Tenebrae - City of Shadows

Written by Erika Winter, based on ideas and inspiration provided by Serinthia Kelberry

Triggers: Sexual Exploitation, Blood, Suicidal Thoughts, Death

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The city swallowed her whole. Amara didn't know how far she had run, how many blocks she had stumbled past, but her lungs ached, her legs burned, and she was still nowhere. The world smelled of asphalt, piss, and the ocean somewhere beyond the buildings. She didn't know where she was. She didn't care. The skyline loomed, all brick chimneys and tall warehouse fronts hanging heavy over her head. The sick yellow glow of the downtown lights made the night brighter than it had any right to be as it bounced off the low and dense cloud cover. Amara knew those clouds well, even in the dark. They were heavy and suffocating, like sheets of lead suspended over the city. Winter was dying in Montcroix; spring was soon to take its place. But like most things in the city, winter was stubborn and slow to die. She saw muddy, brown leftover snow refusing to melt in filthy slurry piles near the drainage grates, with cigarette butts and pieces of plastic stuck in them, which seemed like the perfect metaphor for how she felt inside. Filthy. Polluted. Cold and slowly fading. Her legs ached, screaming at her to stop.

She just kept walking.

Her head was a raw, buzzing wound. Her parents' voices still slithered in the back of her mind, dripping acid. “You owe us. You ungrateful little bitch,' said her loving mother. “You think you're too good for this?' asked her protective father. The photographer's oily smile clung to her, she could feel it on her skin like a film of slime. The way his fingers had traced the camera lens like a caress. “I can make you a star, sweetheart, if you're willing to work for it,' he promised. Maybe it was true.

As her thoughts visited the scene taking place at the studio, she could see, clear as day, the photographer's hand moving to grope the shape of his cock through his pants. Forcing the fabric to outline his erection. As if he had ever been subtle about what he was proposing. Nausea struck her. Nausea and fear. She knew she was not being chased, but her fear wasn't rational. She felt something chasing her. And she had to run. She had to get away.

She pushed through an alley between two abandoned industrial buildings covered in graffiti. The shadows there were thick. Wrong. The streets were alive in a way that didn't feel human. She had to get out of there.

The side door facing the alley was like a tempting invitation. Sure, walking into an abandoned building in the wrong part of Montcroix at night, as a beautiful young woman in a humiliatingly short dress, seemed like the perfect recipe for something terrible to happen. Death if she was lucky. But a vengeful, self-destructive impulse burned inside her. One fuelled by rage. The idea of her parents' precious little toy being cut across the face by a mentally ill homeless person's rusty razor was delightful. She didn't care that she was the toy and that she would feel the pain if she got to ruin it for them. Even if someone were to force themselves on her, she felt a wicked satisfaction in imagining her parents' horror when they went to see her at a police station and emergency room, bruised, battered, violated. That some low-life had taken by force from her what she refused to give to some sleazy photographer just to get on some stupid auto parts calendar.

As she passed the threshold of the door, she also passed a terrible threshold in her mind. She realised she was fantasising about her rape and not finding herself horrified by it. Not because she wished to take any pleasure from it, no. Pleasure was not something she expected to ever feel again from any source. Just because she knew it would hurt them. For all the wrong reasons, but who the fuck cared?

She laughed as she found herself in the abandoned warehouse's stuffed, pitch-black interior. And as she laughed, her voice reverberated across the brick walls. It was laughter, but it was demented, without joy. She swallowed dryly, then brushed off her tears and shook her head. She would not get raped just to make her parents upset. They didn't deserve that she endured any more pain for their sake. Instead, she would just break their little toy forever in the most painless way possible. Maybe she could find something sharp to slit her wrists in the derelict industrial building. Amara was no stranger to cutting herself, anyway. She read that dying by bleeding out was peaceful. A little cold, but then one would fall asleep, and it was all over.

Looking around, that was when she noticed some brightness that shouldn't be there. The contours of a door. A man walked in. Straight towards her. She flinched and pulled her arms up to defend herself, half expecting the dark, tall silhouette to be her father and to feel the familiar grip of his calloused hand on the back of her neck. No. The form walked by her, brushing shoulders against her in the tight space between the door and the wall on her back and heading to the door with the light coming from under it.

She was a little too intrigued to continue her suicidal ideation. Amara turned, and she watched the man knock three times on the door. Someone asked something, and he responded. She barely heard it.

“But the owls are still around.”

Amara's confusion only lasted for a second. Speakeasies that used a password system were not that uncommon, and Montcroix had a long history of being a port for smuggled liquor from Canada. Of course, some hipster with too much money would open a speakeasy there. She had to give them kudos for the commitment to the bit, though. Most speakeasies had a way to advertise themselves and would be a little closer to foot traffic than a literally abandoned warehouse surrounded by nothing but old buildings. Yet, there she was. No rusty pipe for her to slit her wrists with, but she had a credit card. Maybe she could buy a bottle of whisky and, after drinking some liquid courage, shatter it in the bathroom.

It was as good a plan as any, so she approached the door and knocked three times, just as she had watched the man do. A slit opened on the metallic door, and weary blue eyes looked at her from the gap.

“The trees are silent tonight,” the man said, his voice was tired and gruff.

Amara resisted the urge to smirk joylessly. What a poetic little speakeasy she found. What a great place to leave a dead body.

“But the owls are still around.”

There was no acknowledgement. No feedback. Just the visor slamming shut. For a second, she thought she might have fucked it up somehow. It wouldn't be the first time she fucked up. If you took her precious loving fucking dad's word, she did so constantly. Yet, the door clunked open, and she stepped in. Not into a speakeasy. No, into something else far, far weirder.

She would think that was some form of farmer's market, with the little improvised booths and stalls placed under the rusting steel beams of the warehouse, but what farmer's market happened so late in the evening and required a password? And why was it so damn dark? The people there were strange. They milled about mostly in silence. Barely talking to each other, if talking at all. Each seemed very focused, going to one specific vendor in a beeline. Some were browsing but not idly browsing; their eyes were intense, their fingers touched flasks and felt the texture of fabrics. Or bones.

Because that was another odd thing about the place, the goods were not what one would expect from a typical market. Sure, the herbs and botanical products were there in one booth or another. But some sold mason jars with what seemed to be animal organs inside. And while she knew people who liked kidney soup or even bull testicles – Rocky Mountain oysters, she had heard someone call them once – having a whole shop dedicated to organs seemed too much. Then were the powders, pastiles, and liquids in glass flasks. Bones, cleaned and white, some with carvings on them, some without. She wandered, lost, through the most silent crowd she had ever seen. A dozen of them were speaking in a tone that wasn't necessarily hushed but was full of contained deference. Caution. Many of them crossed her vision, but she couldn't describe a single detail of one.

She simply wasn't looking. The strangeness of the place broke whatever spell the promise of alcohol had put her in. She wrapped her arms around herself, nails digging into her skin, biting down against the renewed urge to sob that was clawing its way up her throat. She was shaking. She needed to stop shaking. If she could just get to the water, maybe she could walk in and keep walking. Passing through the booths like a ghost. As if instead of going through with killing herself, she could just wish herself dead instead. Will herself into becoming a phantom. Or nothing. Nothing would do, too. Maybe she had already succeeded. Not a single soul turned its head to look at her. She stopped by a column, resting her head against the blackened, rusty, centennial steel and closing her eyes as the cold took over her soul.

“I don't exist. I don't exist. I don't exist,” Amara repeated. It was a prayer.

It was a wish. Or maybe it was just a way to talk herself into leaving the strange place and find her way to the water. She wasn't far from it. At that temperature, she could picture it. A painful cold, for a moment. And then the deep cold of the plunge would numb her. Numb her to the pain of the water filling her lungs. Maybe it would be slow, but even then. What was a minute or two of pain compared to a forever of not feeling anything? Compared to...

“Strange place for a girl like you.”

The voice was low and smooth, and it cut through the static in her head like a blade. Amara jerked. Her head left the pillar as she looked up and then around, feeling a shred of shame that managed to pass through the fog of her craving for oblivion. As she looked around, she spotted the presence next to her. She found herself staring into a pair of red eyes. No. Not red. Something deeper. Darker.

The woman was tall, draped in black like the night had shaped itself around her, swallowing everything but the pale column of her throat and those unnatural eyes. She stood with the kind of stillness that didn't belong to living things. A slow tilt of the head, curiosity instead of concern.

“I-” Amara's voice cracked. She swallowed hard, the weight of those eyes pressing against her ribs. “I don't... I just...”

A slow blink. Then, softly, “Tell me.”

Amara blinked herself. Something deep inside her had started screaming. She could feel it. It was the same thing she felt in the pit of her stomach when some guy walked behind her for too long at night, and she was alone. The same feeling she felt staring down a corridor where the darkness beyond was too deep. That feeling when climbing stairs in the dark and climbing one step too many. That deep dread of feeling one's foot sinking into the darkness that lasted for less than a heartbeat before it touched the landing. But in between the sensation of missing the step and the landing, there was a moment of simply feeling like falling into darkness. Into a bottomless pit without light. And somehow, that woman was that feeling. Taken shape.

The unnatural colour of her eyes should have triggered all the red flags in the world for Amara, but it did not. Somehow, her mind accepted it as it had accepted the strange market around her. The feeling of pure, unadulterated fear in her stomach without discernable cause, when she had decided moments before she was ready to die, should have been enough warning for her to run. But she did not.

“Tell you... What?”

“I think you know,” the woman said, and she moved a hand to touch Amara's shoulder.

She flinched. Her skin still felt like it was clingy with the film of filth cast upon it by the photographer's lustful gaze. But after that flinching, she... Relaxed. She exhaled and allowed that strange touch around her shoulder.

“I'm... Not having a good night.”

“No,” the woman said calmly, and without any force, she guided Amara to start walking.

She never questioned where; she just walked with her to one of the doors inside the warehouse. To what once must have been some form of foreman's office. Now, it was still an office. But of a different kind. Ledgers on a table, filing cabinets made of wood instead of metal, and handwritten titles. And the chairs had no wheels but were some old and admittedly comfortable antiques. Amara was sat there by the woman, who closed the door behind herself.

“You are cold,” she stated.

It was not a question, and she did not wait for a response, moving towards a small wardrobe in the corner. The shawl she pulled was so deeply black that it looked almost as if she was weaving ink into the air, defying physics. But as she draped it around Amara's shoulders, its warmth and soft texture proved it was just wool. Very expensive, very fine wool, but just wool.

“T-Thank you,” Amara said, wrapping the fabric around herself, unsure of what else to say.

“Anastasia,” the woman said with a lovely tint of foreignness to her accent. But not any specific country. Just... Foreign. An outsider.

“Sorry?”

“My name,” the woman explained unnecessarily and without repeating it.

“Ah... Yes... I'm, uh... Amara.”

“And you are not having a good night,” Anastasia repeated.

Amara nodded, and as she did, Anastasia moved to sit on the desk in front of her instead of across from Amara. She flattened the green felt with soft fingers, and Amara saw herself watching her hands. They were so pale. And she thought they had black painted nails, but now, at a closer look, it seemed almost like the very tip of Anastasia's fingers were blackened, as if she had dipped them in ink, if not for the most discreet of gradients between the blackness and the alabaster paleness of her skin. Her nails were a little long and filed to a point. Across the back of her right hand, Amara spotted a vein under her pale skin. It seemed black, as if her blood was ink. Amara swallowed dry. She spent a lot of her youth amongst models. She was familiar with beauty and not easily impressed by it. Yet, now that she allowed herself the time to take that woman in, she was stunned.

Anastasia had a striking presence. She was tall, and her posture was perfect, yet not rigid. As if keeping herself in a regal poise was effortless. Her skin was porcelain-pale but not lifeless – more like marble, smooth and cold, untouched by time.

Her hair was long, black as ink, falling in sleek waves down her back to the middle of it. The strands framed her pale face in blackness and offered a contrast against the deep blood-red of her eyes – a colour that shifted subtly in the light like garnets catching fire. Those eyes were patient and unreadable, holding a weight that felt like bricks on Amara's chest. Anastasia's mere gaze seemed to demand something from her. The woman's features were sharp yet refined – high cheekbones, a perfectly sculpted jawline, and lips painted in the deep, wine-dark shades of someone who understood her appearance and the power it contained. The way she dressed was pointedly intentful, her black dress parted down the middle, showing the valley between her small breasts, and there were folds of fabric that concealed her arms when they were close to her body, but as she moved, they revealed themselves not to be sleeved. Her arms were bare when they strayed from her slender, statuesque physique.

“You want to tell me about it,” Anastasia said, breaking the silence that formed in Amara's focused observation of her.

“I do?” Amara asked, a little sceptical. The woman might be beautiful, yes, but Amara knew better than anyone how hollow beauty was – she had a reminder of that whenever she looked in the mirror.

“Yes,” Anastasia sounded fairly certain. “Else, you'd have walked away. Or made it clear you don't.”

Amara frowned slightly. Not bad. It was true, she considered it. She considered spilling it out. Mostly because she thought she was going to die before sunrise, so why not? But it was patently absurd, of course, to spill your life's sob story to a stranger.

“And why would I... Want to tell you about my life?”

“I do not think so highly of myself as to think you want to tell me about it, Amara,” Anastasia said. “But you want to talk. And you have no one that will listen.”

Amara cursed herself because, for some reason, hearing her name from Anastasia's mouth had made her legs weak. She was sitting down, thankfully, and she managed not to gasp. Or not too loud. Yet her breath hitched as a single finger touched her chin, and Anastasia brought her eyes to gaze into the burning rubies on her face.

“Tell me I'm wrong,” Anastasia challenged.

She wouldn't. Of course not. She looked at those fleshy lips and felt the cold, blackened tip of her finger pressing against her chin, and the sensation on her chest was once again related to falling. That emptiness, that void that one sometimes felt when falling in one's dreams. But it felt... Warmer that time.

“You're right,” Amara conceded, breathy.

Anastasia's index was on her chin, padding up. It turned and curled. Her hand moved closer, pressing her thumb against Amara's lips and pulling her just a couple of inches closer until she was right on the edge of the chair.

“Then...” Anastasia said and paused for way too long, holding Amara's gaze as if to prove a point. To prove how well she could hold her attention by the sheer weight of her intensity. “Speak.”

Her hand left Amara's chin, and the girl gasped and shook her head. Her heart was racing, and she only realised it once that hand left her skin. She almost whined, craving its contact. She had flinched at the first touch on her shoulder, but something about that second moment, the shawl around her shoulders, made her feel an acute awareness about how touch-starved she was.

“I'll... I will tell you...” Amara said.

Anastasia smiled in response, but the young girl wasn't about to give something for nothing.

“But... I... Want something from you first.”

“You bargain?” Anastasia seemed vaguely annoyed.

“No... I... I request it,” Amara said. “Please?”

“Ah... I see,” Anastasia said. “Very well. Speak. What is that you wish?”

That was an easy answer. “Chocolate.”

Anastasia lifted a single eyebrow, and that tranquil, domineering face showed the first hint of genuine surprise. She smirked, slid from the desk like black fog sliding down a hill, and placed her hand on Amara's shoulder on her way out. Wordlessly, she left the little foreman's office and disappeared into the bizarre market.

Amara sighed. What the hell was she doing? She bet the odds of that woman being a serial killer to be around eight out of ten. But she was a ten out of ten, and she made Amara's legs weak. Stupid. Stupid. Was she going to let herself get killed because a woman was pretty and confident, and she had mommy issues? But why not? Why run when she had decided she wanted to die? Because whatever she was into probably involved removing Amara's skin alive, of course. Best to kill herself at home. Later. With pills. Better than being tied to a bed and watching Anastasia sharpen a long, narrow knife while talking about the best material to make lampshades.

“Wait, fuck.' Amara gasped in horror to herself as she pictured those long, beautiful fingers holding a light knife and softly grazing it across her exposed stomach. Does that turn me on?

She was so shocked by herself that she couldn't hear the door opening. She barely heard it closing as Anastasia walked past her and dropped something heavy on her lap. She looked down to see a brown package. The cover was glossy, dark maroon with two streaks of silver across it and a single MZ monogram in silver surrounded by a circle of an Aztec pattern. She gasped.

“Is this... Montezuma's?”

Anastasia simply closed her eyes and lifted her shoulders with the smallest shrug Amara had ever seen. Amara couldn't believe it. She was expecting a Snickers bar. Montezuma's was another league entirely. That French Canadian cunt, Chloe, made sure everyone at the casting agency knew she had gotten a Montezuma's treat box, a tiny one, with just three bonbons, from her gross sixty-year-old sugar daddy. When she mentioned the price online, Amara had to search for it. She wasn't lying. Three hundred dollars from three bonbons. And Chloe had to suck some wrinkly ballsack to get it. Amara had a whole bar dropped on her lap like it was nothing.

Yes. She felt bad for what she was about to do.

But not too bad.

She tore into the package and broke a square, shoving it into her mouth, barely chewing it, barely taking time to appreciate the sweet bitterness melting in her mouth as she swallowed a whole mouthful and then shoved another down. She ate with gusto.

“Holy fucking shit...” she muttered with a mouth already half full of the second square, only to realise a bit too late that she had said it out loud. But again, “holy fucking shit' was right.

She didn't expect Anastasia to understand. To keep herself in her “bikini- season body' all year round, she had to eat very little. Some of it was tasty, some of it was not. But the amounts were never enough, and indulging was entirely off the table. She could feel her mother's bony fingers digging into her shoulders as she looked over her shoulder while she stood naked on a scale, silently judging. She could feel her slapping a sundae off her hands with a scream, like she had spotted her with poison when they were at a five-star resort, causing all the guests to look at them like the dysfunctional family that they were. She spent hours crying in the hotel room while her parents lounged by the pool after. They were impervious to shame from strangers.

And now? Who cared about a flat stomach and hip dimples when she was about to die? When she no longer gave a fuck? She swallowed another mouthful of Montezuma's, and as Anastasia leaned in towards her, her finger stretched. She wiped her lips with the back of her hand, thinking she was coming to clean away the smeared chocolate. Instead, she brushed away a fresh, warm tear that Amara didn't even know she had shed.

“S-Sorry... You must think I'm a dumb bitch... Crying over chocolate.”

“No. It's not the chocolate that makes me think so,” Anastasia said.

Any warmth she had built suddenly crumbled with the subtle implication. Amara almost took no joy in her third mouthful of chocolate as she frowned and looked angrily at Anastasia. She also looked bratty. Not on purpose, though. But Amara knew she just had one of those faces that always looked bratty when she was angry.

“Excuse you?” Amara said. “Did you just call me stupid?”

“Yes.” Anastasia didn't even attempt to hide it.

“Well, fuck you, lady. And the horse you rode in on.”

“I rode in on no horse.” Anastasia was unshaken.

“It's a fucking expression... What gives? You think you can call me stupid just because you gave me a three-hundred-dollar bar of chocolate?” Amara protested, biting into it again; fuck, it was good chocolate.

“Seven hundred,” Anastasia corrected.

Amara almost did a spit-take. She tried to swallow, but before she could continue, Anastasia was speaking again:

“But as I said, it is not the chocolate.”

“Then why... The fuck...”

“Your eyes.”

“I have stupid eyes?”

“No,” Anastasia said, simple and true. “You have beautiful eyes. But you have stupid notions behind them.”

“You have no fucking idea of what notions I have or don't have behind my eyes.”

“I know the look in the eyes of a woman courting the Reaper, Amara,”

Anastasia said, unshaken. Certain. “Trust me, that cold bitch has nothing worth taking to offer you.”

Suddenly, Montezuma's chocolate didn't taste that good anymore.

“You don't know that...” Amara said meekly.

Anastasia didn't have to say anything to that. Her eyes spoke at length about how unconvincing Amara's retort was. Amara herself felt it. There was no resolve behind her words.

“How can you know that?” Amara tried.

Anastasia offered a brief razor-sharp smile, but getting that tiny fraction of approval from her was almost invigorating. But it was gone. Gone too soon.

“We've crossed paths before,” she said.

“We?' Amara thought. Her and... Death?

“Besides, your passing, that you are envisioning... It will not be about you, will it?”

Amara didn't answer. She just looked down at the chocolate bar on her lap and back to the pale woman who once again sat in front of her. She sighed and shook her head. She hated that the woman was right. It would not be about her. She didn't care much about what happened to herself, though. But did she really want to give even another part of herself to her parents? The last part. To hand over what they had not taken yet.

“Don't try to talk me out of it,” Amara said, irritated. She preferred it when she didn't have doubts.

“Oh. Do not mistake sincere appraisal for care,” Anastasia said, with another shrug that was just a movement of eyes. “I said it was stupid. I will not attempt to stop you.”

“So, you'd... Let me kill myself?” Anastasia's face didn't move; she just looked at Amara. Really looked. And there was her answer. Of course she would. She didn't even know Amara.

Why should she care? But if she didn't care, why the chocolate?

“Stop... Stop acting like you know me... You don't know my story.”

“Then, correct that,” Anastasia said.

“What?”

“A deal's a deal.” Anastasia then pointed to the chocolate.

“Et tu, Montezuma's?' she thought, looking down at the bar. Betrayed. She took another bite of it for revenge's sake. Oh, the glory of it. The way the darkness and depth of the flavour tumbled with the sweetness in her mouth. It was like all the best parts of a shot of espresso and of sticking her finger in a jar of Nutella and licking it clean so that her mother would not see evidence of the secret treat she kept hidden in her closet on any of the plates and utensils. She thought nothing in her life would taste better than secret-closet Nutella. Holy fuck, she was wrong.

“Fine,” she conceded. “If you want to know about my night...” She took a deep breath. “I ran away from my parents.”

“Why?” Anastasia asked, unmoved.

“Because they were trying to whore me out,” Amara fired.

“Then you did the right move,” Anastasia decided.

Amara blinked in stunned confusion. Then she took another bite to chew angrily, or as angry as she could be, while she was eating what felt like an orgasm-wrapped hug to her insides. She huffed, flaring her nostrils. How did that woman not react in shock? Was it because she didn't believe her? Because, yes, Amara was trying to shock her. She wanted to get a reaction out of her.

“My parents tried to get me to sleep with a guy so that I would... Appear on some dumb calendar as December,” she explained, sighing.

“And if you did not sleep with this man, you wouldn't be on the calendar?”

“What? No! Of course I would,” Amara said, taking offence at the implication that she was not good enough material to make it into the calendar at all without sleeping with someone. “But I wanted to be December.”

“Why?”

“Everyone does,” she said. “I mean, it's obvious, right? It's the last page. Everyone remembers the last page. Most people don't get next year's calendar until mid-January, maybe even February. So you never want to be a January girl. You want to be the December girl. Always.”

“Do I?” Anastasia asked. “Did you?”

She couldn't believe she had to explain it to someone. It was such an obvious thing. Amara had understood the intricacies of calendar real estate since she started doing pre-teen pageants. She tried not to think about the fact that there was an entire market segment of calendars of pre-teen girls in shorts and swimwear out there. And some of those pictures were hers. She took another bite. Only to realise she was down to her last square of the comforting treat. She probably had eaten more calories in the previous twenty minutes than she had all week.

“It's obvious,” she said with a sigh. “December's the best month, okay? But I wasn't about to sleep with some oily little weirdo to get it.”

“Would you have if he was handsome?”

“What? No!”

“I see... Do you think other girls have?”

“Oh, I know they have. Fuck, that guy's probably... Balls deep in Taylor right now. Or Kelly. Gosh, fuck Kelly. Dying not to see her getting December would already make it worth it.”

“The later in the year, the better, I presume?”

Amara resisted the urge to laugh. She shook her head, clutching the last square of Montezuma's in her hand. She wanted to eat it. But after she did, she would no longer have it. She had already decided that was a pretty great last meal. So maybe she should save the last square for... The moment right before.

“No, no... Not at all. December's the best, okay? Is that clear? Good... So then you have September. It's always fashion-themed. Always. So it's really like... Second place.”

“And what's third?”

“Debatable,” Amara said, humming in thought. “Some girls think it's January, right?”

“Because it sets the tone?” Anastasia asked.

“Yes!” Amara felt a sudden excitement that Anastasia was listening to her enough to “get it'.

“But you disagree with them?”

“I do, because...”

“Most people still have their calendars on December for a part of January?”

“Exactly! If you are Miss January, you are just some other Miss December's cuck.”

“Cuck?” “Uh... Let's not get into that one.” “I see... So, what's third place?” “Well... I would say it depends on the calendar. If you are not doing a swimsuit calendar, it's July. Because then it's usually the one bikini shoot there. Usually, July goes to the girl with the biggest tits,” Amara said, unapologetic. “Or a nice ass. Mostly tits, though... Unless the calendar is going to be printed in South America, then usually they go for an ass-first approach.”

Anastasia just kept looking at her. Her eyes carried a silent query.

“I know, I know. And you are right. I don't think it's July either. Not for me, at least. For me, it's October.”

“Hm...” Anastasia hummed.

“Halloween is a strong theme, black is almost always flattering...” she said, offering a smirk to Anastasia. “As you have figured out... And usually, Halloween-themed shoots lean a little more on personality.”

“The colours are dark, so the one in the picture needs to shine through?”

“Oh, wow... For someone who didn't know why December was best, you sure learn fast, Anastasia.”

“I find that to be true as well,” Anastasia agreed calmly. “This betrayal from your parents... It was not a first, was it?”

“No... Not a first,” Amara said, considering asking Anastasia how she knew that. Perhaps it was simply obvious that parents who did that would not do it just once. But there was something else to it, and she wanted to impress the woman in front of her – for whatever reason, she couldn't say – by showing that she knew how she was figuring her out. “Was it my tone?”

Anastasia nodded.

“You wanted to surprise me with it. But you had no disbelief in your voice. You almost... Expected it.”

That dropped like a stone in her stomach. Because it was true. She did. She had not realised it, but she did. She wasn't shocked because they sided with the sleazy guy over her. She wasn't shocked because they didn't comfort or protect her. No. She was desperate because they did exactly what she expected them to. They did what she was afraid they would do, and she desperately tried to convince herself they wouldn't.

“I'm tired of expecting the worst of them and being right.”

“That sounds like it would exhaust you, yes. I can imagine that finally realising your parents are scum must be... Soul wrenching.”

“No, no... I didn't finally realise that. That is old news.”

“Then... What changed today? Because something did. The resolve I saw in your eyes is not of someone who tries and tries but never goes through with it.”

She wasn't wrong. Amara had been set on doing it. Maybe she still was.

“I... I decided I couldn't live with myself, not anymore.”

“With yourself?”

She took a deep breath. The ugliest of truths. The most repulsive and pathetic part of it all. Could she admit to it? Her stomach turned. Nausea. Her throat tightened. What did she have to lose? Why not say it? Maybe that woman was her priest. Maybe that strange foreman corner in an abandoned warehouse was her confession booth, and that was her midnight mass. Take the dark sacrament. Ask for the last rites. Confess your sins. That was the thing to do before you die, wasn't it?

”...Fuck...”

She sighed. She took a deep breath and clutched the last square of chocolate.

“You promise you will not stop me from killing myself? If I tell you?”

“Yes,” Anastasia said.

Wow, that came easy. It must be nice to be that much of a callous bitch, Amara thought. But then Anastasia said:

“I will do you one better, even, Amara.”

“Yes?”

“If you still seek the Pale Mistress... If you still crave death and oblivion by tomorrow, right before the sun rises... I shall kill you myself.”

“You're fucking with me.”

Anastasia lifted her eyebrows. Her eyes were sharp. There was not a hint of humour in her tone. Just raw, sharp steel. Resolve. Truth. She would kill her. She would.

“Will it hurt?”

“No. In fact... It will feel... Good. For a moment. Then you won't feel anything anymore. Forever.”

“The bargain is struck.”

“Tell me... What was the breaking point? What made you unable to live with yourself?”

“The lenses.”

“Explain?”

“I... Look... This guy was taking pictures of me. Not for the calendar. We call them “preliminary'. When it's a big project, the girls go in and do a less produced shoot with the photographer, like an audition, but with actual photos, right?”

“I shall take your word for it.”

“Yeah, yeah... Alright... Anyway. There I was, standing there after posing in... This...”

She gestured to her humiliating short bodycon bikini that made painfully clear how stunningly attractive she was. Even with her smeared makeup, even with some chocolate on her lips, she knew she was gorgeous. She knew she could walk to any man on the street and get his cock inside of her before the night was over, nine times out of ten. She knew it because she fucking tested it. Even Anastasia, in her own subtle way, lingered on her legs, on her chest. Amara took no offence to it. She should look. She should look all she wanted. Those legs, those tits, her cock-sucking lips. That was what she could offer the world. That was all she was. And that was what she was looking at in her reflection on the photographer's lenses.

“I... I was just arching my back, pushing my chest forward, making the “sexy baby' face that men love.” She felt that nausea again in her throat. “All the tricks. All the... Techniques. And then he said... “I think you may be December material'. Fuck. My mother might have creamed herself,” Amara said with annoyance. “And the worst part? I was so fucking happy with that. My little eyes sparkled like a dumb puppy. Oh, mommy's happy with me... Pathetic, right?”

“And the lenses?”

“That wasn't it. Not yet. I was still happy. I was so fucking happy. I told him... I told him, “Fuck yes, let's do it'. And then he said... He said... For me to pull the strap of my dress down. To... Show him... My breast.” Anastasia was silent. But Amara's eyes went to her fingers with blackened tips. Sharp nails dug into the green felt. Slightly.

“I did. I... Took a strap off. Then another. He adjusted himself in his pants. My father fucking... Looked away. He looked away. He didn't tell me to stop. But he couldn't fucking look,” Amara said, tears of rage coming back to her eyes. “And then...” Her mouth was turning to ash. Bitter ash. Not even Montezuma's could fight that feeling. “Then he said... That all Miss Decembers have one thing in common.”

She licked her lips.

“Cock-sucking lips.”

Anastasia's hands tensed. Her face didn't move, though. Not a millimetre. Cold steel.

“I... Stood there. And I waited. I waited for my mom to say something. My dad. I waited. I...” She took a deep breath. “They did not. Obviously.”

She paused. She thought of the lenses. Her reflection. Standing there. Waiting for them to say something, knowing they wouldn't.

“And then?”

“And then... I...” She took a deep breath. She still felt like she couldn't breathe.

“Do the confession. Take the dark sacrament. And then let her fucking kill you,' Amara thought.

“I knelt.”

Anastasia's hands remained tense. She could see the tendons on the back of the marble-pale hand bridging under the skin even when the fingers didn't move.

“And he adjusted himself. And I saw he was hard, and for a second, for a second I thought to myself that's... Just another blowjob. And after, maybe mom and dad will be so happy they'll take me to Gustav's and let me have the chocolate flan. Like they did when I got that perfume gig,” she said. “And that thought. That fucking thought. That fucking thought made me smile, Anastasia. I didn't even realise it.” Tears were streaming, her throat was burning. “I didn't until I fucking looked up... And saw myself smiling... And saw myself on...”

”...The lenses?”

Anastasia's nails dug into the felt, deep. Her hands clenched. The table was left with an indentation. And the calmness on her face was replaced with a cold detachment. Like her eyes were not seeing Amara anymore. And she couldn't blame her. Because she was pathetic. She was trash. She was like the snow in the gutters, with cigarette butts, pieces of plastic and the piss of the drunk and the homeless inside her. And the only way she could ever clean herself of that was to not be. Was to melt under the sun. She didn't deserve her beauty. She didn't deserve Anastasia to even look at her.

She deserved death. And if Anastasia's plan was to talk her out of it, well, then it fucking backfired. Amara had tried too hard to focus on other things. On her rage for her parents. On her wish to end it all. So she didn't have to see her own face on the lenses, distorted, rounded, smiling. It was a fraction of a second. She soon stood up, pulled her dress and stepped away. That was when her parents yelled at her. That was when she threw her phone into the gutter and ran. But she was not running away from her parents. Or the fashion industry. Or sleazy photographers. She was running away from that disgusting, pathetic, weak-willed girl she saw on the lenses. She hated her parents, yes. For what they made of her. She hated her life for driving her to that. But she mostly hated herself. She could never forgive herself for that smile. For the feelings behind it. Death would not erase it, but at least she wouldn't be here anymore.

Amara collapsed on her knees and sobbed. She didn't intend to put her head on Anastasia's lap, but it somehow happened. Maybe it was the angle at which she dropped and how close those legs were to her chair. Maybe subconsciously, she was still a child. But as she sobbed against the dark shawl, with tears and snot, she felt fingers caressing her hair. And those fingers were no longer cold. They were warm and soft.

“Your pain is great. But it's not all you are,” Anastasia said.

Amara didn't respond. Fuck that noise. What did Anastasia know about her pain?

“You d-don't know that... You can't know that!” she roared between sobs.

“I know. And I can show it to you.”

“H-How...? How could you...”

“Because I can take it away. All of it. Tonight.”

Amara knew she was being lied to. And it was a cruel lie. It made her angry. Very much so. She looked up to find those fiery eyes on her, ready to scream at Anastasia between sobs that she was a cruel bitch for giving a girl such hope with her sweet venomous lies. But as she looked up, expecting that tranquil, unshaken face, she saw those garnet eyes burning with fire. They seemed to glow, even, and there was a mild scowl on Anastasia's visage that would barely be perceptible. Except that in her usual unfazed demeanour, it was a stark contrast. It wasn't just anger. It was... Focus. Determination. Sincerity. Deep and primaeval.

The hand still caressed Amara's head. She did not think it was a lie anymore. She believed it. But she was not stupid. She knew nothing came without a price, and Anastasia seemed the furthest thing away from a philanthropic messiah. Was she going to ask her to join a cult? Fuck, maybe she would. If the pain would really go away, she would take some weird drugs and accept Anastasia as a hyperspace overseer or whatever. Her friend Rhen had joined a cult after almost dying of a coke overdose, and the last time she saw them, Rhen looked better than ever. No free lunches, but maybe the price was something she was willing to pay. Amara calmed herself.

“What... What do you want?” she asked, and before Anastasia could answer, she barked in warning, “And don't tell me “nothing'. I know better...”

“Oh, I would never say that, my little starling. I can lie. But tonight, I will not lie to you.”

“You won't? Can you promise that?” Amara challenged, sceptical.

“Cross my heart... And hope to die,” Anastasia replaced, tracing her fingers over the left side of her chest through the exposed slit of skin on her black dress.

It should not have convinced Amara, but it did. Maybe her mind had already cracked. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but she believed it wholeheartedly with no further questioning. That night was strange, and she would take what it threw at her.

“Okay... Then... The cost? It has a cost, right?”

“It does. A high cost, too.”

“So... What will it be? What does it take to make the pain go away?”

“Everything.”

“W-What, what do you mean?”

“I promised not to lie to you, my little starling. I can take your pain away.

But everything goes with it... Your old life. Your friends. Your career...”

So it was a cult. Amara sighed. If it worked for Rhen, why not?

“D-Do I have to come to live in your compound then?”

“Compound?” Anastasia asked, shaking her head. “No. You do have to come to my home tonight. But you'll be free to leave if you wish.”

“How can I trust you?”

“I told you I would not lie to you tonight,” Anastasia said matter-of-factly. Amara stood up, wiping her snot and tears on the shawl and passing it to Anastasia. She thought for a moment, and then she nodded as the woman took it and folded it. Amara walked across the small office. Through the square windows, she looked out into the market. She could swear she saw something odd. A woman becoming black mist and vanishing. But her vision was blurry from tears, and after she wiped them, things seemed just the normal level of odd. “Great, I'm losing my mind. I guess... Between a hot lady's cult and suicide, I can give the cult a go,' she hummed inside her mind. Then she tried to look at Anastasia through the reflection on the window, to judge her when she didn't know she was being watched. But despite the well-lit interior of the office, the glass did not reflect her well. All she could see was the dot of her eyes and a dark shape. She pulled out her pocket mirror.

The mirror was small, shaped like a clam's shell, but big enough to show the mess she had become. Smudged mascara, eyes puffy and bloodshot, lips stained with chocolate. Her hair – dark and deep in colour, though a matte coal shade of black rather than Anastasia's deep ink – hung in tangled waves around her face, framing sharp cheekbones and a jawline meant for cameras. Her skin, golden-olive and usually flawless, was slick with sweat, smeared by the night's ruin. Her purple lipstick had been smeared across her lips in her attempt to get the chocolate off. She looked cheap. Used. Like a party girl past her expiration date. And yet, she was fucking beautiful. Her temporary distress couldn't erase the sapphire blueness of her eyes and the shape of her lips. She wasn't so naive as to think that beauty was always a curse, as some of her model “friends' – if she could call them that – would say for pity points. But for her. It was. She took a Kleenex from her purse to wipe most of the mess. But that wasn't the reason she pulled the pocket mirror out. She turned it to look at Anastasia. To see who she was when she was not being watched.

Then she saw it. And her blood froze.

She snapped the mirror shut. She didn't look twice. She didn't try to confirm. She simply stood there, staring blankly at nothing. The image of what she saw was imprinted on her brain. Where Anastasia stood, the mirror showed only a shadow. A ghastly whirling shadow vaguely shaped like a woman. A blotch in the lens of reality, with two red eyes. She closed her eyes, but it only made her see it more clearly. She turned, shaking. Fuck. Had she died? Was Anastasia the Reaper? Was she... Something worse?

“Y-You... Said you won't lie...” Amara started, trembling.

Anastasia stepped off the desk, lowering it to grab the last tablet of chocolate from the floor, still wrapped in the leftover vellum wrapping. She held it in one hand while turning to Amara.

“That is correct.”

“Then... I want to know, no bullshit... What are you?”

“What am I?”

“You know what I mean! I said no bullshit... Tell me!” she demanded, fear making her high-pitched and loud.

“I am... A vampire.”

Amara blinked. She had seen that scene in movies before. She knew how it played out: She doubted the woman, the woman showed her fangs. Hijinks. Adventure. Romance? Scepticism seemed like the natural reaction, yet it felt... Tired. Cliché. Insincere. Amara felt that... Deep down, she knew. She was just forced to confront it through the mirror. But that she knew from the moment Amara's red eyes gazed onto hers. Maybe before.

“I... Didn't know vampires were real...”

“You probably did. But you forgot,” Anastasia explained.

“W-What? Vampires erase our minds?”

“No. Mortals erase their own minds. When they see what they can't understand... They don't. They don't process it. The world is too scary if you face the swirling black chaos for what it is. Most minds... They cannot bear it. Not until... They are broken.”

“Broken...”

“Do not ask me to explain the vagaries of fate, Amara. I would if I could, but I promised no lies, so I shall not feign knowledge of such deep mysteries. Know this: It's no coincidence you found yourself at my Night Market the night your soul howled in madness and despair.”

“Your... Night Market?”

“This establishment around.”

“A market... For vampires?”

“Yes, but not just. A market for all of us, kindred spirits, who must roam in darkness.”

Amara trembled. Yes, that made too much sense. She wished she could act more sceptical than she was. But it would be insincere.

“So... When you said you could make the pain go away... You actually can?”

“I tire of repeating myself, Amara. I won't lie. Yes, I can.”

“How? Tell me how.”

“Not here.”

“Then where...?”

Anastasia walked to her, putting the expensive chocolate in Amara's hand and moving to the foreman's office door.

“At my home.”

Following Anastasia into her home sounded like the worst possible idea Amara could have. Yet, any sense of self-preservation she might have had was eroded over the years by her parents, and the surviving bits crumbled to dust that night.

“Fuck it. We ball,' Amara told herself.

“Alright. Let's go.”

---

Despite the name, Coal Road wasn't some crumbling industrial stretch lined with rusting machinery and fentanyl dealers. It wound out of Montcroix's suburbs, past the skeletal remains of old coal depots, and into the eastern foothills of the Charbon Mountains. A century before, mule carts descended the route by the hundreds, their loads fueling Montcroix's brick furnaces and steam paddlers. But the coal ran dry, and the industry abandoned it.

Wealth did not.

When the city's heart became too crowded – too immigrant, too loud – the old-money families looked eastward. They built mansions there, clawing their way up the slopes, their backs to the blackened cliffs. Today, Coal Road was a haven of gated estates, their wrought-iron gates guarding the obscene wealth of tech billionaires, reclusive socialites, and men whose fortunes had no clear origin. Like Chloe's sugar daddy. He lived at the Coal Road, according to Chloe.

The SUV rumbled over the cracked asphalt, its black-tinted windows swallowing the neon glow of the city behind them. Amara sat stiffly on the leather seat, the hum of the tyres beneath her the only sound between her and the driver – a man who hadn't spoken a word. Not when Anastasia had led her into the car. Not when the doors had locked with a soft click.

She watched the streetlights thin, then vanish altogether. The world beyond the glass turned to ink, the only illumination coming from the car's dashboard and the distant, flickering lights of the mansions set behind their iron gates.

Isolation set in like a vice. She was in a black SUV with a stranger, driving into the dark toward an estate from which no one would hear her scream. A smart girl would be scared. A smart girl would have gotten out of the car the moment it pulled up. Amara pressed her palm against the window, watching the city disappear behind her.

Smart girl. Too bad she wasn't one. They went past every other home, climbing ever higher until the end of Coal Road and then continued. Beyond the old and the modern houses there, the occupied and the abandoned mansions. Beyond them all, perched at the highest point of the road, was Ebonhall.

The wrought-iron gate led to a small cobblestone roundabout. A path on the road led to a decently sized cottage, and only after Amara stepped out did she realise it was merely the garage. Ebonhall was almost invisible; darkened stone brick against the dark background of the Charbon Mountains meant that not even the starlight could help define its silhouette. There was very little light in the yard leading to the home, rendering it a silent titan watching from over the hill. The features of an American Victorian manor, with distinct old- world features, could still be made out as Amara walked behind Anastasia. A long trail of steps led from the cobblestone roundabout to the porch, but even before she took three steps out of the car, Anastasia said:

“You are cold.”

The word was not a command, but it might as well have been because the silent driver went to the trunk to fetch a large, long trench coat, draping it over Amara's shoulders. Anastasia watched one of her heel-clad feet on the first step. The hand with blackened fingers stretched to wait for Amara's before their ascension. She hesitated before taking it, feeling like it was some form of ominous acceptance of a contract. But she did, and they climbed together, leading to the large landing of the porch.

The door was carved with a strange theme. Nature, it seemed, but only in its more twisted forms. An eagle clutching a snake in its claws. Two coyotes surrounding a bunny. A crocodile's maws engulfing a gazelle, and, for the last panel, a man with a spear thrusting it into a bear.

It clicked, then. Hunt. Predators. Amara shivered. Anastasia noticed as she opened Ebonhall's doors for the girl.

“Fear not, if I was simply after your blood, there would be no reason to bring you here,” Anastasia said.

“So... You won't drink my blood?”

“I did not say that,” she warned without jest.

They entered the massive oval hall with two long stairways leading up, and yet, the whole house seemed a little less... Lived in than Amara expected. Too picture perfect, clean but sparsely and uncomfortably furnished. The interior doors were all closed. Anastasia didn't go up the stairs but instead towards the side of one of them, opening a discreet panel that revealed itself to be a door, and a red Victorian-style wallpaper showed in the interior. Bright light spilt forth from brass lamps. Amara walked with a heavy breath to look down the red staircase, lined with carpeted steps held in place by brass rods, mahogany handrails, and painted portraits of Anastasia across the walls. Anastasia wearing a black Victorian dress or a Renaissance-style one with blood-red puffed sleeves. One of the portraits, also Victorian, showed a man with effeminate features who conspicuously looked like her but had bright red eyes. Anastasia watched Amara stop to contemplate that one and shrugged.

“Sometimes it's easier to give them what they expect than to swim against the current,” she explained.

The last two portraits were not really portraits. One was a Byzantine-style painting on clay that had been moved from its original place and mounted on the wall. Despite the lack of accuracy, the noblewoman's red eyes and black hair in Byzantine clothes left little doubt about her identity. The other was a wood relief. A female warrior wearing scale armour, in a style somewhere between Vikings and medieval Russia, held aloft the head of an Orthodox priest with a sword in hand and an army of wolves behind her.

”...And sometimes it's not a choice,” Anastasia said.

“This is... It's you?”

“I was young back then. Full of piss and vinegar... Age has... Tempered me,” she said as she guided Amara gently inside.

At some point, the basement had been a stone wine cellar with arched ceilings, but it had been converted into what seemed almost like a luxurious loft for a rich person with a taste for antiques: A long wine-dark loveseat, a large fireplace with stone carvings of lions on either end, as if holding the mantle, where a set of Japanese swords was laid. A large canopy bed in one of the niches, a large collection of wines, and an old gramophone. There wasn't a lot of cohesion between the origin of the antiques, but it worked as if centuries of painstaking matching of shape and colour had gone into it. And maybe they had. Black, red and gold seemed to be the chosen palette, and as Amara admired it, Anastasia placed both hands on her waist and directed her towards the couch. She sat without resisting.

A deep breath was taken. Between running from her parents, arriving at the Night Market and arriving there, it had been but a couple of hours. But so much had changed in her life that it now felt like an eternity. But she had not lost sight of why she had gone.

“Do you drink anything?”

Amara was about to respond “no' by reflex. But then she looked down at the single piece of chocolate still clutched by her fingers. Who was she saving herself for, anyway? She paused and said, instead:

“Yes.”

Anastasia turned, amused, from perusing her bottles.

“And what, pray tell, do you want?”

“Surprise me.” Amara shrugged.

That she did. Anastasia placed a small chalice in her hand of something that smelled a lot like cherry but was more bitter and strongly alcoholic. She downed it in one gulp as the woman sat in an armchair across from her, a red oak polished oval coffee table between them.

“So... You asked me about taking your pain away. And I'm sure you want to know how I intend to do it.”

“Y-Yes... I do.”

“If you had not yet guessed, Amara, I took a liking to you. You remind me of someone I was dearly fond of. And... Well, my inner processes are perhaps not as interesting to you as my final proposal: I would like you to join me.”

“Join you? Like a servant?”

“No. I have thralls aplenty. What I offer you is a prize they covet dearly, but that is mine and mine alone to give.”

Amara adjusted in her seat. Surely, the woman wasn't proposing what she thought she was proposing, was she? She found herself breathing through her mouth. The last square of Montezuma's melting in her hand.

“Oh?”

“I want you to become my Fledgling, my little starling, and I shall be your Sire.”

“Your... Fledgeling... Do you mean... You want to make me a vampire? Like... Immortal, fangs, all that?”

“That's what I propose, yes. But be warned. You are being offered a choice for a reason. You will be dead to your previous life. Going back is not an option. Once you cross the terrible threshold, you can only find sorrow looking back.”

“That's... Not bad, honestly.”

“Aye. But you will be denied other things, too. Friends. Daylight. A heartbeat, most of the time... And you'll find all food and drink to taste like ash... Save for the rarest of treats.”

Amara swallowed dry. She looked at the piece of chocolate, half-melted, in her hand. She thought about the kiss of the sun on her skin. Days at the beach. She even thought about the few moments of genuine happiness she had had with her parents. Even with Chloe. Then she looked at Anastasia. Her open arms rested on the armrests of her chair, legs crossed, ever patient. But her fingers, they tensed. She was hungry.

“Hungry. For me,' Amara thought. That gorgeous woman said she had thralls who coveted that for years. And she had picked Amara off the streets. She saw her as an utter mess. She talked of her most humiliating, pathetic moment. And yet, she craved to make her... Hers.

“Will I... Be free?”

“No,” Anastasia said.

“No?”

“I said I wouldn't lie, my little starling. You are free now, yes. You can walk away. My driver will take you to your parents. Or a bus station. Or the pier, if you wish to jump. You are free now. But say yes to this... And you will no longer be.”

“It costs... Everything.”

“It does.”

Her little starling. She never fought against the name. It made no sense before. It made even less sense then. She liked it. She liked being herself. She couldn't belong to herself, she knew that. Her parents had damaged her too much for it. But now... Now, she could choose someone to own her, at least. Choose someone with power beyond petty greed.

“And... The pain will go away.”

“Aye,” Anastasia said. “It will.”

Amara closed her eyes. The last block of chocolate stuffed into her mouth. She chewed with gusto, allowed it to melt completely, and held it there until it was just a sweet thick fluid. She tasted the cocoa beans, the sugar, the milk. What a fucking great last meal, she thought, as she swallowed and looked Anastasia in the eyes.

“Fuck. Let's do it.”

“Very well...” Anastasia stood up, slowly moving towards her, the coffee table prolonging her route just enough for Amara to sense how hard her heart was beating.

Anastasia licked her lips, and her eyes glowed. The sound of something snapping came from her jaw. Dry, like a bone cracking. Yet she didn't seem in pain. Her nipples hardened against her dress, and she knelt on the cushions next to Amara with one leg, caressing her hair with a hand and using the other to guide the girl to look into her eyes.

“W-What... What comes next?”

“First... I'll give you one last great sensation... As a mortal...”

Amara swallowed dry. She could feel the liquid sex dripping from every word in Anastasia's speech, and she was not too naive not to know what she meant. Her body responded to it with fiery want. But she had to ask. She had to.

“And... Then?”

“Then...” Anastasia leaned in, grazing sharp fangs against her earlobe.

“My little starling...” she whispered, throaty, and her black-tipped fingers pushed the bodycon dress up by a few inches. “... You'll have to die.”

Amara froze.

“Just for a moment.”