XLVII
He steps out of the fog like he's been waiting behind a curtain, his top hat perfectly straight, his coat trailing behind him like a shadow with its own hunger. His cane tapping in a familiar cadence as he dances his way towards me.
His waxy yellow eyes gleam with delight.
"Hello," he purrs, voice smooth as grave dirt.
"I didn't expect you here."
He tilts his head, studying you the way a predator studies a creature that wandered willingly into its den.
"When you disappeared…"
"I mourned you."
He says it like a lover lamenting a lost flame, but his smile is all teeth, his pale face a mask of feeling.
"Your taste…"
"I regretted not sinking my teeth into you when we last met."
His grin widens, stretching too far, too thin, predatory and triumphant. The fog behind him boils, forming the shapes of half‑made hounds, their blue eyes blinking in and out like dying stars.
He steps closer, boots not touching the ground.
"But look at you now," he whispers.
"Walking willingly back to me."
"How considerate."
The crack in the monolith pulses behind him, widening with each word he speaks. The fog rises like breath. The souls he's devoured flicker around him like trapped fireflies, their light dimming as he feeds on their despair.
He lifts a hand, long, clawed, and elegant, touches my cheek with a cold that burns.
"This time," he murmurs,
"I won't make the same mistake."
The dream tightens like a noose, a spell I'm unable to break.
The fog parts like curtains as the hat man approaches, his long coat sweeping the ground without a sound. The cracked mirror behind him pulses with dim light, casting fractured reflections across the black stone floor.
He extends a gloved hand toward me. Not politely.
But with the confidence of someone who already believes I belong to him.
"Come," he says, voice low and velvety.
"Let us revisit what should have been."
I didn't remember stepping forward, yet suddenly his hand is in mine. His grip is cold, not icy, but the chill of something that has forgotten warmth. He pulls me into a slow turn, guiding me into a waltz across the fog‑shrouded valley.
The world around us shifts.
Gravestones rise like pillars. Fog coils like ribbons.
The cracked monolith becomes a towering backdrop, glowing faintly with stolen souls.
He moves with impossible grace, each step precise, each turn deliberate. His top hat casts a shadow across his face, but his yellow eyes gleam beneath it, fixed on me with predatory focus.
"You dance better in dreams," he murmurs.
"Here, you cannot run."
His hand slides to your back, intimate and controlling, guiding movements as though the dance is a ritual he has practiced for centuries. The fog swirls around your feet, lifting me slightly, making each step feel weightless.
He leans close enough that you feel the cold radiating from him.
"I missed you," he says, voice almost tender.
"Your soul had such brightness. Such flavor."
He spins you sharply, the fog rising in a spiral around your body. When he catches you again, his grin is wide, too wide, stretching into something inhuman.
"I regretted not taking you when I had the chance."
The dance slows. His hand tightens. The fog thickens.
Shadow hounds circle the edges of the dance floor, their blue eyes glowing, their bodies half‑formed and hungry. They watch the two of us with reverence, as though witnessing a coronation, or waiting for their master to bestow a meal.
He lifts your chin with one cold finger.
"But you came back to me," he whispers.
"And I do not waste second chances."
The cracked mirror pulses behind him, the fracture widening with each beat of the waltz. The souls trapped inside flicker like dying candles, their light reflecting in his eyes.
"Dance with me until the world breaks," he says.
"And when it does… your soul will be the first I claim."
The music is only fog and heartbeat. The dance is a trap.
And his smile is the promise of a predator who has waited far too long.
The fog coils around my ankles as I ask him a question, my voice barely more than a breath in the dark.
"How...how did you find me here."
He stops mid‑step in the dance, the waltz freezing as though the entire mirror realm is holding its breath. His hand remains at your waist, fingers cold and deliberate, and his other hand lifts your chin just slightly enough to force your gaze into his.
His grin spreads slowly.
Not human. Not kind. A feral, predatory smile that shows too many teeth, all of them too sharp.
"How am I here? How did I find you?" he echoes, savoring the words. "My dear… I never left you."
He leans in, the brim of his top hat casting a shadow across your face, his yellow eyes glowing beneath it like lanterns in a crypt.
"You walked away from me in the cemetery." "But you carried me with you."
His thumb traces the line of your jaw not affectionate, but a claim.
"Every fear, every memory you have imprinted you to me."
He circles you in the dance again, slow, deliberate, the fog rising around your legs like a partner of its own. His coat sweeps the ground, the hounds watching from the edges with reverent hunger.
"I am here because you remember me." "I am here because you fear me." "I am here because your soul shines so brightly it cracks the veil."
He pulls you close, the dance tightening, his breath cold against your ear.
"And I am here," he whispers, "because I want you, to make you part of me."
The music is the pulse of the cracked mirror behind him, beating like a heart that shouldn't exist. The fog swirls faster. The hounds creep closer. His grip on your waist tightens just enough to remind you that this dance is not yours.
His grin widens again, feral and triumphant.
"You ask how I am here." "But the better question is…"
He tilts your head back with a single cold finger, eyes blazing.
"…how I will let you leave me now."
My spirit starts to grow as he spins me through a veil of memory. I saw him as he consumed souls in the shattered mirror land.
The fog becomes a curtain, parting to reveal scenes you never wanted to see again — scenes he wants me to see.
He was not a simple being, but a ravenous force.
A creature crouched over dying souls, his yellow eyes glowing with hunger as he devours their light. His shadow hounds circle him like worshippers, snarling and snapping at the scraps of spirit he lets fall.
He shows you this as if showing you a treasured memory.
"You see," he murmurs, spinning you again,
"I was starving."
The veil shifts.
His hunger sharpens. His eyes burn brighter.
"And then," he whispers,
"I tasted you."
He grew hungry only consuming the souls of the dying when he'd tasted mine, bright and living.
The dance slows. His grip tightens.
The fog rises around your legs like a living thing.
He guides me through another veil, this one showing the moment he discovered the cracked mirror. The fracture glows, pulsing with potential. His hands press against it, warping the glass, widening the breach. He needed a way out into the larger universe, to tastier souls, so he found a way to break through. He found a cracked mirror that his power could warp and sent his hounds through it. Now he was on the verge of doing what he wanted, to break out into the larger mirror universe.
I see him sending his hounds through first, testing the crack, testing the world beyond.
I see him learning. Growing. Feeding.
"I needed more," he says, voice low and velvety.
"More souls. More worlds. More light."
He leans close, his breath cold against your cheek.
"And now I am on the verge of everything I ever wanted."
The cracked mirror pulses behind him, widening with each beat of the dance. The souls trapped inside flicker like dying stars, their light feeding the fracture.
He spins you once more, the fog rising in a spiral around your body.
"The larger mirror universe awaits," he whispers.
"And you… you are the key that opened the door. I thank you with all my heart"
His grin widens, feral, triumphant, hungry.
The dance stops.
The fog holds you in place.
And his yellow eyes burn with the knowledge that he is almost free.
The sunlight grew bright with the same burn, breaking the dream and letting me back into the waking world.