CHAPTER 9 — HIS BROTHER'S SHADOW
For a long moment, Aurora couldn't breathe.
Xander's words didn't just hang in the air—they stabbed through it, slicing the night's cold silence into trembling fragments.
His brother.
Taken by the shadows.
Five years ago.
Aurora stared at Xander, feeling the weight of something she didn't understand pressing hard against her ribs.
"Your brother…" she whispered. "He disappeared the same way the shadows are chasing me?"
Xander didn't answer immediately. His breath clouded faintly in the cold air as though the night itself was exhaling with him. His jaw tightened, his eyes fixed on something far away—some memory only he could see.
"He was the first person I ever saw them follow," Xander finally said. "And by the time I understood what was happening… it was too late."
Aurora felt her stomach twist. "You think the same thing will happen to me."
A muscle in his jaw jumped. "No. I'm not letting it."
"But—"
"Aurora." He turned to her, his voice sharp but trembling underneath. "I lost him. I'm not losing you too."
Her breath caught.
She didn't know what shook her more—his fear, or the way he said it.
They crossed into a quieter part of Crescent Lane, where old buildings leaned toward each other like weary old men. The street lamps flickered—always flickering, Aurora realized now, like they were exhausted from fighting back the darkness.
Xander's steps quickened. Aurora followed closely, her eyes scanning every shadow. She felt watched. Not the way a person watches—but the way a storm watches the land before it strikes.
"Where are we going?" she asked again, because the silence between them was suffocating.
"To where my brother lived," Xander answered softly. "Before he vanished."
Aurora frowned. "I thought you said he could help."
"He can." Xander slowed, his voice low. "Because he's the last person who saw the shadows before they started following you."
"You said he vanished—"
"He left something behind."
Aurora swallowed hard.
"What did he leave behind?"
Xander hesitated, then exhaled. "A journal."
They approached an aging apartment building whose windows glowed with the faintest orange light, as if the place still breathed old memories. It stood taller than the surrounding buildings, its bricks darkened with years of rain and secrets.
"Your brother lived here?" Aurora whispered.
"Yes."
"Does anyone still occupy his apartment?"
"No." Xander's voice dipped. "I pay the rent every month so no one touches it."
The doors creaked loudly when he pushed them open. The inside smelled of dust and something faintly metallic, like old keys or forgotten coins.
Aurora followed him up three flights of stairs. Each step groaned under their weight as if complaining. When they finally reached the last door at the end of the hallway, Xander paused.
The bronze number on the door was faded, but Aurora could still make it out.
3B
Xander pulled a key from his pocket—the metal looked worn, the ridges dulled by time—and inserted it slowly. His hand shook.
Aurora touched his arm. "You don't have to go in if it hurts you."
Xander froze.
Then he whispered, "It hurts more not knowing the truth."
The door opened.
The air inside hit Aurora like a memory that didn't belong to her—cold, still, preserved. Dust-covered shelves, a small old sofa, a cracked coffee table, and a faint scent of old paper and rainwater.
It looked like someone had left in a hurry and never returned.
Xander stepped inside with quiet reverence, his fingers brushing lightly against the wall as if he expected to feel his brother's pulse through it.
"He kept everything the way it was," Xander murmured. "As if he knew he wouldn't come back."
Aurora scanned the room and stopped at a desk near the window. A single notebook lay there—the pages yellowed at the edges.
"Is that the journal?" she asked.
Xander nodded. "Yes."
They approached it slowly. The closer Aurora got, the colder the room felt. Not natural cold. Something different. Something that reached under her skin and made her breath tremble.
Xander opened the worn cover carefully.
Inside, page after page was filled with his brother's hurried handwriting. Lines crossed out, frantic notes scribbled in the margins, strange sketches of shadowy shapes with twisted, inhuman limbs.
Aurora felt her hands go numb.
Xander turned to the first entry.
> "I thought it was my imagination. The footsteps at night. The whispers calling my name. But the third night… I saw it."
Xander swallowed hard and flipped to another page.
> "It wants something from me. Or from someone it thinks I can lead it to."
"I don't know why."
Aurora felt a pulse of dread.
Xander flipped further—until he stopped suddenly, staring at a page filled with frantic scrawls.
Aurora leaned in to read.
> "The shadows are searching for the girl."
"The girl with the quiet heart."
"The girl who does not yet know what she carries."
Aurora's blood ran ice-cold.
"Xander…" her voice broke. "What girl? Who is he talking about?"
Xander's eyes lifted to hers—slowly, painfully, certainty forming in the depths of his gaze.
"It's you, Aurora."
Aurora stumbled back, her hand flying to her chest. "That's impossible. I wasn't here five years ago. I didn't know your brother. How could he be writing about me?"
Xander didn't move. His expression was hollow, weighed down by something heavy.
"He wrote these entries three days before he vanished," Xander said quietly. "And every page after that mentions the same thing—the shadows were searching for a girl. A girl who wasn't here yet. A girl who didn't exist in his world until recently."
Aurora felt dizzy. She gripped the edge of the desk to keep steady.
"Why?" she whispered. "What did I ever do?"
"You didn't do anything," Xander said, stepping closer. "But something inside you… something you haven't discovered yet… it's calling them. My brother knew it. He tried to stop it."
Aurora stared at the journal, the ink looking darker, heavier, as if still wet.
Xander ran his fingers over a final line at the bottom of the page.
Aurora leaned in and read it, her breath hittingched painfully.
> "If she ever finds this, tell her I'm sorry."
Aurora's heart shattered.
"Why would he apologize to me?" she whispered shakily.
Xander closed the journal, his hands trembling.
"Because," he said slowly, voice hoarse, "everything that happened to him—every shadow, every whisper, everything that took him—started the moment he tried to protect you… before you ever knew he existed."
A heavy silence dropped over the room.
Aurora felt tears burning behind her eyes.
"So he disappeared… because of me?"
"No." Xander grabbed her hands, his voice breaking. "Because he chose to protect you."
Aurora shook, overwhelmed by the weight of a destiny she had never asked for.
And then the temperature dropped again—sharp, biting.
The window rattled violently.
Aurora and Xander spun around just in time to see it—
A tall, shifting silhouette standing outside the glass, its body nothing but clawed darkness and pulsing hunger, watching them from the fire escape.
Its hand lifted.
Long, curved fingers dragged across the glass, leaving a deep, jagged scratch.
Aurora's heart stopped.
Xander pulled her behind him.
"Aurora… don't look at it."
But she couldn't tear her eyes away.
Because for the first time, the shadow had a form.
A face.
A twisted hint of a human face buried inside the darkness.
And the worst part—
It looked like Xander.
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END OF CHAPTER 9