Alan couldn't move. Not at first.
He lay there on the ground, limbs locked, as though the weight of the silence had pinned him in place. The only sound was his own breathing, shallow, erratic, as if even his lungs were afraid to stir too loudly. The darkness in the hallway beyond his room remained dense, pressing in around him like wet cloth. Time had lost its shape. Seconds stretched thin, then collapsed in on themselves.
His mind, though, raced.
It came from there… Silently. It watched me. And it was… wrong. He tried to recall its shape, but even his memory recoiled. It hadn't walked, it flowed. It hadn't looked, it devoured Alan's perception.
Then, something sparked inside him, a sliver of thought rising from the swamp of fear.
The candle.
He had a spare. Somewhere in the room, near the cabinets.
With great effort, Alan pushed himself up. His muscles ached, and each motion felt like wading through mud. He stumbled into his room, the air cold and unmoving. He searched feverishly, hands scrabbling through drawers, knocking over boxes, throwing aside books and worn coats. The silence thickened around him, suffocating.
Then, a smooth edge. A small tin case.
He flipped it open with shaking fingers, struck a match, and lit the candle.
Light bloomed.
A soft, trembling flame cast pale orange over the room, pulling shadows across the cracked wallpaper and worn floor. Alan exhaled, breath shuddering. The silence remained, but now it had boundaries, the flickering edge of candlelight.
His pulse slowed, slightly.
Check the hallway, his mind urged. Check where it stood.
Carefully, Alan approached the doorframe, keeping the candle low. He peeked.
Empty.
The hallway stretched out, dim but still. Nothing moved. No dripping limbs, no clawing breath.
He stepped out.
The floor creaked faintly beneath him. In the living room, the shadows danced across chairs and broken cabinets. But something was off, the candle's flame jerked sideways, not in rhythm with his movement, nor any breeze. It twitched, as if it sensed something he didn't.
He ignored it.
He lowered himself onto the dusty couch, spine tense, legs aching. For the first time in what felt like hours, he allowed himself to think.
About life underground. About his sisters in the capital. About the way the world had been devoured by the dark.
He wondered, vaguely, if the surface had ever truly existed.
Then his thoughts clicked into place.
Where's the stranger?
The man in the brown suit. The one who'd knocked on his door. The one who'd,
Alan turned slowly, candle in hand, facing the hallway behind him.
It was pitch black.
And yet…
There, just within the darkness, half-hidden behind the edge of the wall, something peeked, and glanced.
It had a head, but it was far from a head. a pulsing neck of black, swaying tendrils. Tentacles, slow and wet and quiet, extended downward, twitching slightly. The body was still. It didn't move, and didn't twitch. It just silently watched.
Alan stared.
Then, it was gone.
The hallway was empty again.
And now, the stranger had returned.
He stood where the thing had just been. Same brown suit. Same tie. But something was… wrong. Alan felt it before he saw it.
A pressure, unbearable. His skin crawled, muscles locking. His mind screamed no, but his mouth still worked.
"Are you… Alright?"
No answer.
The stranger stood still, face tilted slightly downward. His outline flickered, just briefly, like a ripple in glass.
Alan looked.
He shouldn't have.
Because what stood before him was not the stranger. Not really. Not anymore.
The monster from before, the one he couldn't understand, couldn't process, was now near him. Closer than ever.
He looked at it.
And it stared back.
I didn't blink.
Because I knew that if I did, it might be closer.
I knew that what I was seeing didn't make sense. That its body wasn't shaped for this world. That it had found a way in. Through him. Through the stranger in the brown suit.
Through me.
I continued to stare into its eyes, or where its eyes should be.
My vision blurred.
The lines of its shape grew faint, as if the world itself was trying to erase it. My head throbbed. The weight of exhaustion coiled behind my temples. I could feel my body sinking, slipping…
Please… not this time.
Not like this.
The pressure in my skull grew unbearable. Something inside me screamed. A primal plea.
Get up… please get up!
But nothing happened.
No strength returned. No clarity broke through.
Just black water, rising above my chin.
Then over my mouth.
Then my eyes.
And I drowned.
I opened my eyes.
Sunlight.
Golden warmth spilled through the cracked window, lighting the dust in gentle spirals. The room looked… ordinary. No shadows crawling on the walls. No blood. No tendrils. Only the morning hum of the underground's artificial daylight.
I blinked. My body was still in the same chair. Had I dreamed it all?
But no, this wasn't a bad dream. This wasn't dread. It was something deeper. Something that clung behind my ribs.
I turned toward the hallway.
And froze.
There stood a man.
He wore a long, tailored coat of dark navy wool, etched with a silver lining that shimmered like candlelight. Strange symbols were stitched along the collar, faint, recursive, geometrically wrong if you stared too long. He was speaking to himself, muttering random strings of words and phrases under his breath. Some in languages I didn't know. Some, I'm sure, weren't human.
Then, abruptly, he looked up.
"Oh hey, you're awake!" he said, like we were neighbors at a café.
He walked toward me, his boots almost silent.
"Was there any… abnormal occurrence in here?"
His voice was smooth, patient, but sharp beneath the surface, like a knife wrapped in velvet.
I opened my mouth to answer. "There was a..."
Nothing.
No words came out.
I tried again. And again. But it was like trying to describe color to someone who had never seen it. No, worse, it was like my memory couldn't convert the experience into thought.
The man observed me for a moment, then nodded with a smile.
"Don't worry," he said calmly, "we already know what it is. Judging by your expression, something did happen. You just can't explain it. You can't even comprehend it. You're not sure whether it was real or imagined."
He said everything I was thinking. Word for word.
"You… read my mind?" I managed.
"No. Not quite. But I understand people."
He tilted his head. "You managed to sleep in the presence of a Night Shade. That's… rare."
I blinked. "A Night Shade? What's..."
"Shhh," he interrupted gently. "That's classified information."
I stared at him.
"Then… who are you? And why are you in my house?"
He sighed lightly.
He sure asks a lot of questions, the man thought, but I wasn't sure how I knew he was thinking that.
"I'm just investigating," he said aloud, "Think of me like a… policeman. Just checking things out."
My eyebrows knit together. "No police officer I've seen wears a coat like that."
A brief smirk crossed his lips.
I pressed further. "What's your name? What do you people do?"
He stepped back, folding his gloved hands behind him.
"We're called Night Clerks. We investigate the kind of things you saw earlier."
The words hooked something inside me.
Night Clerks. The name sounded ancient. Formal. Important.
A curiosity stirred, then a decision.
"Are you hiring?"
The man blinked.
"…What?"
"I want to join," I said, suddenly serious. "I don't have a job. And if I've seen this once, there's a chance I'll see it again. I'd rather be prepared next time."
He raised an eyebrow, nearly laughing. "You can find a normal job nearby, you know."
"No."
I stood up.
"Take me with you. Let me join. I've already seen what's out there… I don't want to be unarmed again."
The man stared for a moment.
Then, softly, he said, "Fine. Wait here."
He walked toward the window, pulled open the latch, and held out his hand.
A pigeon flew to his hands.
No, it didn't fly. It materialized from the unknown shimmer in the air.
He leaned close and whispered something to the bird. It nodded and vanished with a soft hum.
I stared.
"…Who are you?" I asked. "And what are you really? I can tell you're not what you seem. This is… a disguise."
The man froze.
Then slowly turned.
A broad smile spread across his face.
"Amazing," he whispered. "Someone actually noticed. Not even my coworkers can tell."
He stepped forward, eyes gleaming with admiration.
"You're amazing."
He offered a gloved hand.
"My name is Elias Ashford," he said. "And I welcome my newest colleague to the Night Clerks, Alan Moriarty. Twenty years old. Currently unemployed. Lives alone in Dright Street 47. Three sisters, all in the capital."
My blood froze.
I didn't tell him that.
I didn't tell him any of that.