Night of Screams
I hear the screams before I see anything at all.
They crash into my sleep like glass shattering, sharp, frantic, soaked in terror. Voices overlap each other, echoing too loud and too close, as if the sound itself is alive and clawing its way into me.
“No, stay away from my child!”
The woman’s voice breaks on the last word. There’s power in it. Fear, too. The kind that only comes when you know you’re about to lose everything.
I open my eyes.
There is nothing.
Just darkness. Thick, endless, suffocating black that presses against my chest until it’s hard to breathe. I try to move, but my body feels wrong…small, weak, trapped. A cry tears from my throat before I even realize I’m making it.
The screaming stops.
Silence falls so suddenly it hurts.
I whimper, the sound thin and broken, and the darkness shifts. A shape forms in front of me, slowly stepping into what little light exists. She looks young…maybe eighteen…but there’s something ancient in the way she holds herself. Her brown hair is pulled back tight, her coat dark, her eyes sharp with panic and determination.
She freezes when she sees me.
“Shh,” she whispers quickly, glancing over her shoulder. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
She steps closer, careful, like I might disappear if she moves too fast.
“It’s me, Phoenix,” she says softly. “Raeya. Your big sister.”
The word sister settles into me, warm and certain, and my crying slows. She reaches into the crib and lifts me against her chest, holding me so tight I can feel her heart racing. She smells like snow and iron and fear.
“I’ll protect you,” she whispers. “I promise.”
Then she runs.
Cold air slams into us as she leaps through the open window, landing hard on wet, snow-covered ground. She doesn’t slow. Trees blur past as she sprints through the night, clutching me like I’m the last piece of the world worth saving.
I look up at her face, at the terror she’s trying so desperately to hideand that’s when it happens.
Something inside me wakes up.
My vision sharpens. The darkness peels away. The world snaps into painful clarity as my eyes begin to burn.
Silver.
Raeya gasps.
“Oh no,” she breathes. “Silver eyes…”
Her fear spikes, sharp enough that I feel it as my own. She doesn’t stop running. If anything, she pushes herself harder, faster, like distance alone might save us.
The world tilts.
The screams return, closer now, louder, and the darkness swallows me whole.
