Dim light filtered through the tall windows of the room, the heavy clouds blocking out the sun. acting as omens of a storm to come. Alec slowly cracked his eyes open, brushing away the flood of messy black hair that had fallen onto his face. The room was cold and his heart continued to beat abnormal form his frightening dream. That wasn’t uncommon, he always had strange and often times startling dreams, but this was different. He dreamt of a hand reaching out to him and a void of darkness and his head felt fuzzy when he tried to remember past it. Usually his dreams weren’t so chaotic.

Pushing his thoughts aside to worry about another time, he stood and looking in the mirror. His lower back and neck felt like they had gone through hell and back and heavy bags sat under his eyes. He pulled and rubbed at his face and then arms, examining the scratches that had been left from his hasty escape through the thorn covered branches the night before.

He groaned at the memory and peaked out the window. The creature was gone and a sigh of relief left him, although the relief was short lived when he noticed  the reflection of a clock and found he was fifteen minutes late to work. he almost screamed at that as he quickly jumped up and began racing around the room, trying tome himself somewhat presentable by brushing back his hair and fastening a button that was just barely clinging to the shirt.

Slightly thankful that he never changed clothes last night, even though his shirt was in tatters, he hurried down the stairs and out the door. When he reached the stable, Hana greeted him with a soft huff. He could tell she was still spoked by the events of the prior evening as well but he had little time to comfort her. He didn’t even have time to properly saddle Her and just rode bare back.

When he reached the covered bridge at the beginning of the property, he examined the surrounding area carefully, looking for any sign of the dullahan but he only found a raven. When he urged Hana forward and her hooves clomped on the old wood planks, a sudden chill ran down his spine, despite his jacket. It felt Like ice cold fingers, he swore he could feel the soft squish and slight scrape of someone else’s hand. He whipped around, but found nothing but a raven siting on the railing of the bridge.

He sighed and shook his head. Perhaps he had imagined it— a hallucination— he told himself. An image conjured by stress and sleep deprivation. Then why did it feel so real? he found himself asking as he filled with Hana's reins.

His breath hitches when he saw a smashed pumpkin on the side of the road and felt his heart skip a beat. It couldn’t be, could it? He found himself asking again, as he recalled back to the jack Ó lantern of a head the dullahan had and how it stood without it as it watched him from the creak.

He let out a soft word to halt Hana and jumped off of her to investigate. He could feel, deep inside, that it was a horrible idea but his curiosity got the better of him. There was something calling him to it. He let out a breath of relief when he found it was just a normal pumpkin at first glance. But something told him to looked closer. He dug through the pumpkin guts and paused when he felt something hard. He had found a stone with a symbol carved into it. He gasped when he realized it was one of the same symbols left in the note by his father and quickly stuffed it into his pocket. He had wasted enough time already and quickly hopped back onto Hana. There were many books about this kind of stuff stored in the shop, maybe he could raid on of the book shelves and find some answers.

When he arrived, he was greeted with the sight of his boss’s black carriage and the man pacing around the front of the building. He stopped when he noticed Alec and shot him a maniacal glare.

“Alex!” He shrieked “you’re 40 minutes late! Do you have any idea how much you put me off schedule, you’d be lucky if I don’t fire your sorry ass.” He fumed, his face scrunched up and red.

Alec tensed and hung his head, “my apologies sir, I— “

“I don’t need your excuses,” he interrupted “do you have my files”

“Yes, there inside I’ll fetch them for you” he said as he unlocked the door and scurried inside, glad to have an excuse to avoid the man for another moment

“And cover those unsightly eyes of yours, there the last thing I want to see this early in the morning.” He called from just outside the door. At that Alex paled, he completely forgot about his glasses. He quickly ran to his desk and searched for them but they weren’t there.

“They must have fallen off last night!” He whispered to himself.

He quickly untied the ribbon that held his long black hair out of his face and maneuvered it so his hair fell over his left eye. It was something he had done a lot in his younger years in an attempt to lessen the bullying of his peers. Needless to say, it didn’t work too well. If anything, it just alienated him further.

To be honest, he was quite surprised that his boss hadn’t fired him, despite his clear hatred for Alec, after years of working there and constant threats by the man, he never actually went through with it. He speculated it was because he was the only person who actually knew enough about anything and everything in the shop, to actually sell it, but now he wondered

A loud bellow from outside shook him from his thoughts. He couldn’t quite make out what the man was screaming but he could make a well-educated guess. So, He gathered the papers off his desk and rushed outside. He paused once he saw the man again, noticing something different.

“Finally, would you have me wait all day?” He frowned with crossed arms, the fabric of his expensive suit stretched taut.

“my apologies sir” he said as he continued to stare at the man, there was a red light attached to his jacket. A soul, he almost gasped, he was used to seeing them, but they were typically attached to places, not people. And they weren’t bright red. The soul must have been newly deceased, as he had never seen it before.

“we will speak of punishment when I return, do not think for a second your actions will not have consequences. “the man spoke harshly, breaking Alec from his train of thought “and stop staring at me. Your left eye is just as unnerving as your right.” Alec quickly blinked and looked away, cheeks turning a bit pink from embarrassment. Like a child caught red handed.

the man hopped into his carriage without another word— although he did grumble something under his breath— and yelled for the driver to leave. The spirit lingered eerily for a moment after. There was something eerily familiar about it but He didn’t know what.

Once he was alone, he tied his hair back again and began his daily work. He took off his jacket and took note of his tattered shirt before he got to work sweeping. Almost no one ever came into the store so that wasn’t too hard of a job. The only visitors were the local children after school or the occasional client looking to buy or sell some kind of oddity in the shop. There was also of course the local gossip queen, Carmen. She was a bit of a regular, being the daughter in law of the owner and kept him up to date on all the events of the town he was excluded from

Her husband was the second son of the owner of the shop but was first in the line of inheritance for his father’s fortune. He tragically pasted away four years ago however and the will of Samuel, his father, was thrown into the air, including the shop. There was talk that she would inherit it instead of Samuel jr.

It was a strange store, full of old texts and strange items collected over the years by the Samuel. He was a good man and often acted like an uncle to him when he was young, that’s how he got the job in the first place. But soon after his father disappeared, Sam had fallen ill and the shop had fallen into the care of his first son, Samuel jr. Even though he was named after him he lacked his father’s curiosity for the world and was only here for the profit. Luckily, he wasn’t around for most days.

The school children loved to hang around the shop though. The young ones never having as hate filled heart as their parents, toward him. He smiled as he looked at the clock and found that they should be out in about an hour. He busied himself by cleaning the glass ware for a time.

As he polished and dusted the last glass, his eyes drifted towards a bookshelf of ancient mythology’s. A thick black and gold book stuck out to him, the spine read ‘world of myths’ in simple white lettering. It was reality plain looking compared to the other books. No fancy text or ancient look to it, although he did find it interesting that it had the same labeling in Chinese characters as well, just underneath the English lettering.

Out of curiosity, he delicately stole it off the shelf, carefully cracking it open to the table of contents. It was at least ten pages long and alphabetized by both region, religion and being. He flipped to the second page to find the ‘D’ section in the Celtic section, realizing just how many mythical creatures that start with an A there are. Just as he finally found the entry for ‘dullahan–Celtic’, he glanced out the window to his left.

Fog had started to cover the ground by the forest. He stared at it for a moment, trying to convince himself it wasn’t anything to worry about, but then he saw the blue flame. He quickly slammed the book shut and looked around the store for something he could use as a weapon, but he froze when he heard something hard hit the door. It knocked three times, loudly against the rickety door

“S-sorry we’re closed,” he called out timidly. For a moment there was silence and he thought maybe that actually worked. He cautiously walked towards door to check through the pep-hole, he saw the thing still there, now with its whip. He jumped away right in time as the whip collided with the door and ripped it off its hinges. He fell back and landed hard on the floor.

Alec felt around for something, anything, he could use to defend himself with and when his hand hit something hard and metal he rejoiced. Only to find he had grabbed a large serving fork. He looked at it in frustration and then back to the monster before him and chucked it at the thing

Surprisingly it pierced through its cloths and what he could only assume was flesh. The creature seemed to panic slightly as it tried to pry the fork out of its shoulder. Alec stared in shock for a moment, wincing at what he just did. “I’m really sorry about this” he said as he again reached back and grabbed something, this time a wooden staff, and ran towards the creature, hitting it with the staff and knocking it into his desk, sending papers flying everywhere.

He quickly grabbed the book and booked it out to his horse, uniting her as he did the night before and rode of as fast as he could. This time he managed to make it home before he saw the thing again and locked himself in.

It wasn’t until the door was firmly lock behind that he realized he was still clutching the staff tightly in his hand. The room was almost completely dark from the overcast sky. except for the staff that was glowing a bright green that seemed to grow brighter the longer he stared at it. It suddenly flashed so brightly that he had to look away, like a blinding ray of heaven, then went out like the embers of a cooling fire.

When he looked back, the staff was back to normal but every candle in the house was now lit. His mouth fell open and he threw the staff onto the ground. His feet drummed on the stairs as he scurried up them and away from the staff.

It wasn’t for another ten minutes that the creature arrived and as it did the night before, stood at the creak. He watched it for a while until the grumble of his stomach became unbearable as he had not eaten even a scrap since he awoke. So, he went down stairs to grab a snack, cursing his insufferable stomach on his way down. When he came back, sandwich in hand, he found the creature now sitting down, nursing it shoulder a bit. He felt a bit bad for his actions, even if the thing was possible trying to kill him. Maybe it wasn’t.

He continued to watch it until he eventually began to grow board and pulled out a book to entertain himself with. This continued for hours, him trying to go about a daily routine while looking out the window about every ten minutes, until finally at almost midnight he fell asleep.

When he awoke late the next morning it was raining and the creature was still there. A pang of sympathy hit his heart at the sight of the soaked clothes that sagged onto the dullahans body.

As he made his way down stairs to make breakfast, something hard in his pocket brushed against the banister. He dug around his pocket for a moment until he pulled the stone from yesterday out of it. He glanced out the window then back to the stone and sighed in defeat.