I padded toward the small washroom, splashing water on my face until the chill seeped into my bones. It didn't help. My reflection in the cracked mirror stared back at me with wide, restless eyes—haunted, almost feverish.
The prophecy is about to happen.
The words coiled through me again, precise, dangerous, impossible to dismiss. Why say them to me? Why now?
My chest tightened. When the moon bleeds, the heir shall bleed or reign.
I hadn't thought of that fragment since childhood, yet it rose instantly, waiting beneath memory's surface for the right moment to strike.
The air in the room felt too thin. My hands gripped the edge of the basin until my knuckles whitened. Bleed or reign. The choice in those words was suffocating. They didn't promise safety. They promised an ending.
What did Ethan see when he looked at me last night? Did he know? Did Eros?
I pressed a trembling hand to my collarbone, feeling my heartbeat thunder. I tried to steady my breathing, but the silence seemed to lean closer, listening.
Maybe it meant nothing—a joke, a slip. But no—the curve of his mouth, the careless laugh—it had been wrong. A cover, not an accident.
I shook my head, desperate to push the thoughts away, but they wouldn't loosen. Every possibility spun darker: if Ethan knew, others might too. If others knew, then I was already exposed.
I wrapped my arms around myself and backed away from the mirror. The floor creaked underfoot, jolting me like a warning. Somewhere downstairs, a door closed, ordinary and distant—but my whole body tensed, as though the house itself were a trap, waiting.
I crawled back into bed beside Mina, but the comfort of her presence was thin. My eyes stared at the ceiling, the words bleed or reign etched in cracks of plaster, in the pale glow filtering through.
I told myself to forget it. To let it fade like a dream. But my heart knew better. Ethan's words had not been random. They had been aimed. And they had struck.
By the time I reached the front door, late afternoon sun had already dipped low, stretching shadows like dark fingers across the street. My mind roiled—Ethan's words gnawed at me, looping over and over until every silence echoed them. The prophecy is about to happen. I hadn't slept, hadn't eaten properly. Even walking home, my pulse thudded too fast, like something unseen followed close behind.
I pushed the door open—and froze.
Grandma sat in her usual chair by the window, but something was wrong, unfamiliar. No knitting needles. No tea. A thick black book rested on her lap, pages splayed wide, symbols curling and shifting as though alive in the dim light. Her fingers traced them with reverent precision, lips moving in a whisper I couldn't catch. She didn't look up, didn't greet me.
The air was sharp, metallic—almost bloody—cutting through the stillness. A faint whiff of smoke lingered, as if the room itself had burned and refused to forget.
"Grandma?" My voice cracked against the quiet, small and uncertain.
Her head dipped, just a bare nod, eyes never leaving the page. Shadows clung tighter to the corners, pressing in as though they too were listening.
I swallowed, words clawing at my throat. I wanted to ask what she was doing, why she held something that radiated wrongness. But the way she sat—so absorbed, so utterly elsewhere—warned me not to.
Instead, I stood frozen. The black book. The whispered words. The smoke-and-iron air. And beneath it all, Ethan's voice in my ears: The prophecy is about to happen.
A cold certainty slid down my spine. Maybe this wasn't about him, the boy I couldn't stop thinking of. Maybe it was something worse—something already here, in my own house, in my grandmother's hands.
I edged closer, sneakers whispering on the floorboards. Grandma didn't look up. Her gaze was fixed, fingers gliding across the pages as if conducting a silent ritual only she understood. The symbols shimmered faintly in the fading light, bending and twisting, almost alive. Heat radiated from the book, faint but undeniable.
"Grandma... what is that?" My voice wavered between curiosity and sharp fear.
Finally, she looked at me, eyes intense in a way I'd never seen. "It's nothing you need to concern yourself with... not yet." Soft. Comforting, but like a warning.
I frowned. "It looks... dangerous."
Her lips curved faintly. "Dangerous isn't always what it seems. Sometimes, it's necessary."
A chill slid down my spine. My gaze dropped to the open pages again. A figure, dark and indistinct, yet unsettlingly familiar, stared back. Beneath it, jagged script pressed against my mind, letters I couldn't read but could feel.
"Grandma... what is this?" I steadied my voice, though my pulse hammered.
She shut the book with deliberate care, the sharp sound echoing like a door I wasn't meant to walk through. "Some things are better left unknown. But perhaps... the time is coming when you'll need to understand them."
The room thrummed with unspoken weight. I wanted to run, but something held me—like the pull I had felt toward him, impossible to resist.
And in that moment, I realized my world had begun to tilt. Slightly, but enough that I would never see it the same again.
Even closed, the book radiated energy, like shadows exhaling with my own breath. One thought pierced through the spiral of unease: Could this be connected to him?
Grandma's voice broke the silence. Calm, deliberate: "Do you... believe in vampires?"
The words hit me with uncanny familiarity—the same playful question Mina had tossed my way not long ago, but now weighted with something heavier, pressing, almost a warning. The air seemed to thicken around them, carrying a strange metallic tang that made my pulse skip.
I blinked, unsure how to answer. "Vampires? Like... the stories?"
Her gaze sharpened, darkening in the dim light of the room. "Not just stories. Some things are real. Some people... choose to walk the night in ways others cannot understand."
His image crashed into me—the way he appeared, cold and magnetic, eyes sharp enough to carve through me. I shouldn't want to think of him. I should be terrified. And yet... I couldn't stop.
Grandma's fingers lingered on the cover of the black book. The leather was worn, but the energy radiating from it felt alive, humming faintly beneath her touch. "Curiosity can be dangerous. And some connections... are not accidental."
I froze. That pull, that dangerous fascination, felt less like chance and more like a thread—woven from him, from this book, from secrets I wasn't meant to touch. My stomach twisted, equal parts dread and longing. The shadows in the room seemed to lean closer, pressing at the edges of my vision, whispering.
"Grandma..." My throat tightened, words clawing at me before I could speak. But one forced its way out: "Is...?"
Her eyes held mine, steady, unreadable, as if weighing not just my question but the weight of my soul. Finally, her voice softened, fragile and heavy all at once: "Be careful. Some people... some forces... they choose you before you ever think to choose them. And sometimes, curiosity is the first step toward destiny."
The shadows curled tighter in corners I hadn't noticed before, stretching unnaturally as though listening. I wanted to turn, to shake off the memory of him, to tell myself it was coincidence—but the pull lingered, the same dangerous, magnetic pull I had felt when our eyes first met in the classroom.
I realized, with a sinking mix of fear and anticipation, that I was no longer just watching from the sidelines. Whatever he was, whatever this book held, whatever these threads of fate were weaving... our paths were about to collide. And I knew, with a chill that ran from the base of my spine to the back of my skull, that I wouldn't be able to look away.