I sat in the backseat of Jake's Mercedes Benz, watching the city pass by and wondered if what I've been through is even real. I feel like I'm drugged or something, I know Jake is here, Ethan is also here holding his hand and casually checking in on me. But I feel like I'm not even here. I want to go back to my bed and never leave again.
"You think this is a good idea?" I can hear Ethan asking.
"I don't know." Jake murmured.
Maybe we should just go back and forget this ever happened at all. I have new book to write and I can't get my head into with how complicated this thing is. When the car pulled up in front of the restaurant, I quickly get out of the car because I need more fresh air and when Ethan get out he immediately pulled me closer.
"You don't have to be here if you don't want to," He brushed my hair back. "I can call you an Uber?"
I shook my head. "No. I want to. Just to make sense of it all,"
"Okay," He gave me a small smile and turned to Jake.
"I love you,"
"And I love you too,"
I just nodded and walked ahead to the front door. The waiter, who mostly would just asked me if I have reservation didn't do it, and instead she just point me to the middle of the empty restaurant where a man is already seated. The same man who now wears a maroon suit with a weird pin that is shaped like a love with a crown on top and there's weird curves at the center of the gold emblem. His coat is nowhere to be seen but I guess he's been here quite a while judging by the half bottle of wine sitting on the table. It's weird seeing him again especially when Jake already tried to dig something about him but none came to light. Not even Dane, a hacker in Jake's team, could find anything on him. He basically didn't exist.
"Please sit," He said when he spotted us.
We awkwardly sat together on the sofa that's big enough for us three and ordered a three course meal that I can't remember off the top of my head. There's something weird with this man, he's handsome and imposing as hell, but there's this weird air around him that makes my skin crawl and simultaneously hug him at the same time. I'm uncomfortable, and on high alert and the only solace I have is Jake's warmth on my side. I feel like I can jump out of my skin.
"What do you want?" Jake immediately asked when the waiter left with all of our order. I quietly sighed because he's here asking all the important questions. Because I still don't know what I want to say. There's too much of it and I don't know where to start.
The man, Alexander, as he called himself, smiled and pour us the wine on each of our glass. "What do you want to know?"
"Well, I believe we deserved to know who you are and what you want. It's clear that you didn't just pop into our guest bedroom for a social call." Ethan took the conversation with his business-like voice.
"It's a bit of that, but yes, let me introduce myself properly this time. I'm Alexander Valerian Hightower, you can call me Alex for short. I'm the high counsellor of the Aeternum Order, and I'm here because you two have awakened your powers."
"And that means?" I found myself asking.
"We've reached an agreement that the both of you need to receive a proper training under our surveilance. Its for the safety of the humans as much as it is for yours." He looked at me and then Jake. "Don't you agree?"
Jake didn't answer right away. His jaw tightened, the muscle ticking the way it always did when he was deciding whether to punch someone or walk away. Ethan shifted beside him, posture calm but alert, like he was already have plans to negotiate ten steps ahead.
"I don't," Jake said finally.
Alexander didn't look offended. If anything, he seemed amused, like Jake had just confirmed something he already knew.
"Of course you don't," he said smoothly. "You've been managing on your own for years. Impressive, really. Most don't last that long without… intervention."
My stomach sank.
"Intervention," I echoed. "That's a funny word for surveillance."
Alexander's gaze flicked to me, sharp and assessing, then softened just enough to be disarming. "Words are imperfect tools, Emily."
"That's reassuring," I muttered.
Ethan's hand tightened briefly over Jake's. "Let's be clear," he said evenly. "You're saying this Order, whatever it is, decides who gets trained, who gets watched, and who gets left alone?"
"Well, you are the only case. This is uncharted territory even for us."
"And if we say no?"
Alexander took a slow sip of his wine, unbothered. "Then nothing happens. Officially."
That single word set my nerves on fire.
Jake leaned forward. "Unofficially?"
Alexander set his glass down with deliberate care. "Unofficially, you remain unpredictable variables in a system that does not tolerate instability for long."
The restaurant felt suddenly too quiet. Too empty. Like the walls were listening. I hugged myself, trying to ground the buzzing under my skin. "You make it sound like we're weapons."
Alexander tilted his head. "No," he said. "Weapons are designed. You were born."
That made it worse.
Jake stood abruptly. "This conversation is over."
Ethan started to rise with him, but Alexander lifted a hand, not threatening, just… commanding.
"Sit," he said.
The word carried weight. Not force but just full authority.
Jake didn't sit. Neither did Ethan.
For the first time, something like genuine interest flickered across Alexander's face.
I swallowed hard. "If you're so powerful, why bother asking us at all?"
Alexander's gaze returned to me, lingering longer this time. Thoughtful. Measuring.
"Because consent matters," he said. "And because the last thing I want is to make enemies of people who don't yet understand what they are."
My head throbbed.
"What we are," I repeated quietly. "You keep saying that like we're not human."
Alexander didn't answer immediately.
The waiter arrived then, mercifully oblivious, setting down plates with rehearsed politeness. The smell of food turned my stomach, appetite evaporating under the weight of the moment.
When we were alone again, Alexander spoke but carefully now.
"You are not human," he said. "Just only lives among humans for so long."
Jake let out a humorless laugh. "That's supposed to reassure us?"
"No," Alexander replied. "It's supposed to prepare you."
I pushed my plate away, fingers trembling. "Prepare us for what?"
Alexander leaned back slightly, folding his hands on the table. The pin on his lapel caught the light, heart, crown, curves I still couldn't make sense of.
"For attention," he said.
Jake's voice dropped. "You said others would come."
"Yes."
"When?"
Alexander's eyes met mine again.
"Some already have."
A chill crawled up my spine.
Ethan stood fully now. "We need time."
Alexander nodded once. "Take it."
He reached into his inner pocket and placed a slim, black card on the table, no logo, no name. Just a symbol embossed faintly in gold. The same strange curves as his pin.
"When you decide," he said calmly, "just burn the card. I will know."
"And if we don't?" I asked.
"Then what came after me is not going to be this friendly," he said, standing, "I hope it didn't have to come to that."
He inclined his head to Jake. To Ethan.
Then to me, just a fraction longer.
"Emily," he said quietly. "Do me a favor and try to rest will you?"
Before I could respond, he turned and walked toward the exit.
No weird air. No weird portals. Just a man leaving a restaurant. But the space he vacated felt thinner. Jake exhaled slowly, like he'd been holding his breath the entire time.
"I don't like him," I said weakly.
Jake snorted. "Join the club."
Ethan picked up the card, turning it over once before setting it back down. "At least we're still alive."
*~*
The next day, I was just staring at my laptop screen that just spelled "Chapter One" with nothing to follow. My coffee is getting cold and it's still as full as the first time I took the first sip. I can't emulate even a single sentence and all I can think about is what will happened next. Can I truly just snapped back into this? After killing someone?
I look out of the window and then to my collection of books, seeing that novel series that I grew to love during my high school years. I stood from my chair and take the first book of the series, then I start reading it while facing the window. It's a very facinating how I still like to reread this book more that any other piece of fiction in my collection.
Maybe it's because this is the novel I've read during my bullying days to take my mind off things, or maybe this is just a good book. Fortunately I had the pleasure of meeting the author and it's been one of my best day that it finally inspired me to become a writer too.
I read three pages before I realized I hadn't absorbed a single word. My eyes moved. My hands turned the page. My mind stayed somewhere else entirely.
I frowned at the paragraph in front of me and started again from the top. Halfway through the page, the words began to blur. Like they were written in a language I understood once, a long time ago, but not anymore. I closed the book and pressed it against my chest.
I looked at my hands, really looked at them. They didn't feel foreign, exactly, but they didn't feel fully mine either. My fingers flexed when I told them to, but the sensation lagged, like bad internet. What have I truly done with that man? Did he really have a heart attack or did I do something to him that cause him to die?
Deep down I know the answer but I don't want to acknowledge it. Because then I have to accept that I'm a murderer. I shook my head and laughed softly. "Get it together," I muttered.
I checked the time on my phone. Ten minutes had passed. No, it's fifteen. I couldn't remember what I'd done in between. I stood and walked to the kitchen, barefoot on cold tile, grounding myself with the sensation. The fridge hummed. The clock ticked. Everything normal. Comfortingly normal.
I poured the coffee down the sink and watched it swirl away, dark and thick. For a moment, I forgot why I'd poured it in the first place. I leaned on the counter, breathing slowly. I told myself this was shock. Trauma. A delayed reaction. Something that would pass if I let it.
I returned to my desk and sat down, opening my laptop again. The blank page waited patiently, indifferent to my unraveling.
Chapter One.
I placed my fingers on the keyboard. Nothing happened. The words didn't come. Not even bad ones. Just static. Instead, my thoughts kept looping on the after. The silence after the gunshot. The way the alley felt emptied. The depressing and almost thicker air before I collapsed and that strange man appeared.
I swallowed hard. Another glance at the clock. Five more minutes gone. I hadn't moved. Then my phone started to ring and I saw Ethan's number.
"Hi, I know you said you want to start writing in peace, but I make a mean pasta and Jake could come and pick you up if you want to have a lunch together." He chirped in his usual calm and friendly voice but I can hear a slight tremble in his last words.
"No, I have an appointment after this," and that appointment is with the most strongest coffee in my favorite cafe.
"Alright," I can hear him pouring something in the background. "Let me know if you need anything. Especially if it's a work related."
"Of course," I said, forcing a little bit of laugh. "I will not blindsided my most trusted lawyer with things and stuffs."
"I have taught you well,"
"Fuck you," I can hear him laughing as I press the end button and quickly getting up to get that said coffee.
When I got to my favorite local cafe, I took my usual seat in the corner and started to read my novel again. For a second I finally feel like myself again when I can make sense of the words but then there's this bubble around me that feels like a weird vacuum that dampened my senses. Suddenly the sound out the AC, the customers, and the coffee machine is muted and when I take my eyes of page thirdteen that misterious man is sitting right in front of me.
His skin is still so fair and his eyes is pale blue and so bright. His all dark suit is spotless, without a wrinkle in sight and he nodded at me once. I can feel my heart beating in my throat and I feel like I want to cower under the table. Whatever or whoever this man is, is definitely more intimidating than that Hightower guy.
"No need to be afraid," His voice is deep and silky and somehow the accent is so strange. I've never heard of it before.
"What, who are… you?" I hugged my book closed to me as if it can protect me from this man.
"You will know in the future, I'm here to gave you the message your mother used to receive. And a warning."
My mother? She's dead long time ago from drugs.
"Okay?" I keep eyeing behind him. Trying to count how fast I can run to the door.
"Your transgression is forgiven, but this will be the only time. Soul is not yours for the taking. So, we will make a deal in the near future, for your safety."
Everyone is telling me about safety this and that, and I still don't know what am I endanger from.
"Gee, can you be more cryptic about it?" I asked sarcastically.
"I'm sure you're confused, but this is a warning you should not ignore."
"Alright, here's questions for you? Who are you? What do you want? And that's all you're saying can you please leave now?"
The man smiled. Like someone amused by my impatience.
"You will know who I am," he said.
"That's not an answer," I shot back, though my voice wavered despite my effort to sound brave. My fingers dug into the book's spine until it bent.
A soft chuckle escaped him. The sound didn't echo. It didn't belong in the café.
The bubble around us thickened. The air felt heavier, like pressure before a storm. I could see the barista moving behind the counter, her lips forming words but no sound reached me. A man laughed at a nearby table, frozen mid-motion like a photograph. I was alone with him.
"Then what are you?" I whispered.
For the first time, his smile faded. "None of your importance right now."
The café lights flickered. Something cold brushed my ankle. I looked down and my breath caught. Shadows pooled beneath his chair, stretching unnaturally long, curling like fingers against the tiled floor. Not solid. Not smoke. Something in between.
"Are you—" My throat closed. "Not human?"
"No," he agreed gently.
I swallowed. Hard. "Then why can I see you?"
His eyes softened not with pity, but with recognition. "Because you're not a human too.
Images flashed behind my eyes. The alley. The gunshot. The way the world held its breath when I held that man. The feeling is so good but also sickening at the same time. My stomach turned.
"You took something that night," he said quietly. "Not by intent. By instinct." The shadows receded. The pressure eased slightly.
"I am here to make sure you understand your place," he continued. "And because you are… an exception."
"I don't want to be," I said, my voice breaking. "I didn't ask for any of this. I just want my life back."
He regarded me for a long moment.
"You will never have the life you had," he said, but not unkindly. "But you may still have a life. If you listen."
"I'm listening."
"Do not take again," he said. "Souls are not yours, Emily. They belong to someone else."
The way he said my name sent a chill straight through me.
"And if I do?" I asked.
His gaze sharpened. The air dropped several degrees.
"Then next time," he said softly, "I will not come to warn you."
My pulse roared in my ears. "So what you're just going to threaten me and disappear?"
"I don't do threat. It's not in my nature."
"So, what?"
"It's all I have to say."
He stood. The shadows withdrew instantly, snapping back into place like they'd never existed.
"One more thing," he added, pausing. "You are not cursed. You are not damned."
I scoffed weakly. "Could've fooled me."
His lips twitched.
"Till next time," he said. And then he was gone. Not walked away. Just gone.
Sound slammed back into the café all at once. The hiss of the espresso machine, overlapping voices, the clatter of cups. I gasped, sucking in air like I'd been underwater too long.
My chair scraped loudly as I stumbled to my feet.
"Emily."
Jake's voice.
I spun around so fast my vision swam.
He was standing near me, eyes locked on me, face pale and tight with something dangerously close to panic. He crossed the distance in seconds and grabbed my shoulders, grounding, solid, real.
"Hey. Hey—look at me." His thumbs brushed my arms, careful, anchoring. "I can feel, what happened? Are you okay?"
I wanted to answer his so badly but I can't help but close my eyes and the next thing I know, I'm alone in the darkness.