Page 37 of The Flesh Remembers
Marian’s face paled, her expression tightening as shame seeped into her features. “Please, Eleanor, don’t speak of it if you're my friend.” Her voice cracked, barely audible.
“Mar-” Eleanor began, stepping toward her.
“Please!” Marian’s sudden cry echoed through the dim room. “Let’s forget it! I beg you, Eleanor, please!” Tears streamed down her face, her hands clinging to Eleanor’s arm, trembling with desperation.
Eleanor hesitated, studying the terror etched into her friend’s expression. Finally, she nodded, her voice barely above a whisper. “All right. As you wish. But know I’m here for you.”
Marian’s fingers slowly released their grip, and she touched Eleanor’s cheek softly. A faint smile flickered across her lips, though it was fragile, like the dying embers of a fire.
The moment hovered, heavy and brittle.
Then, Eleanor heard it—a faint and indistinct voice drifting down the hall like a breeze that shouldn’t exist. It was distant yet unmistakable, a whisper brushing the edges of her mind.
Her breath hitched, and she stiffened, her gaze snapping to the doorway. The voice came again, clearer this time, a low murmur that sent a shiver racing down her spine. It wasn’t James. It wasn’t Marian. And yet, it called her name.
“Eleanor…”
She blinked, her chest tightening as the sound faded into silence. Her heart pounded in her ears, and for a moment, she convinced herself it was nothing, a trick of her tired mind. But deep down, the unease lingered like a shadow she couldn’t shake.
“What is it?” Marian asked, her brow furrowing as she followed Eleanor’s wide-eyed stare toward the empty hallway.
“Nothing,” Eleanor whispered, forcing the word out as her pulse raced. “It’s nothing.”
But as the silence pressed in around her, she wasn’t sure which unnerved her more, the voice she thought she heard, or the possibility that it was all in her head.
Excerpt from the diary of Dr. Eleanor Ashcroft
I no longer recognize myself. I was a doctor, grounded in science, yet now I am surrounded by shadows and rituals that defy all reason. James has returned, but is it truly him? Or something else?
The clinic feels alive in ways it shouldn’t. Shadows move where they shouldn’t, faint whispers call my name, and just last night, I saw a figure by the window, gone the moment I turned. My mind insists it’s fatigue, yet deep down, I wonder.
The rituals demand more of me each day, leaving marks I can’t see but feel on my soul. Marian avoids my gaze, her shame palpable after what transpired with James. Tonight, she begged me to forget it, and for her sake, I relented.
But how can I forget when the shadows breathe, when the voices haunt me? How can I ignore the growing sense that whatever we’ve returned isn’t entirely human?
I fear losing myself, my reason, my identity, perhaps even my sanity. What will be left of me when this is over?
The Thing that Feeds on Your Fear and Desire
The moon hung like a voyeur, its silver gaze piercing through shattered panes, illuminating the attic with a cold, unyielding scrutiny. Its light sliced the shadows precisely, as though carving out secrets hidden within the oppressive silence. The attic seemed to breathe in that silence, alive and heavy, pressing against Eleanor’s skin with an almost deliberate weight, daring her to disturb its stillness. Her heart thundered in her chest, each pulse reverberating in her ears, as if the room amplified the sound, a rhythmic echo that felt less like her own and more like the heartbeat of the space around her.
James was there, and he had summoned her to him. Marian had told her a few hours after leaving James to restthat he wished to see her in the attic. He was waiting there for her. Marian could not hide the disappointment at not being summoned by James, and Eleanor knew it must have been difficult for her to give the message. But she also knew Marian would have done anything James asked of her. Such was the hold he seemed to have over her.
James stood with his back to her, his broad shoulders trembling, his fingers clawing through his dishevelled blonde hair. The air around him crackled, electric and feral, pulling at her like an unseen force. The rhythmic sound of his laboured breathing was too human and intimate, yet there was an undercurrent, something guttural, animalistic.
And then she saw it.
A startled exhalation escaped her lips, caught between shock and something darker as her gaze fell. James’s hand moved with a deliberate rhythm, each stroke of his hard cock was raw, desperate, obscene. The low, guttural groans that spilled from his lips filled the room like a predator’s growl, and the sight rooted her in place, her body frozen in a mix of horror and fascination.
He wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t ashamed.
This wasn’t the James she knew; this was something primal, untethered, a creature lost in its ravenous hunger. Her voice, small and trembling, betrayed her.
“James.”
He stilled.
The name lingered in the air like a forbidden incantation, and his entire body tensed, his muscles coiling with dangerous precision. Slowly, excruciatingly, he turned. The glow of his eyes burned through the darkness, their cold light searing into hers with an intensity that stole her breath.
