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Dark sighed, stretching his back.
The apartment underneath Mark’s had been abandoned for years, it seemed. There were spiders in every corner, a layer of dust across the counters, and furniture draped in white, ghostly sheets. As if someone had left, intending to come back, but never had. It was a home lying in wait for its rightful owner, their essence trapped in the dozens of sealed boxes piled irreverently against the walls. Dark felt distinctly unwelcome, but he needed a place to stay.
For now, at least, it would do.
He’d spent the last week shoving his way through the apartment, wading through the piles of boxes, tamping a path from the front door to the bedroom. It was livable. Kind of.
Dark collapsed onto the bed with a puff of dust, visible in the sun filtering through the windows. He was exhausted. Between figuring out how to stay alive, out of sight, and finding a place to live, he was dead tired.
Surely the apartment was safe enough for him to take a nap.
Dark shifted on the bed to prop himself against the wall, folding his arms across his chest. One jean-clad leg on top of the other, his chin on his shoulder. He could see the door from here, and the slightest sound would wake him up. Reassuring himself, Dark closed his eyes.
Dark jerked awake, heart pounding in his ears. It was dark in the room: he’d slept far too long, but that wasn’t what had sent a jolt of panic through him.
Voices, voices that were too close to be safe.
The door to the bedroom had swung shut as he slept. Now, Dark swung himself off of the bed, silent, and crept towards the crack of light.
“Can you hurry up? This place gives me the creeps.”
A grunt, and then: “Yeah, yeah.”
The shifting of boxes, and Dark felt something akin to panic spike through him. They were taking stuff. Not his stuff, mind, but stuff that didn’t belong to them.
Dark’s aura reacted, whistling sharply around the room, too loud in the dead silence. Dark pulled it back, hard, a dog on a leash, and the aura stopped in its tracks. Angry at having been stopped, it swarmed over Dark’s shoulders, into his ears, buzzing angrily.
The voices outside stopped. “What was that?”
Swatting his aura away, Dark scrambled backwards. They mustn’t see him– no one could see him.
There was the quick step of shoes outside, and someone flung the door open, shining light over the bed.
“Hey, there’s someone here!”
Dark had hidden, dived behind the bed, but his aura was all sliding shadow and tapping feet. As the human entered, it flickered just long enough to be caught in the light before vanishing. Dark cursed silently.
Footsteps again, but closer. The light swung over the bed, the bare table and floor. Dark’s aura reverberated around the room. Hungry.
“H-hello?” They were scared.
Dark held his breath, trying to reign his aura in. Control, control.
The footsteps came closer, hesitant, and the light caught Dark in the eyes. He flinched, a movement too many, all fangs and tapetum lucidum.
There was a sharp scream, and the human scurried backwards. “There’s something in there!”
The second voice, teasing: “I’m sure it’s nothing.”
“There’s– there’s–”
“Show me, if you’re so scared, then.”
The footsteps were coming back, but all Dark could think about was his aura snapping at the leash, foaming at the mouth. Control. He pulled himself out from behind the bed, breathing heavy, trying to hold onto the power that slipped, like smoke, between his fingers.
The door creaked open again, two flashlights shining in, illuminating Dark’s back.
“It’s just a guy,” one of the humans said, not scared, but not reassured. “Sir,” they started, the cock of a gun echoing around the room, “we’re sorry to bother you, but–”
Dark swallowed the miasma whirling around him, a momentous effort, and turned with a forced, sickly smile. “I live here,” he snarled, trying to keep the unnatural echo from his voice. “I’d appreciate it if you left, unless you’d like me to call the police–”
It was an empty threat, of course. The police could never know that Dark existed.
Apparently, it was threatening enough.
There was a loud bang, and smoke that didn’t belong to Dark curled around the room.
“Did you just shoot him?”
“I… I wasn’t thinking–”
The words came through a haze, and Dark felt the warm spread of blood begin to seep though his shirt. An electric, burning pain across his shoulder. A bullet in his chest.
And his aura in his stomach, swirling, clawing, chaos.
Uncontrollable.
Dark doubled over, catching himself on the edge of the bed, and he heard one of the humans run closer.
“Sir? I am so sorry, we didn’t mean–” their breath was hitching, choking on tears.
Weak.
A hand touched Dark’s shoulder. “Are– are you– how do you feel?”
Dark sat, head bowed, a hand over the hole in his chest. He felt his shoulders shake, but not with pain. Not with emotion.
“I don’t quite feel like… myself.” The words came slowly, each syllable like pulling teeth. His chest spasmed.
The human drew back, snatching their hand away as if it had been burned. At the door, the other person took a step back. “Something ain’t right here.”
Dark let his head snap up,. He smiled, and in the low light of the humans’ flashlights, they could see blood dripping from his mouth, his sclera suddenly flickering to black. The glint of fangs against pale skin.
Dark heard them start to run, and almost laughed to himself. There was no running. There was no control.
The change was quick, but violent. Dark could feel his shoulders hulking, straining against the fabric of his shirt. His hands, curled into fists against the bedspread, were lengthening, nails sharpening into claws.
With a sigh, he let the aura out of him. It came to rest across his broadened shoulders like a snake, hissing in his ear, surrounding him in a shroud of smoke. Dark could hear the humans scrabbling at the door, could hear their heartbeats quickening in terror.
Dark opened his eyes, and he could see everything. Control wasn’t the problem anymore.
He was.
Morning found Dark the way it would often in the coming years: shirt ripped open, chest bruised and bloody underneath. Blood everywhere around the apartment– seeping into the carpet, splattered on the door in the shape of desperate hand prints, in between Dark’s teeth.
His aura whistled, almost happily, as he woke up. The walls were stained with odd black marks, as if they’d been burned, and Dark winced, seeing his hands colored the same way.
He sat in the middle of the destroyed apartment for a moment, taking it all in. A monster had been here.
He had been here.
Dark took a deep breath, getting to his feet. The only thing this meant was that there was more work to be done. He sighed, stretching his back, and went hunting for a broom; aura trailing him, licking its chops, not satisfied.
Not yet.