Chapter 5: The Boy Who Ran

Chapter 5: The Boy Who Ran

By seventeen, Elara had perfected the art of being a ghost in her own life. She moved through the crowded high school hallways with her head down, a fortress of long sleeves and quiet deflection. The scars had faded to silvery lines, but she still wore them like a secret uniform. The nightly sieges of sleep paralysis were less frequent now, replaced by a low-grade, constant hum of anxiety. She had her routines, her safe zones, her carefully constructed peace. It was a lonely existence, but it was survivable.

Then came Mark.

He wasn't like the other boys, with their loud jokes and clumsy bravado. Mark was quiet, with kind eyes and a slow, genuine smile. He sat behind her in chemistry, and their relationship began with him lending her a pen, then asking her about a homework assignment, then walking her to her locker. He didn't seem to mind that she never met his gaze for more than a second, or that she flinched away from the reflective trophy case in the main hall. He just seemed to see her, the girl hiding behind the walls, and he didn't try to knock them down. He just waited for her to open the door.

For the first time since she was nine years old, a dangerous, thrilling desire for normalcy began to bloom in the barren soil of Elara’s heart. She let him hold her hand, the warmth of his skin a shocking, grounding sensation. She let him walk her home, though she always said goodbye at the curb, never inviting him into the house of shrouded mirrors. For a few precious hours each day, in the bright, uncomplicated light of the outside world, she felt like a normal teenage girl. The hope was terrifying. It was an unfamiliar muscle, and flexing it made her ache with the fear of it tearing.

The obstacle, as always, was the night. The thought of letting him into her world, her real world, was paralyzing. What would he think of the heavy quilt draped over her vanity? How could she explain why she couldn't watch a scary movie if the TV screen might go dark? But his patience was a gentle, persistent tide, and eventually, it eroded a piece of her defenses.

“My parents are going out of town for the weekend,” she told him one Friday, the words feeling like marbles in her mouth. “We could… order a pizza? Watch a movie at my place?”

His face lit up with that slow, beautiful smile. “I’d love that.”

The evening was a fragile miracle. They ate pizza on the living room floor, and she found herself laughing, a real, unbridled laugh that felt rusty in her own throat. She chose a comedy, something bright and loud with no long, dark pauses. When the movie ended and the credits rolled over a black screen, she instinctively looked away, her heart giving a familiar, panicked flutter. Mark didn't notice. He was looking at her.

“You have really beautiful eyes,” he said, his voice soft.

The compliment landed with a thud in her stomach. Her eyes. The one feature she shared so perfectly with the creature that haunted her. But looking at Mark, his expression open and sincere, she pushed the thought away. Tonight, they were just her eyes.

Later, they went up to her room, the door clicking shut behind them. It felt like a monumental step, letting him into the heart of her fortress. He looked around, taking in the posters of bands she didn't listen to, the stacks of books, and the strange, lumpy shape of the blanket-draped vanity.

“Your mirror is cold?” he joked, pointing.

Elara’s breath hitched. “Something like that,” she mumbled, quickly changing the subject. “Want to listen to some music?”

They lay on her bed, propped up on pillows, sharing a single pair of earbuds as music filled the space between them. The anxiety she’d felt earlier began to dissolve in the comfortable silence. His arm was around her shoulder, his thumb gently stroking her arm, right over the sleeve that hid the oldest of her scars. It felt safe. It felt right. As the hours crept by, their conversation dwindled, and their eyelids grew heavy. They drifted off to sleep, tangled together atop her comforter, the music still playing softly from a discarded earbud.

For the first time in years, Elara slept without fear. There was no dream of running, no cold premonition of paralysis. There was only the warmth of the boy beside her and the faint scent of his cologne.

The cold was what woke him.

Mark surfaced from a deep, dreamless sleep into a sudden, biting chill that had nothing to do with the autumn night outside. The air in the room felt thick, heavy, and smelled faintly of wet leaves and decay. He blinked, his eyes adjusting to the dim moonlight filtering through the window. Elara was asleep beside him, her breathing soft and even. Everything seemed normal, but a primal, animal instinct was screaming at him that he was in terrible danger.

He felt a pressure in the room. A sense of being watched.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted his head. His gaze traveled from Elara’s sleeping face up to the dark wood of the headboard above them.

And then he saw it.

Perched on the edge of the headboard, like some grotesque gargoyle, was a girl. She was crouched in a tattered white nightgown, her limbs unnaturally long and thin in the gloom. Her skin was the color of old ash. Her hair was a filthy, matted tangle. She was utterly still, a predator frozen in the moment before the strike.

Mark’s mind refused to process it. It was a dream. A hallucination. It had to be.

But then the creature tilted its head, a slow, jerky movement that sent a cascade of pure terror through him. And he saw her face. It was Elara’s face, but decayed, malevolent. A twisted, knowing smile stretched the cracked, grey lips. And the eyes… the eyes were not eyes. They were two holes of absolute blackness, voids that seemed to pull the very light from the room. They weren't looking at him. They were fixed on Elara, a look of profound, possessive hatred in their bottomless depths.

A sound, a choked, strangled whimper, escaped Mark’s throat.

The creature’s smile widened.

That was it. The fragile thread of his denial snapped. This was real. This was in the room with them.

He didn’t scream. He didn't have the air. His body reacted before his mind could, driven by a surge of pure, unthinking terror. He scrambled backwards off the bed, his limbs flailing, crashing into Elara’s desk chair and sending it skittering across the floor. He didn't look back. He couldn't. The image of those black eyes was burned into his brain.

He fumbled for the doorknob, his hand shaking so violently it took him two tries to turn it. He wrenched the door open and bolted, his sneakers pounding on the hardwood of the hallway. He didn't grab his jacket. He didn't grab his keys. He just ran. Out the front door, which he left wide open, and into the cold, unforgiving night.

Elara was jolted awake by the crash of the chair and the slam of the front door. She sat bolt upright, her heart hammering against her ribs. “Mark?”

The room was empty. A blast of cold night air was drifting up the stairs. The space beside her on the bed was vacant, the sheets cool to the touch. He was gone.

She didn't have to ask why. She could feel it. The lingering cold in the air. The faint, familiar smell of rot. The oppressive silence that had crashed down in the wake of his flight.

She slowly raised her eyes to the headboard. There was nothing there. Of course there was nothing there. The Girl didn't need to stay. Her work was done. She hadn't left a single scratch on Elara’s skin this time. The wound was deeper, cleaner.

She had proven her point. Elara was hers. And anyone who tried to get close, anyone who dared to bring a flicker of warmth into her cold, haunted world, would be met with the same terrifying truth. They would see the monster that owned her. And they would run.

A single, cold tear traced a path down Elara’s cheek. The hope that had bloomed so brightly just hours before was extinguished, leaving behind nothing but the cold, hard certainty that she was, and always would be, utterly and completely alone.