Romans & histoires Gaslight

The house was too quiet when Ava rose from her seat near the fire. The embers crackled softly, the only sound in the grand hall. Pale moonlight bled through the stained-glass windows, casting red and violet patterns across the cold stone floor. She pulled her cloak over her shoulders, the fabric whispering as it slid across her skin. She needed air. A hunt. Something to sink her teeth into—literally. Her veins itched with hunger, and the stored blood in the cellar tasted like metal and regret.

POV DARLENE The transition from the "Half-Finished Room" was not a walk through a wooden door. It was a Violent Convulsion of the Soul. The smell of peppermint and woodsmoke didn't fade—it putrefied, turning into the stench of burning sage and sulfur. The quiet, peaceful Gia I had seen in the mirror didn't wave goodbye; she shrieked, her face melting into a cluster of Indigo Worms that crawled back into the void of my mind.

The blackout was not an absence of light: it was a presence of absolute, devouring gravity. Inside the central altar of the Silver Moon palace, the air had reached a state of "Super-Saturation." Every molecule of oxygen was so laden with antagonistic static from the government’s towers that breathing felt like inhaling pulverized glass. I stood between the statues of the Stone Sister and the Mountain Man, my hands trembling as I reached for the central nervous system of the mountain.

The absolute, suffocating darkness lasted for exactly four seconds. For Elara, those four seconds stretching across the suffocating silence of the Genesis Island penthouse felt like an eternity. The rhythmic, comforting hum of the server farm had vanished, replaced entirely by the violent howling of the Pacific storm battering the reinforced glass. Then, with a harsh mechanical clank, the localized auxiliary generators engaged. The penthouse was suddenly bathed in the sinister, pulsing crimson glow of emergency lighting.

After half an hour of watching Demis Agelastos in action, it was crystal clear that he didn’t give a damn what he said or how it was received. The mere fact that Lara was female put her in an inferior position. Meghan was different in her husband’s presence. She smiled and chattered merrily, putting on a show of great friendship towards Lara. She ate very little but her wine glass required constant replenishment. Father and son talked in Greek. Francine made polite, rather anxious conversation, her attention frequently straying to her sister-in-law. Lara was sipping her coffee when, with a guttural sound of fury, Demis reached out, snatched up his wife’s glass, and flung it violently against

A fire crackled somewhere nearby, casting dancing shadows across the walls. And my heartbeat—steady, slow, yet somehow stronger than before—echoed in my ears. It didn’t sound like it belonged to me. That’s when the dread set in. I stumbled to my feet, crossing the room to the gilded mirror. The face staring back was not my own. Skin pale enough to glow in the dim firelight. Silver hair that shimmered with hints of blue and white, catching the faintest gleam of the candles. Eyes… deep crimson, the color of wine freshly spilled across marble.

“He made me feel like I was losing my mind. He looked me in the eye and told me I was hallucinating the lipstick. He used the college incident… he used my own trauma to make me feel like a patient instead of a wife.” “Of course he did,” Sophie hissed. I could hear the rustle of sheets; she was likely sitting up, her voice already shifting into that cold, analytical tone she used when she was ready for a fight. “That’s the Sy playbook, Vic. If he can make you doubt your eyes, he can do whatever he wants in the dark. Gaslighting isn’t just a lie; it’s a war on your reality. But you have the number now. You have the message. You aren’t crazy. You’re a witness.” “

I told her calmly because I didn't want to lose my cool. "You can't accuse me of not wanting to know what is going on in the business. I asked you but you refused to tell me because your mother also..." She made quotes in the air. "Told you that I am a gold digger which you swallowed hook, line and sinker. So don't give me that trash, it is called gaslighting and I don't want that." She slammed her hands against my desk.

And sometimes—when the moonlight hit him just right—I’d swear his skin almost shimmered, like something just beneath it wanted out. I didn’t ask questions. Not yet. The mansion felt colder now. Not because of the air, but because of what hung inside it. Regret. Smoke. The memory of fire. ⸻ Gaya came to my room one morning, eyes shadowed from lack of sleep. She looked at me the way a person looks at a ticking bomb. “You should eat,” she said. “You always say that.” “You never listen.” “I don’t have much of an appetite for normal.”

he said, and this time he spoke the full phrase as it had been carved and misremembered and rewritten in the margins of frightened men: “Sulcatum. Rudmalian. Speculum. Sacculus. Repdetrious.” The half idol answered. Not with light or sound, but with * weight.* The oak dipped a fraction, subtle as a sleeping animal’s breath. The drawer pulls on the nearest cupboard clicked against their housings. The candle’s flame fluttered inward as if something inhaled. The line of fog on the window rose a centimetre, steady as a tide. Gabe’s hand went to the iron nail without thinking. Frank’s eyes flicked to the circle. “Don’t break it,” he said.