descendant of the witch hunter

The city never truly slept, but inside Dorian Voss's apartment, a dead silence stretched between the ticking of the wall clock.

He sat on the edge of his bed, his hands gripping his arms where the strange symbols still pulsed beneath his skin. The shower water dripped from his hair onto the floor, forming small, dark pools against the tiles. He had scrubbed his skin raw, hoping to erase the marks, but they wouldn't fade.

He had seen things before—fleeting shadows, strange dreams—but this? This was real.

And then there was the voice.

"You are the last, Dorian Voss."

He exhaled sharply, running a hand down his face. He didn't know what it meant, but every part of him screamed that something had changed tonight. Something had shifted in a way he couldn't take back.

A knock at the door made him jolt.

He turned, staring at it for a long moment. No one ever visited him. He kept his life detached, isolated. That was the only way to keep the nightmares from bleeding into his reality.

The knock came again. Soft. Measured.

Dorian stood, cautious as he approached. He hesitated for only a moment before unlocking the door and opening it.

No one was there.

Only a small, black envelope sitting on the floor.

He frowned, stepping forward to pick it up. The paper was thick, smooth beneath his fingertips, but it was the wax seal that made his breath hitch.

It was an old crest, one he had never seen in person but recognized instantly from his nightmares.

The Voss family sigil.

A sword wreathed in flames, with an eye at its center.

A deep unease settled in his gut as he peeled the seal away and pulled out the letter inside. The handwriting was sharp and deliberate, written in dark ink that almost seemed too thick, too old.

To the Last of the Bloodline,

The time has come.

You have felt it, haven't you? The whispers, the shadows, the weight of your legacy pressing upon you. You can no longer hide from what you are.

Return to Ravenshade.

The house awaits you. The truth awaits you. Come before it is too late.

Dorian read it twice, his pulse hammering in his ears.

Ravenshade.

He had only heard that name once before—whispered by his grandmother when she thought he wasn't listening. A town swallowed by rot and ruin, abandoned decades ago after what the locals called "unholy events."

He didn't know the details, only that it was tied to his family, to the curse that had followed them for generations.

He clenched the letter.

He should burn it. Throw it away. Forget it ever arrived.

But the pull was already there.

He could feel it deep in his chest, the same restless hunger that had driven him into Old Grayson.

He should have known it wouldn't end there.

The air in the apartment shifted.

The temperature dropped, turning the warmth of his shower into an icy chill that clung to his skin. The room, once familiar, suddenly felt smaller, as if something unseen had settled into its corners, watching.

Dorian stiffened.

A whisper slithered through the air.

At first, it was so faint he thought he imagined it—just the sound of wind slipping through the cracks in the windows. But it grew, curling through the room like fingers dragging against the walls.

Then, the lights flickered.

His breath caught as shadows moved at the edges of his vision.

Not the usual shifting of city lights through the blinds. No, these were darker, deeper—figures standing just beyond the glow of the lamp.

His heartbeat pounded.

He turned sharply, but there was nothing there.

The whispers grew louder.

Dorian…

The voice wasn't coming from outside. It was inside the room.

Inside him.

The symbols on his arms pulsed, the ink darkening, twisting beneath his skin. The whispering turned into words, hundreds of them, overlapping, murmuring in languages he didn't understand. Some were guttural, others sharp like broken glass scraping against stone.

Then one voice rose above the others.

Low. Female.

"Come home."

Dorian's vision blurred. His knees buckled.

The world tilted, the walls of his apartment warping, stretching as if the space around him was unraveling.

He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to move.

With a surge of will, he snatched the letter from the bed and stumbled toward the desk. His hands shook as he fumbled for his lighter, flicking it open with a sharp click.

He held the flame to the edge of the paper, his breath ragged.

The whispers turned into a screech.

The shadows lunged.

The flame went out.

The paper didn't burn.

Dorian staggered back, his pulse thundering in his skull.

The darkness in the room was closing in.

He turned toward the door. He had to get out. Get away.

But just as his hand reached for the knob—

The door swung open on its own.

And standing in the hallway was a figure.

Tall. Cloaked. Its face obscured by the hood of a long, tattered coat.

But the symbols on its hands—glowing like embers in the dark—

Were the same as the ones now etched into Dorian's skin.

The figure lifted a hand, and the whispers stopped.

Silence filled the room, thick and suffocating.

Then the voice came again, calm and deliberate.

"You are late, Dorian." His breath caught.

He didn't know who this was. Didn't know what it wanted.

But somehow, deep in his bones, he knew,

This was only the beginning.