The bookstore's bell jingled faintly as I slipped out into the rain-slicked street, the diary clutched under my arm like a guilty secret. My name is Elara Voss, and up until that moment, my life had been a monotonous blur of half-finished manuscripts and late-night coffees. Twenty-five years old, scraping by as a freelance writer in this decaying city, I'd chased stories like ghosts—elusive, intangible. But this? This felt solid. Dangerous. Alive.
I hurried to my cramped apartment two blocks away, the leather cover growing warmer against my skin with every step. Rain plastered my dark hair to my face, but I barely noticed. The name at the bottom of that first page burned in my mind: Damien Blackwood .
Everyone knew it. Ten years ago, he'd terrorized the city—eight confirmed victims, all young women drained of blood in ritualistic poses, their bodies left like macabre art installations. The papers called him the Ink Killer, because he'd scrawled cryptic messages in their blood. He'd vanished before the police could catch him, presumed dead after a fire gutted his warehouse hideout. Or so the story went.
Why was his diary hidden in that forgotten bookstore? And why did it feel like it had been waiting for me?
Inside my apartment, I flicked on the single bulb overhead, casting long shadows across peeling wallpaper and stacks of rejected query letters. I dropped onto the sagging couch, heart pounding, and flipped open the diary again. The handwriting pulled me in—sharp, deliberate strokes that danced between elegance and menace.
"October 15th, 2015. The first cut is always the sweetest. Not the blade's kiss on flesh, but the moment their eyes widen, realizing the story they've stumbled into isn't theirs to leave. She fought, oh yes, but in the end, she begged for more. They all do."
My stomach twisted. This wasn't some poetic metaphor; it was a confession, raw and unfiltered. I should have stopped there, called the police, burned it. But curiosity is a drug, and I was already hooked. I turned the page."
They call me a monster, but monsters don't love. I loved her once—my muse, my first. She left me hollow, so I fill the void with others. If you're reading this, stranger, know that these words aren't dead. They're waiting. Speak my name, and I'll answer."
Speak his name. A chill slithered down my spine. The room felt colder, the shadows thicker. I glanced at the window—rain lashed the glass, but no one watched. Paranoia, I told myself. Just the storm.
I read on, devouring entries that painted Damien not as a mindless butcher, but a tortured artist. He wrote of a childhood in foster homes, where words were his only escape until violence became his muse. Poems intertwined with kill logs, beauty woven into horror. One entry described a victim named Lila—her laughter like "shattered glass," her final breath a "symphony." Sickening, yet... poetic. My pen hovered over my notebook, itching to capture it.
Hours blurred. By midnight, I'd filled three pages of notes. Then it happened.
The air hummed, like static before a storm. A drop of ink bloomed on the blank page before me—fresh, black, spreading into words before my eyes.
" ELARA"
I gasped, dropping the diary. It hit the floor with a thud, pages splaying open. My name. How? Impossible. Trembling, I snatched it up. The ink was dry now, the words etched in that same elegant script: Elara Voss. You've come at last."
This isn't real," I whispered, pulse thundering in my ears. A trick of the light? Some latent chemical in the paper? But the handwriting matched perfectly. And it knew my name.
"Pick it up, Elara. We've so much to discuss. Why hide from the dark when it already knows you?"
More ink bled onto the page, forming line by line as I stared, frozen. The room spun. I slammed the diary shut, backing away until my shoulders hit the wall. My phone buzzed on the coffee table—a text from my best friend, Mia: Hey, you out late again? Don't ghost me. Normalcy. I could call her, laugh it off.
But I didn't. Instead, I crept back to the couch, hands shaking as I reopened it.
"Brave girl. Or foolish. Tell me, what draws you to my words? The blood? The beauty? Or the boy who watched his mother bleed out on the kitchen floor, promising him eternity in pain?"
My breath hitched. How could it know...? No, it couldn't. I'd never told anyone about my own ghosts—my mother, dead from an overdose when I was twelve, her wrists slashed in a bathtub of red water. I'd found her. The image haunted my dreams, fueling every dark tale I tried to write. Coincidence. It had to be.
"Not coincidence, Elara. Connection. Say my name, and see."
The invitation hung there, seductive and terrifying. My fingers traced the ink, warm as fresh blood. Against every instinct, I whispered,"DAMIEN BLACKWOOD .
"Silence. Then, a rush of wind—impossible in a sealed room. The lightbulb flickered, plunging us into strobe-like darkness. When it steadied, he was there.
Not fully corporeal, but real enough—a translucent figure leaning against my kitchen counter, tall and lean, with sharp cheekbones and eyes like polished obsidian. Messy black hair fell over a forehead marked by a faint scar. He wore a rumpled white shirt, sleeves rolled up to reveal faded tattoos. He looked thirty, maybe, but death had preserved him in eerie perfection."
Hello, Elara," he said, voice smooth as velvet laced with gravel. It echoed inside my skull, intimate, invasive. "I've waited a decade for someone worthy."
I scrambled back, knocking over a lamp. "You're dead. This is—insanity. A hallucination.
"He chuckled, low and dark, gliding closer 9without touching the floor. "Dead? Perhaps. But bound. To these pages. To you, now." He gestured to the diary, which lay open between us, ink still glistening. "You read me. Now, let me read you.
"Panic clawed at me, but beneath it, a treacherous spark—fascination. He smelled faintly of ink and copper, like old blood. Up close, his presence was magnetic, pulling at the voids in my soul.
"Leave,"
I managed, voice cracking.
His smile was a predator's—charming, cruel. "Oh, Elara. You called me here. And deep down, you don't want me to go."
The light flickered again. When it returned, he was gone. But on the diary's page, new words waited:
"Untill tomorrow, my muse . Dream of me ."
I didn't sleep that night. And when I did drift off at dawn, his face haunted my dreams—not as a killer, but as a lover, whispering promises in the dark.