When Death Knocked

The storm came back the night he returned.

Thunder rolled like distant growls, and rain hammered against the windows with the same violence as the night I crashed. I sat alone in my apartment, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the black rose I still couldn’t throw away. It hadn’t wilted. Not a single petal had fallen.

Something in me knew what that meant.

When the lights flickered, I didn’t move. I just whispered into the dark, “You’re here, aren’t you?”

Silence answered first — then the slow creak of the door. I hadn’t unlocked it, but it opened anyway, inch by inch. Wind swept in, carrying that scent again — not of decay, but of frost and something ancient, like the air inside tombs that never see the sun.

He stepped through the threshold without a sound.

The Reaper.

His coat trailed behind him like a shadow detached from the world. Water glistened on his hair, but he wasn’t wet. His eyes burned silver in the dim light, steady on me.

“I told you,” he murmured. “Death never forgets.”

My voice cracked. “Why are you haunting me?”

He tilted his head, a faint curve to his lips. “You think this is haunting?” His tone dropped lower, dark silk wrapping around the words. “You escaped what was meant to be yours. I simply came to collect what’s mine.”

“I’m not yours,” I said, but the words sounded weak even to me.

He took a slow step forward. The lights dimmed with every movement, until only the glow of his eyes lit the room. “Then why did you call for me in your dreams?”

My throat tightened. “I didn’t—”

“You did,” he interrupted, his voice soft but sharp as glass. “Every time your heart raced in the dark, every time you whispered my name without realizing it, I heard you.”

“I don’t even know your name.”

“You do now.”

He reached out, gloved fingers brushing my chin. The air froze between us. My breath came out in a shaky cloud.

“Say it,” he whispered.

I didn’t know where the word came from — maybe it was planted in my soul the night I died. “Azrael.”

His smile deepened, both terrifying and beautiful. “Good girl.”

The shadows around him stirred, curling like living smoke. “You were supposed to cross with me that night,” he said. “But something in you resisted. Something powerful. It drew me in.”

“What do you want from me?”

His eyes softened — not kindly, but possessively, like a predator admiring its prey. “Everything.”

Lightning flashed, filling the room with white fire. When the light faded, he was closer, his hand against my cheek. His touch burned cold.

“Don’t fight me,” he murmured. “It’s pointless. Every mortal dies. But you—” his thumb traced my skin, “—you make death remember what it feels like to want.”

My knees trembled, heart thundering in my chest. I should have been terrified. I was. But beneath the fear was something darker.

Curiosity.

Desire.

And when he leaned closer, voice barely a whisper, I realized something worse than dying had already begun.

I was falling for him.

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