Chapter 2: Rule 9: What The Blinds Hide

Chapter 2: Rule 9: What The Blinds Hide

Sleep was a locked room, and Eden didn't have the key. She lay rigid on the thin mattress, staring into the oppressive, ink-black darkness of apartment 3B. The silence was a living thing, broken only by the frantic drumming of her own heart. Every so often, she thought she could hear it again—the faint, whispery scrape from the fourth floor, the floor that Lilith had dismissed with a placid smile. But it was the journal that truly held her hostage.

That is not the truth. Do not waste our time.

The cramped, jagged words were seared onto the back of her eyelids. How? How was it possible? She had re-read her own entry a dozen times, the lie about the coffee shop feeling more foolish with each viewing. The response below it felt like a violation, a surgical incision into her mind. Our time. Who was ‘our’? Lilith? Or something else? The entity that had been dragged across the floor above her?

Paranoia, a familiar and unwelcome guest, began to wrap its cold fingers around her. The sterile white walls seemed to be closing in, the air growing thin and heavy. She felt watched. Judged. It was a sensation she knew all too well, a ghost from the life she had just escaped. Her ex had loved that trick, making her question her own sanity until she felt she was living in a world made of fog. This felt different. Sharper. More real.

Her eyes drifted to the window. A single, dark rectangle against the white wall. Behind it lay the city, a world of streetlights and passing cars, of people living normal lives. A world she was no longer a part of. Rule #9 echoed in her mind, no longer a bizarre guideline but a direct threat: All window blinds must be fully closed between the hours of 9 p.m. and 7 a.m.

Why? What was out there that they didn't want her to see? Or, a more chilling thought, what was in here that they didn’t want it to see?

A small, defiant spark flickered to life in the pit of her stomach. It was the same spark that had propelled her out of her old apartment with nothing but a backpack and the clothes on her back. She was tired of being controlled, of being told what to do, what to see, what to think. This was her room, wasn't it? She was paying… well, she wasn’t paying rent yet, but she had committed. That had to count for something.

The digital clock on her phone read 2:17 a.m.

Slowly, carefully, she slipped out of bed. The polished concrete floor was cold against her bare feet. Each step was a conscious effort, her muscles screaming in protest. She reached the window, her breath held tight in her chest. Her fingers trembled as they found the plastic wand to tilt the slats.

Don’t do it, the voice of reason—or perhaps fear—hissed in her head. This is a test. You just failed the journal test. Don’t fail this one too.

But the defiance was stronger. She just needed a glimpse. A sliver of proof that the outside world still existed.

With an infinitesimal twist of her wrist, she opened a crack in the blinds, no wider than her little finger.

The street below was empty, slick with a recent rain that made the asphalt gleam under the sickly orange glow of a single streetlamp. The pawn shop and the derelict warehouse across the way were dark, hulking shapes. It was an ordinary, desolate city scene. A wave of relief washed over her. She was being stupid. Paranoid. It was just a building with weird rules.

And then she saw him.

Directly across the street, standing in the deep shadows of the warehouse doorway, was a figure. It was just a silhouette, tall and unnaturally thin, impossible to make out any features. But it wasn't moving. It was standing perfectly, unnaturally still. Its head was tilted upward, aimed directly at her window. At the tiny crack in the blinds she had just created.

A cold dread, sharp and absolute, pierced through her. It wasn't the presence of the figure that terrified her, but the intent. The stillness. It knew she was there. It was waiting for her to look. She felt seen, pinned by a gaze she couldn't see, like an insect under glass. Her heart lurched, and she stumbled back from the window, her hand flying to her mouth to stifle a scream. The plastic wand clattered against the sill.

She pressed her back against the cool wall, her lungs burning. Her mind raced. A junkie? A homeless person? No. The stillness was wrong. It was predatory. She squeezed her eyes shut, fighting the wave of nausea and the echo of her ex's voice: You're seeing things, Eden. You're always so dramatic.

Was he right? Was this just her exhausted, terrified mind manufacturing horrors in the dark?

It took every ounce of her will, but she forced herself to look again. She had to know. Creeping back to the window, her body shaking, she peered through the same tiny crack.

The street was empty.

The doorway across the street was just a dark, gaping shadow. The figure was gone. Vanished without a sound, as if it had been nothing more than a phantom drawn by the rain and the lonely light. The sudden absence was somehow more terrifying than its presence had been.

Eden spent the rest of the night huddled in her bed, the grey blanket pulled up to her chin, flinching at every sound until the first weak hints of dawn finally bled through the edges of the blinds.

Exhaustion made her clumsy as she left the apartment the next morning, desperate for fresh air. As she locked her door, a soft voice made her jump.

"Good morning, Eden."

Lilith stood at the end of the hallway, a spectre in grey and black. She must have just left her own apartment. Her faint, unreadable smile was fixed in place.

"I trust you slept well," Lilith continued, her voice smooth as polished stone. "It is so important to maintain a proper schedule, to give the mind the rest it requires. Light discipline is key to that."

Eden’s blood ran cold. Light discipline. The phrase was so clinical, so deliberate. It wasn't a random comment. It was a message. Lilith knew.

"I… I slept fine," Eden lied, the words feeling like sand in her mouth.

Lilith’s unblinking eyes seemed to look right through her. "Good. We find that honesty with oneself begins with adherence to simple structures."

She glided past Eden and down the stairs, leaving only the scent of something sterile, like antiseptic, in her wake. Shaken, Eden fumbled with her keys and retreated back into the supposed safety of 3B.

The apartment was exactly as she’d left it, except for one thing.

The leather-bound journal, which she had shoved under her pillow, was now sitting squarely in the middle of her desk. She approached it as if it were a venomous snake. With a trembling hand, she opened it. The page with her coffee shop lie was still there, the jagged reply mocking her. But on the next page, a new prompt waited, written in Lilith's pristine, elegant script.

We often seek to look into the darkness, believing it cannot look back at us. What did you hope to find last night? And what do you fear has found you instead?