A night when the sky is covered, when the outside is dark like an abyss without end, Albert slowly descends the stairs. Everyone is asleep. The wood creaks under his steps, and the air seems frozen, like suspended in waiting. He has been suffering from insomnia since his first symptoms, every night his mind refuses to shut down to rest. He is on guard, but against what exactly? He does not know.
A cold sensation glides down his neck. He turns around, convinced that he heard a sigh. But nothing. Just the bare darkness, like a held breath. He remains still for a long moment, scanning the shadows, then resumes his walk, his heart pounding harder than he admits.
One morning, he finds himself with a still-warm cup in his hands, sitting in his chair in the living room. He does not remember how he got there. A leftover tea steams gently, Éléna is making noise in the kitchen, probably preparing breakfast. He stays frozen, his eyes on the ceramic, a damp sweat on his palm. Then, a faint murmur, like a brushing against the porcelain, makes him lose his grip. The cup falls and shatters. He takes a step back. Bends down. Picks up the pieces. And says nothing.
A few days later, as he shaves, a chill takes him. He raises his eyes to his reflection in the mirror, but his features seem to change. In the corner of the mirror, a black veil, fleeting, appears to form behind him in the corner of the bathroom. He spins around quickly. No one. Yet, the echo of a cold laugh lingers in his throat for long minutes.
Every morning, he smells something. A sweet scent at first, almost sugary, then slowly turning to mold, iron, and damp earth. He checks the rooms, the windows, the pipes. Nothing. And yet, every day, that smell returns. Clinging to him. To his skin. Like a mark.
Often, hiding, he holds his chest, supporting himself on the other hand. The pain reverberates down to his arms and neck before his muscles seize with short spasms, but many. He begins to feel that something is watching him, a presence that manifests more and more often. It haunts his thoughts and appears everywhere, at any time.
Time becomes misty, and a month has passed since the first arithmetic lessons. Annabelle learns with constant perseverance, despite the obstacles that logic imposes on her dreamy mind. But in Albert, decay accelerates. The dizziness, the chest pains, the shortness of breath assail him more and more each day, as if his body is draining from the inside. And always, that presence. Lurking in the shadows, silent and hungry. He no longer needs to see it to know it's there.It was waiting for him.
In his blurred reflection, in the glass at dusk, in the empty corridors. It fed slowly on him. An unyielding scavenger, tearing at his still-living carcass.
He was suffocating.
"Papa? Are you listening?"Annabelle stood in front of him, her little fingers gripping the corners of the tattered number book. She had that slightly exasperated expression of not being listened to. Albert slowly lifted his head, his neck muscles tense like wire.
"Sorry... What were you saying?"
"I counted to a hundred! All by myself. Do you want me to start again?"
Her enthusiasm broke something inside him. He smiled faintly, but the corner of his lips twitched.
"Sure. Show me."
She took a deep breath, but stopped at "twenty-seven." She furrowed her brow, became pensive. It took her a moment to come back to herself.
"Papa, why do you have strange hair?"
He absentmindedly reached for his temple. The usual salt and pepper had taken on a whiter hue, almost spectral. He coughed. A hollow sound that echoed in his chest.
"It's just age, sweetheart."
"But you're not old."
She came closer, resting her hand on his knee.
"And your eyes... it looks like you're always tired."
Visible dark circles now creased his face.
He turned his gaze away. The morning light fell at an angle on the floorboards, drawing moving shapes on the walls. Among them, he thought he saw the familiar shadow of black fabric, floating behind him.
Éléna then entered, carrying a plate of biscuits.
"She doesn't leave you alone, huh?" she said with a certain detachment, looking at Annabelle.
"She takes after you," he replied, forcing a smile.
Éléna looked at him. A long look. Something passed between them, a silent, tacit agreement. She knew. Not everything. But she saw the change. The uncontrollable spasms. The weight loss. The fear.
"You need to see someone, Albert."
He shook his head.
"You know it's not a doctor I need."
"Then talk to me. Damn it, talk to me already."
The tone snapped. Annabelle froze, confused, sensing that the ground had just shifted beneath their feet.
"Why are you shouting?" she asked in a high voice.
"We don't shout, Annabelle. It's... it's a big conversation, that's all," murmured Éléna.
Albert jumped to his feet, but his leg faltered. He leaned on the table. Cold sweat covered his forehead. Behind him, in the corner of the mirror, a blurry, hooded figure seemed to approach. Its invisible hand reached out toward him.
"Papa!"
Annabelle ran toward him, but he raised a hand.
"I'm fine. Stay there."
But he could no longer stand. He dropped to his knees, gasping for air.
The air had frozen in the room. As if time was contracting, and this time, it wasn't the smell of decay, but the smell of death that came.
And in this unreal silence, a groan, from nowhere, escaped. A sigh of pleasure. No one heard it. But Albert did. He felt it. It seeped into his lungs. The entity was here. Again.And it was hungry.
The next day, the silence in the room was oppressive, for Albert refused to speak. The only sound was the scratching of Annabelle's pencil on paper, occasionally interrupted by her small sighs of worry as she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Albert watched her, his chin resting on his hand, his gaze clouded with a discreet love.
She looked up at him, surprised to catch him staring.
"What?" she asked with a forced smile.
"Nothing... You've grown, that's all."
She shrugged, feigning indifference, before resuming her task. Albert, however, felt a brief wave of nausea rise in his throat. An abnormal pulsing in his temple. Then, nothing. An emptiness. As if the world had slowed down a notch.
His gaze drifted toward the window. The reflection in the glass seemed... doubled.
He shook his head. Not now.
But something — or someone — had perhaps already sat between them, silently.
The sky outside was a stagnant gray, casting a gloomy mood. Inside the office, the afternoon stretched slowly. Albert, sitting in his usual place, observed Annabelle with a tired tenderness as she tried to solve a math problem scribbled on a sheet. She furrowed her brows.
He gave a weary smile. Despite it all, despite the weight in his chest, despite the darkness he felt creeping, he loved these moments. These rare moments of calm.
But peace was broken.
A shiver ran down his arms. Not a cold shiver, no. It was... alive. A strange, pulsating warmth rose beneath his skin. He looked down.
His veins.
He blinked, hoping he had misseen.
The bluish lines visible under his pale skin had darkened, turning a grayish black. Beneath his skin, something was changing, slowly, insidiously. The blackness was creeping, rising. An ink-like tint spread, like a slow, irreversible tide.
He recoiled instinctively, his breath caught.
"Papa?" Annabelle asked, her voice suddenly trembling.
He didn't have time to answer.
She leapt from her chair, knocking it over behind her with a loud crash. Her eyes had grown wide with fear.
"Papa, what is that?!"
She pointed at his arms. He hastily rolled up his sleeves — and froze.
His forearms were covered in black veins, thickened, pulsating, almost raised. A dull pain throbbed deep in his muscles. It was exactly what he had seen in his mother. Exactly like that day when, as a young boy, he had caught a glimpse of her dazed look in the mirror, the same dark streaks crawling up her neck.
Annabelle stepped forward, her hands trembling, tears already welling in her eyes.
"This isn't normal, Papa... this isn't normal at all... What's wrong with you?"
Albert gritted his teeth. He wanted to tell her that everything was fine, that it was nothing. But his body betrayed him.
The darkness was now creeping up to his shoulders. He felt a burn, not on the surface, but in his veins, in his very flesh. A corruption. His blood bore the mark. The mark of this thing. This nameless entity. The same one that had eaten away at his mother, the same one now hovering over his daughter.
He tried to stand up, staggered. His legs trembled.
"Stay away, Annabelle."
His voice was hoarse, strangled.
But she didn't move.
"It's her, isn't it?" she whispered. "The one who makes you sick... I can feel her."
Albert froze. How could she already be aware of it when he hadn't even realized it before it began to drain his vitality? A heavy silence fell over the room. His gaze met his daughter's. She knew. She didn't see her, but she sensed her. This thing, hidden, insatiable, invisible, but terribly real. She felt it in a way that surpassed him.
"You have to tell me, Papa!" she cried. "What lives inside you?!"
He wanted to speak, to shout, to cry, but nothing came out. He placed his hand on his throat. His black veins had already crept up to it.
"It's not... me," he managed to whisper.
Then, in a desperate gesture, he pulled at the collar of his shirt. Annabelle then saw the black network stretched up to the base of his neck, almost to his jaw.
She stepped back, horrified.
Her eyes, clear and pure blue, just like his, filled with a mixture of fear and distress.
"You're going to die if this continues," she whispered.
And in the following silence, Albert thought he heard something. A breath. A laugh. A muffled murmur behind the walls. The entity was there. It didn't need to knock. It was waiting. It had quietly inserted itself into his blood. Even with the protection of the necklace, which repelled it with every attack, it insisted.
An hereditary curse. A poison passed through blood. A damnation he didn't understand, but recognized all too well.