The pact

Prologue

It's a quiet night. As the nights in the city always are. It's all he's ever known.

He frequents the empty streets often, the one time of the day when his thoughts can run free. When the city sleeps.

He's not aware of the tales the street kids tell. The reason the streets are empty. They talk about places that are not good for you. Places where, when the veil is thin in the night, they won't visit. They know there are places where people disappear, places where people go crazy, and places where they don't want to get stoned or sniff glue.

Darkness, that's what they call it. A darkness creeping into the world. They can feel it. There are things that can influence humans and there are things that can cross between the worlds. They feed on suffering, and pain, and they bring people into despair.

Some of them will say, that drugs help to protect you against it. They close you down, and the things cannot come to you. But others say this is not true. This is how they get into you.

Some people, or so stories go, even make a pact with these beings. But it's a thing they don't want to talk about.

The man doesn't know any of this. Had he been aware of the tales passing through the slum-dwellers, he would never have left his flat. But he's not aware. Not yet.

He's taking the usual route, that leaves him passing the deserted train station. Is it because he's passed it countless times before, that he never reflects on the sudden urge to go inside? In any case, he veers off the familiar street and walks with steady steps towards the abandoned building. It's pressing him forward, pushes him to go inside. It's only as he draws closer that another feeling creeps in on him. That he shouldn't, that he should turn around and keep walking. As he comes to the door, he halts, and despite not believing in old wife tales, turns, and hurries back onto the street. He doesn't continue his walk after that, but takes the shortcut that will take him back to his flat. And the whole way, he cannot shake the feeling that something is following him. That there is something in the shadows.

It fades as he returns to his flat, and soon he has forgotten about it. As sleep takes him, the dream visits him for the first time. A cloaked man, just out of reach to see, luring at the edges. He never connects the two events, and by the morning, both the dream and what happened on the walk are forgotten.

The weeks pass, and he doesn't get a chance to take another walk. He spends his days in the office and the evenings composing his latest song. It's only after a week of meetings at work that he feels the need to clear his thoughts, and as the city goes to sleep, he puts on his shoes and heads out.

He doesn't remember what happened last time, but unbeknownst to him, his feet won't carry him close to the deserted train station again. He takes another path, walking through other empty streets. The feeling creeps in on him at first. That he is followed. A trick of the mind, he tells himself as he looks around the empty street. But even so, the walk becomes shorter than usual, and he soon returns to his flat. That night, the dream visits him again. But just as last time, the two events remain separate in his mind. In the end, everyone has nightmares sometimes.

He'll continue his walks, and most of them will be as quiet as he remembers from the past. But sometimes, the feeling returns. There is something out there. Something he doesn't want to meet. Every time, he tries to talk himself out of it. There is nothing there. He's spent too many days alone in his flat. He needs company, spend a night at the bar with his friends. But each time, the walk will be shorter than usual.

Then comes the night when he cannot talk himself out of it any longer. It's a quiet night, and his gaze wanders, his straying thoughts finding the missing notes of his latest song. As he looks up, there is someone standing on the empty street in front of him. A man-shaped figure draped in black. He swears he doesn't look away, but the next moment, the figure is gone, vanished into thin air. And this he won't be able to explain, won't be able to talk himself out of it, and he turns and runs back to his flat. The night has lost its peacefulness and left is an uneasy feeling that won't leave him.

He won't take any more walks after that. The months pass, and he'll spend his evenings by his computer until enough time has passed for him to tell himself that it was nothing else than a trick of the mind. This time, after so many months, he believes it and the next night, as the city falls asleep, he puts on his shoes and heads out. The cloaked man doesn't return, nor the creeping feeling of being followed, and slowly, the nights restore themselves to the quiet walks he remembered. By the end of the year, it's nothing but a distant memory. And he has almost forgotten about it, when one night, the cloaked man is standing in front of him again. This time, he doesn't run. The nights are his once again, and as the figure vanishes, he takes up the chase. It leads him to an alley, the only place the man could have disappeared, but as he looks down the long passage, it's empty. At the end, there is a wall, too high for any human to climb. He walks up to it, trying to find a fault where the man could have escaped, but is left empty-handed.

That night, the dream comes to him again but just as last time, he never connects the two events.