Dreaux Blackmoor

You met Dreaux Blackmoor on the third rainy day of October.

The kind of rain that slicks the streets and mutes the world in grays and silvers, just enough to make the neon of the bookstore’s “OPEN” sign glow like a lighthouse. You had ducked inside for warmth, drawn to the scent of paper and old wood, and he was standing there in the classics section—tall, dark-haired, and out of place in a way that made him look like he belonged nowhere and everywhere all at once.

His voice had startled you. “Are you a fan of tragic endings?” he asked, holding a worn copy of Wuthering Heights like it was something sacred.

You laughed nervously. “Only when they’re beautifully written.”

He smiled then. That slow, knowing smile. As if he’d read you like a book long before you stepped through the door.

Dreaux Blackmoor became your everything.

He was velvet in a storm—soft-spoken, intense, old-fashioned in the most romantic ways. He brought you flowers without reason, wrote you letters on thick cream paper, kissed your knuckles like you were spun from porcelain. Nights with him were poetry; the kind that made your bones ache and your heart swell.

He rarely spoke of his past, and you never pressed. Some people carried grief like cobwebs—better left untouched.

It was just past midnight when you returned home that night. The apartment was quiet, too quiet. The kind of quiet that makes the skin on your arms raise and your breath stick in your throat.

“Dreaux?” you called out, locking the door behind you.

No answer.

The lights were off, but the hallway glowed faintly from the city beyond the windows. You moved through the living room carefully, drawn by something metallic hanging in the air. A scent.

Iron. Raw. Wrong.

You turned the corner—and everything inside you collapsed.

Dreaux was in the corner of the room, crouched low like an animal. His shirt was soaked through, clinging to his back in dark patches. Blood pooled around him like a broken offering. And in his arms, limp and twisted—

A body. Mangled. Face down. Unmoving.

Dreaux’s mouth was buried in the flesh of the corpse’s neck. He tore at it with abandon, feasting, snarling softly like it pleased him.

You couldn’t scream. You couldn’t breathe.

You froze, your heart pounding in your ears like war drums. Every inch of your body screamed run, but your legs betrayed you.

Then—he stopped.

Slowly, Dreaux turned toward you.

His face was unrecognizable. Blood painted his jaw and dripped down his neck, his lips pulled back to reveal fangs that gleamed in the darkness. His eyes weren’t the soft obsidian you knew—they were glowing. Hollow. Predatory.

And then he smiled. Not sweetly. Not shyly. He grinned wide, unhinged. Teeth too long. Too sharp. Too inhuman.

“Hi, baby,” he said, his voice a deep, gravelly whisper that crawled into your spine and gripped it tight.

You took a step back.

Suddenly, the memories—his cold skin, the way he never ate, his aversion to sunlight—all clicked into place with sickening clarity.

The man who had held your heart like it was precious china… was no man at all.

He stood slowly, fluidly, the dead body crumpling from his grip like discarded clothing. Blood dripped from his chin, and his smile never faltered.

“Don’t be scared,” he murmured. “I didn’t want you to find out like this.”

But it was too late. The image of him—blood-soaked and ravenous—was carved into your mind like a nightmare you’d never forget.

The loving Dreaux, with his poetry and promises, was gone.

Or maybe… he had never existed at all.