Chapter 1: The Longest Night
I don't remember the sun. Not really. My sister used to say it painted the sky gold, warmed the streets like a hearth. Like something alive. But I don't think I've ever felt alive. Not really. The sky has always been grey to me. Like ash. Like the fire was already over by the time I was born, and we were just living in what it left behind.
We live in the slums that press against the ruins of old towers. Skeletons of light and noise, Mama once said. I asked her what that meant. She laughed like it hurt and told me the buildings used to glow. With music. With people. Now they lean like dead trees and scream when the wind comes.
I turned nine on the day the sky went black.
The radios called it an eclipse. happened on summer solstice. People in the richer blocks threw rooftop parties. Paper lanterns floated over the skyline like ghosts. But even then, something in my chest felt wrong. Like my ribs were full of teeth, gnawing inward.
Then the sun vanished.
Not dipped. Not dimmed. Vanished. Like something reached down and bit it out of the sky.
Even in the day, everything stayed dark. Not night-dark a wrongs sickening dark. A colour that didn't exist, a pressure in your lungs, in your thoughts. The streetlights sparked, coughed, died. Birds didn't sing—they just... stopped. Dogs howled and didn't stop until they tore their throats apart.
And then the sickness came.
At first it was a cough just a little thing. Then the fevers started the shaking. The hallucinations—oh gods, the hallucinations. Walls pulsing seeing eyes in corners, voices behind my teeth. They said it was mould then dust then the water. Then they stopped saying anything. No more doctors.. no more excuses.
Just the curse an invisible curse. The hungry thing crawling through our veins. I felt it every night, chewing at my brain, whispering in colours I didn't know how to see. I watched my neighbours boil from the inside as their skin cracked like dry leaves. Their screams... their screams changed. Like someone else was screaming through them.
Papa was the first. His cough turned black. He didn't die right away. He sat on the floor and stared at nothing for three days. Said there were hands under the floor pulling him down. I tried to hold his hand but he pulled away.
Then Mama. Her eyes went milky said she saw angels. But she was crying when she said it. And then Della. My Della. She tried so hard to protect me... she tried so hard not to scream when the veins in her face turned glassy. When her bones cracked just from breathing.
I begged. I begged gods I didn't believe in. Prayed in languages I made up. I told stories to shadows hoping they'd be kind.
They weren't.
I ran.
I ran and ran and ran. Through dead streets and hollow buildings. Past open doors that wept darkness. I stopped counting days. My stomach forgot hunger. My body moved like it wasn't mine. My shadow didn't follow right. I heard it sometimes. Breathing. Shuffling.
There were no people anymore. Just... shapes. Crawling. Humming. Twitching. Some looked human. Most didn't. I think one of them used to be my teacher. She didn't have a mouth anymore.
Sometimes, I heard laughter. But it was wet. Like something drowning in its own throat. And the walls... they watched. They breathed.
The first time I saw one of them—Th̶͝e ̸͞G̸͠r͠a̵v͘͜e͝͏n̷—I thought she was just a sick woman.
She stood at the end of the hallway, swaying like wind was pushing her bones. Her back to me. Skin melted wax, blistered and sagging. Her arms hung too low. Her fingers scraped the floor, bent wrong. Hair floated like it was underwater. Then she turned.
Her mouth opened sideways.
No words said, just a scream. A sound like teeth breaking in reverse. And the walls—
The walls bled.
I ran.
I ran into the boiler room. It was warm. I thought maybe that would help. That maybe the warmth would keep the shadows out. That maybe I could be safe if I just hid well enough. But the dark found me anyway, It oozed under the door, Slid through the vents. The pipes began to sweat black.
I curled up and i shook, I whispered stories to myself about other places. I tried to remember Della's lullabies. But the dark whispered louder then it crawled up my arms my ears my soul and then... and then—
it spoke.
It didn't use words. it used things i couldn't comprehend it did things that shouldn't be possible It painted thoughts on the inside of my eyes. Dreams that screamed. It bled into me and then my thoughts weren't mine anymore and my hands twitched to rhythms I didn't know.
When it reached my eyes—I wasn't me anymore.
I don't remember dying.
I just remember that the world cracked. Like thin ice under too many feet. I remember my voice splitting into pieces. I remember the feeling of falling without moving. I remember screaming—but no one heard me.
I remember Della's voice inside my head. "We'll go together."
Then silence.
The silence that killed me
The death of light that removed everything I held dear.