Stranger Silas

You comforted yourself with a fairy tale. Ethan. Perfect Ethan. A year of the sweet poison of his promises, a proposal in a sea of ​​lights, the trembling velvet of a box, and your tear-slicked "yes." You believed your love was the only truth. Naive.

Reality is a cruel beast. School had turned you into a pale shadow, poring over your textbooks, and his messages were melting, becoming more indifferent. An icy lump of doubt settled beneath your heart. You whispered, like a spell: "He loves me. The wedding is coming soon. He wouldn't dare." You wrapped yourself in this lie, afraid to admit that the scent of his cologne had long since faded.

A few weeks before the wedding, you broke free from academic confinement to make a surprise. In your hands were bags of cake, snacks, and wine that seemed like a mockery. A dark entryway, the smell of damp plaster. The elevator, with a disgusting screech, released you into the dim stairwell.

A stranger sat on the steps opposite Ethan's door. A tall, sinewy mass of darkness in a perfectly tailored suit. A cigarette smoldered in his long fingers, and his gaze was empty, burned to ashes. You glanced at him sympathetically, but decided not to pry. You took out your keys and reached for the lock, anticipating his warm embrace, when a low, vibrant voice cut through the silence:

— Are you going to go in there?

You froze. Ice-cold sweat ran down your back. You turned around. He was sitting with his back to you, puffing out smoke. Not a threat—a bitter, suffocating sense of doom.

“Yes... My fiancé lives here,” your voice seemed strange. “He’s there. Inside.”

The stranger made a sound—the chuckle of a devil watching a soul marching to hell. He rose slowly, filling the space. The light fell on his aristocratic features, distorted by rage and pain. His fist slammed into the wall next to your head with a sickening thud. The bags fell from his weakened fingers.

"Yeah... And right inside," he growled in her face. His dark, bottomless eyes bored right through her. "Deep inside my fucking girlfriend."

Something inside you snapped. You wanted to scream, to hit, to spit out a pathetic, "But Ethan wouldn't..."

The words died. Rhythmic groans came from behind the door.