If you're reading this, then I guess something went wrong.
Or maybe it went exactly how it was always meant to.
Either way, this diary is the only thing I've left that's real. The only thing that hasn't twisted into something I no longer recognize. I'm writing it down because I don't trust my memory anymore. Because I don't know how much longer I'll still be me.
I don't know what you are human, vampire, something in between. Maybe you're like me. Maybe you're what I'll become. Maybe you're the one who finishes this story.
But if you're reading it, know this:
Everything changed in Ashmoor Alley.
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Entry 1 January 2rd
I should be asleep right now. I should be finishing my paper on Norse mythology and sipping lukewarm coffee while pretending I'm not slowly unraveling. But instead, I'm sitting here, hands still trembling, trying to make sense of what happened in Ashmoor Alley.
And I don't mean "almost-got-mugged" kind of happened.
I mean something else.
Something wrong.
Something impossible.
It started the way most things do in this city cold and too quiet. The streets around Valemire University always feel like they're holding their breath, especially in the winter. The snow muffles everything. Even the traffic sounds muted, like the world knows not to disturb what sleeps here.
I'd stayed at the library too long again. I thought I could handle the walk back. It's not far. I've done it before. But tonight, I took the alley.
Ashmoor.
I should have known better.
Even before I heard the footsteps, I felt it. Like the shadows were leaning in closer than usual. I told myself it was stress. Just my tired brain making up drama. But then someone said my name.
No one was there when I turned around.
But I heard it "Eira…" Soft. Too familiar. Like the way my mother used to say it when she was trying to get my attention gently.
And then he was there. Out of nowhere.
A man. Or at least he looked like one.
Tall. Pale. Not sickly pale just... washed in moonlight. His eyes weren't right. Not white, not blue, not brown. Red but not like blood. More like wine left in crystal, catching the moon.
He said he'd waited to see me.
I didn't know him.
I swear I didn't know him.
He reached for my face. I stumbled back. But I swear, I swear he didn't move like a person. One second, he was at the far end of the alley. The next, he was right there. No footsteps. No sound. Just air moving wrong around him.
And then he was gone. Just like that.
I should be calling the police. I should be telling someone.
But I can't. Because I know what I saw. And if I say it out loud, I'll have to admit it's real.
When I got home, I found a scratch on my cheek. Just a tiny mark. I didn't feel it happen.
But there was blood in the snow.
Just a drop.
I don't know whose it was.
But something in me tells me... it matters.
Something's starting. I can feel it under my skin. Like static. Like a scream held too long in my throat.
And I think it's only going to get worse from here.
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Entry 2: January 3rd
I didn't sleep. Not even a minute.
I kept the lights on and lay in bed with my phone in one hand and the fireplace poker in the other like that was going to save me from... whatever he was. I don't even know what to call him. The man in the alley? The thing with red eyes? Saying it out loud makes it feel ridiculous. But what I saw wasn't human.
He didn't feel human.
He felt like something older.
Like something that watches time instead of living in it.
I went to class anyway. Just to pretend things were normal. I sat through Dr. Kaminski's entire lecture on cultural memory and myth and didn't take a single note. My hands were still shaking when I opened my notebook. My coffee tasted like ash.
I saw things. Or maybe I noticed them for the first time. The way light shimmered just a little too long off of glass. The way I could hear a girl whispering to her friend four rows behind me. The way I could smell someone's leftover lunch across the hall potatoes, gravy, something metallic under it all.
It scared the hell out of me.
But I didn't leave.
I watched the people around me people I've studied beside for three years and felt like a stranger. Like I was behind a wall of glass and the world had started speaking a different language without warning.
At lunch, I heard someone's heartbeat.
That can't be possible, right? Not unless they had some kind of heart monitor strapped to them. But I swear I heard it a steady, loud thump-thump, like it was echoing from inside my own chest.
I left my tray untouched. I told them I had a migraine.
By the time I got back to my apartment, I was ready to convince myself it had all been a hallucination. I even Googled psychosis symptoms just to try and make it make sense.
And then the power went out.
Only in my unit. Not the building. Not the street.
Just mine.
I checked the fuse box. It was fine. I peeked into the hallway lights were on. My neighbor's TV was flickering through the crack beneath his door.
And then I got the text.
No name. No contact.
Just a number.
UNKNOWN: We are watching. Do not run.
My blood went cold.
And then someone knocked on my door.
Three times. Soft. Slow. Like whoever was out there wasn't in a hurry. Like they knew I was going to open it.
I didn't.
I looked through the peephole no one.
But when I opened the door, there was an envelope.
Black.
Thick.
And warm.
It had no name. No address. Just a red wax seal shaped like some kind of bat-winged hourglass.
I wanted to throw it away. Burn it. But I opened it.
Inside, in blood-red ink:
Eira Thorne,
Your blood is called.
The house remembers.
Midnight. Come to the Iron Gate—beneath the dead yew trees behind the old chapel, where snow does not fall.
Refuse, and you forfeit your claim.
— Veyrix
He knows my name.
And now I know his.
Veyrix
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Entry 3: January 3rd
I'm writing this while sitting on a freezing stone bench just outside the Iron Gate. I have thirty-seven minutes before midnight. Thirty seven minutes to convince myself this isn't the dumbest thing I've ever done.
And yet… here I am.
I almost didn't come.
I paced my apartment for hours, staring at the letter, trying to decide if it was a threat or a trap or worse, a joke that somehow wasn't. I packed a backpack with a flashlight, a bottle of water, my mom's necklace, and the fire stick poker like that would somehow protect me. But the moment I opened the envelope, part of me knew I would go.
Because deep down, I needed answers.
Not just about the man Veyrix but about myself.
There's something wrong with me. Or maybe it's something right that's been buried too long. I feel it moving under my skin, humming in my blood like I swallowed a storm. I used to think I was just anxious. Sensitive. Maybe a little broken. But now I wonder if I've always been on the edge of something I couldn't see.
Maybe this is what falling into it feels like.
The Iron Gate wasn't easy to find. It's at the far end of the cemetery behind the old chapel ruins one of those places that doesn't show up on Google Maps and somehow manages to feel invisible even when you're standing right in front of it. It's not locked, but it feels locked, like something sacred or cursed is trying to keep the world out. Or keep something in.
The gate is wrought iron, twisted into shapes I can't quite make out. At first it looked like vines or barbed wire, but the longer I look, the more they start to look like wings. Or claws. Or teeth.
It's been snowing the whole time I've been sitting here, but none of it lands on the gate. The flakes vanish before they touch it.
That's not normal.
God, what am I even doing?
This is the part in horror movies where the audience starts yelling at the screen. "Don't go in there!" But I can't be that girl who runs and waits for someone else to explain her life to her.
Not anymore.
If this is a trap, then fine.
But if it's real if everything that's been happening to me has a reason, a history, a name then I need to walk through this gate and find it.
My phone says 11:59.
It's time.
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Entry 4: January 4th
Crossing the Iron Gate felt like stepping into a dream I couldn't wake from.
The air shifted the moment I passed through—cold, thick, and heavy, like the world had been holding its breath for centuries. The snow that had fallen just moments ago was gone, vanished as if swallowed by the darkness itself.
Ahead of me, the chapel ruin stood solemn and silent, its shattered stained glass reflecting the pale moonlight in fractured shards. Dead yew trees circled it like silent sentinels, their twisted branches casting long, skeletal shadows.
Then I saw them.
Three figures standing perfectly still in the gloom, each wearing a silver mask carved to resemble a wolf, a crow, and a serpent. Their presence chilled me, but there was something almost... reverent in the way they watched.
And then, there was Veyrix.
He looked just as he had in the alley pale, impossibly still, his eyes glowing with that unnatural wine-red light.
When he spoke, his voice was low and steady.
He called me "heir." Said my bloodline, the Thornes was no mere name, but a legacy steeped in power and prophecy. That the House remembers.
Not just my family. Not just my name. The House something ancient, something waiting beneath my skin.
He told me my mother's past was darker and more complicated than I could ever have imagined. That the blood running through my veins was tied to things I couldn't yet comprehend.
I wanted to shout, to deny it all. To scream that I'm just Eira. That I'm not some forgotten scion of a cursed bloodline.
But the words caught in my throat.
Instead, I said yes.
I don't know what comes next.
But I know I can't go back.
Because the House remembers me.