt like madness.

He stood there for what felt like an eternity, trapped between the ghosts of his past and the horrors of his present. The fear was a living entity, coiling in his gut. But beneath it, something else was stirring. A slow, burning anger. Anger at his own cowardice.

He was hiding in his own home. He was letting this… this thing, whatever it was, turn him into a frightened child cowering in the dark. Elena wouldn't have wanted this. The Elena he knew—vibrant, brave, fierce—would have faced this head-on. She would have told him to stop being a damn fool and turn on the lights.

The thought was a spark in the overwhelming darkness of his despair. The weight of his cowardice suddenly felt heavier than the grief itself. No. He wouldn’t live like this. He couldn’t. He had to know. He had to look. He had to see if she was there again, if she was trying to tell him something.

He wouldn’t dare the bedroom mirror again. That felt too personal, too sacred. But the guest bathroom… that was neutral ground. A small, functional space with a simple, unframed mirror above the sink.

His decision made, a strange calm settled over him. It wasn't peace, but the cold resolve of a man walking toward his own execution. His feet moved with purpose now, carrying him back down the hall, past the lurking photos, past the void of the television.

He reached the guest bathroom door and hesitated, his hand hovering over the doorknob. His breath hitched. What if she was there again, screaming? What if that tall, smudged shadow was with her? But what if there was nothing? The thought was somehow just as terrifying.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and pushed the door open.

The room was pitch black. He felt for the light switch on the wall, his fingers trembling as they brushed against the cool plastic. This was it. One flip of a switch. One moment of truth.

For Elena.

He flicked the switch.

The bathroom was flooded with sterile, white light. It was painfully bright, making him squint. His eyes darted to the mirror above the sink. He braced himself for the scream, for the wrongness, for the specter of his dead wife.

He saw the white-tiled wall behind him. He saw the chrome faucet of the sink, the half-empty bottle of hand soap, the light fixture on the ceiling.

Everything was reflected perfectly. Everything except him.

Where his reflection should have been, there was only the blank wall. The mirror showed the room as if he weren't standing in it at all. He waved a hand in front of his face. Nothing. He took a staggering step closer until his nose was nearly touching the glass. Still nothing. Just an empty, sterile bathroom staring back at him.

The scream that had been trapped in his throat for four days finally broke free. But the most terrifying part, the part that shattered the last remnants of his sanity, was that in the cold, unforgiving mirror, the sound was utterly, completely silent.