Carmiabell: The Black Apple

Chapter 26

DERRICK'S POV

On a cold winter afternoon, the last thing Derrick expected was an enigmatic stalker tailing him through the city.

At first, he dismissed the notion as a figment of his imagination. But the shadow lingering behind a tree outside his yoga class, the fleeting figure in the middle of an alley downtown, and the silhouette inside a passing carriage were becoming harder to ignore. Each sighting was brief but strangely distinct, like glimpses of a stranger who didn’t want to be seen.

The day wore on, and Derrick tried to shake off the sinister images. He brushed them aside, telling himself they were nothing more than his mind playing tricks. Perhaps it was paranoia; after all, he’d just received a promotion that day. The sense of being watched could simply be nerves.

That night, one of the few nights his wife was away, Derrick tucked himself under the blankets, letting sleep pull him into its embrace. But in the middle of a half-formed dream, the faint rattle of a spoon echoed from downstairs, jolting him awake.

His heart racing, he jumped out of bed and hurried to the stairs. Each step creaked beneath his feet, the sound growing louder in the tense silence. Reaching the bottom, he froze. In the dim glow from the streetlight filtering through the window, he spotted an indistinct silhouette just outside the glass.

It looked more shadow than human, with an eerie stillness that made his skin crawl. Its features were obscured, masked by a strange assortment of shards and fragments that defied the night’s darkness, as though it wore a disguise meant to blend into shadows themselves.

Swallowing his fear, Derrick called out, demanding to know what the intruder wanted. But his answer came not in words but in action. A small, metallic canister rolled across the floor and hissed as it released a cloud of white gas. The air quickly filled with a bitter, acrid scent that made Derrick’s eyes water. He had heard rumors of sleeping gas like this, rumored to be the tool of sorcerers and those dabbling in dark magic.

Instinct took over. He darted toward the basement, hoping to evade the gas and buy himself some time. But as he stumbled down the hallway, he realized the shadowy intruder was not alone. Every corner he turned, he saw replicas—figures in identical attire, each cloaked in the same shroud of secrecy.

In the confusion, Derrick barely managed to reach the basement door. His fingers fumbled with the latch, and just as he pushed it open, he lost his balance, tripping on the top step. He tumbled down the staircase, his body colliding with each step in a painful descent. His fall felt endless, a blur of agony and disorientation, until he finally hit the cold concrete floor.

Darkness claimed him.

When he awoke, it was to silence. His ears registered nothing but a faint, persistent ringing, and a sharp pain pulsed in his mouth. When he tried to speak, his tongue throbbed with a jagged ache, half-sliced from his fall. He quickly realized something far worse—he could no longer feel his legs.

News spread of a raid at Derrick’s home, but the details remained murky. No one listened to his story, I mean, who could, after he hit a whole staircase down his basement. His wife had returned, only to be greeted by paramedics and guards. For a brief time, she stood by him, her support a flicker of hope in his broken world. But as the weeks passed, so did her patience, and soon she left Derrick for another man.

As much as it pained him to recall that fateful eleventh of the eleventh—the day he lost his legs, his hearing, his ability to communicate fluently, and eventually, his wife—Derrick found himself strangely detached from it all. The memory of the anonymous intruder faded, blurred into the shadows of his mind, as if he’d never been invested in knowing their identity in the first place.