The Phantom (MM Dark Romance)

NICHOLAS

People talk about that electric eye contact, that feeling of rush, the tingle down your spine, the fluttering feeling in the stomach… and all other stupid terms people come up with to justify a lack of control and discipline.

The only person I ever felt that way for turned out to be the same person who ruined my life.

I can only justify that the only reason he made me feel that way was because he was so unlike any other person I’d ever met in my entire nineteen years of existence.

It was supposed to be just like any other day. I was vacationing with my dad at one of our owned remote cabins located by the edge of a large body of water. As a water mage, it was one of the few, beautiful occasions we could totally connect with the sea and nature. Mom was supposed to come along, but she had chosen to opt out at the last minute, choosing to go on a cross-country tour with her friends instead.

That very night, I woke up abruptly in the middle of the night, for no other reason than the sense that something was wrong. I still couldn’t explain why I felt that way.

But it was for good reason. Because the first thing I saw when I hit the lights in the living room was a strange man standing in the centre of it.

Except for my heart skipping a beat before returning to baseline, I was strangely calm.

The man was dressed in all-black, wearing a long, dark cloak, the hood pulled low enough that there was nothing but shadow underneath.

I couldn’t see his eyes, but I had this odd sense that he was staring at me.

I was rooted in place. I couldn’t move. Whether it was out of shock or disbelief, I didn’t know.

But it didn’t take long before my years of training kicked into gear. Dad had always said, act first and ask questions later—if they were still alive, that was.

I raised my hands, channeling that well of power inside me, and summoned the magic. The response was instantaneous.

Defense classes with Professor Harkins at the academy definitely paid off. 

The pitcher on the side table shuddered, then burst, and the water from the kitchen pipes rattled in the walls, answering my command. It rose around my fingers in cold, shining ribbons. 

“Don’t.” His cold voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m not here to fight you.”

“Then what are you here for?” I asked, my hand in the air, ready to attack.

He didn’t answer immediately. His head tilted slightly as he watched me unnervingly underneath his cloak.

Before he could speak, someone else joined us in the living room.

My father.

He stood at the foot of the stairs in his pajamas, one hand braced on the banister as he took in the scene in front of him.

The stranger’s attention snapped to him instantly.

I could feel the change in him. It was almost a physical thing in the air, like I could reach out and touch it. The temperature dropped. The pressure in the room tightened until my ears ached. Wind coiled around the stranger, lifting up his cloak.

“Who are you?” Dad barked, his eyes glowing a deathly shade of blue.

I didn’t wait for his answer 

I threw everything I had. The water whipped forward, hard and fast. The power that accompanied it, was the kind that had broken training dummies in half at our academy. It crossed the room and hit the place where he stood.

And hit nothing.

The water crashed against the far wall, making a huge dent in it, dust, white powder and bits of broken wallpaper billowing into the air.

The spot where the stranger had been standing was empty. He was there, and then he wasn’t, as though the air itself had swallowed him.

As though he had disappeared into thin air.

“The Phantom,” my dad whispered in realization.