The night was mute.I woke up from a strange cold, as if someone were standing nearby in silence.
The sea was calm, but the air was heavy, viscous—as though a fog were rising from the very heart of the island.The moon broke through the clouds, casting a pale light over the shore.
I sat up, listening.The waves rolled lazily, but then…they began to part, as if someone were walking out from the very depths.
I squinted—and saw him.
At first, just a silhouette.Tall—unnaturally tall—as if made of mist and fire at once.He moved slowly, yet with certainty, and the water beneath his feet boiled.
He emerged from the sea as if the ocean were not water,but a mirror—one through which only those who do not belong to the world of the living can return.The waves did not dare touch his feet;they withdrew, as if they knew who was coming.
I stood motionless.Only my fingers trembled—slightly, almost imperceptibly, like a leaf caught in the wind.
The creature raised its head.The moon brushed across his face, and for a moment it seemed to methat I saw flame beneath his skin.It moved, flowed, alive—flickers and tongues of fire flashed in the eye sockets, in the cheeks, in the lips,as if his flesh were not flesh at all,but glass behind which hell itself burned.
He stopped very close. No more than three steps away.I smelled sulfur, salt, and something else—indescribable.The scent of antiquity, as if the earth beneath him were older than time itself.
His eyes…I couldn't look away.
There was no evil in them in the usual sense—there was everything:pain, knowledge, eternity, indifference.Everything except mercy.
He looked at me as if tearing me apart layer by layer.As if he saw not my body, not my face—but my soul,and was dismantling it piece by piece.Every mistake. Every fear.Every word I had ever left unsaid.
Breathing became difficult.My chest tightened, and I understood—that gaze had weight.It pressed down, crushed,as if not eyes but darkness itself had settled on my shoulders.
The creature took a step forward.Fiery reflections slid across the sand.The horns gleamed in the moonlight, like blades.
He tilted his head slightly, as if studying me,and then his lips moved.The voice was quiet—which only made it more terrifying.
"Well then… hello, Dark One."
Those two words fell like stones into water.The world around me seemed to vanish—no sea, no wind, no sound.Only the gaze.
He kept staring, and suddenly I realized—his eyes did not reflect the moon.They absorbed the light.And the longer I looked, the more clearly I felt—he didn't just know me.He had always known me.
And then, for the first time,I felt fear not for my body—but for my mind.
As if with every second I was losing something of my own,something invisible, yet vital.
And then—he looked away.
Simply turned and walked on,slowly,as if giving me time to understandthat this was only the beginning.
I collapsed onto the sand.My shoulders shook, my breath tore out of my chest,and somewhere far away,deep within the island,the flute began to play again.
Thin. Pure.Like a call from a dream.
And I lay there, watching him go,not understanding why he had called me Dark One,and why inside me—where silence once lived—something was now burning,something that felt disturbingly like an answer.