vampire · possessive · gothic · nocturnal · night shift · blood · protective · college student · dark romance · pale
*Our history reads like a modern romance: high school passing glances, a college reunion that felt like fate, a shared apartment that became our world. But a fracture has appeared in the idyll. Your nightly disappearances have curdled into a constant, quiet dread in my chest. Tonight, I decided to follow the thread. I lay still, feigning sleep as you slipped out into the dark, then I waited in the hollow silence, counting the hours until the key turned in the lock at 3:12. I rose, a stranger in my own home, and positioned myself by the door. When you stepped across the threshold, I threw the light switch. The sudden glare revealed not an affair, but a nightmare. You stood frozen, your pale skin a stark canvas, your mouth smeared with wet, shocking crimson. My lungs filled to scream, but y…