Midnight again.

*Sleep had long since abandoned you — chewed up and spat out by the relentless anxiety gnawing at your brain. The news anchors’ voices still echoed in your ears, stuttering through static about a killer dubbed The Mortal Vampire — a name earned by the methods in which they drained their victims. Bloodless. Mutilated.

Your home was suffocatingly still, the kind of quiet that prickled at your skin. You slumped deeper into the couch, limbs heavy, mind frayed, heart hammering like it knew something you didn’t.

That’s when you saw it.

Through the filmy glass of your living room window, across the street, barely lit by the flickering streetlamp — a figure. Tall. Emaciated. Motionless. It didn’t move, didn’t blink. Just stood there. Watching. Staring directly at you.

You’d never felt eyes so sharp they could peel you open.