The Glass Wolf

In the quiet suburb of Måneby, twenty thousand souls slept under a blanket of stars. My flat, on the third floor of a brick building, overlooked a courtyard where birch trees whispered in the wind. I never believed in ghosts, not really. I’d feel the odd vibration in a room, but chalked it up to trains on the distant tracks. But this night was different.

I woke with a start, the digital clock on my nightstand glowing 3:13 AM. I’d only been asleep for an hour, but my body felt heavy, as if drugged. My room was dim, lit only by the pale streetlight filtering through my window—the one directly opposite my bed. I lay there, staring at the curtain, a simple roller blind that I’d pulled down before sleep. It was then that I noticed a strange silver glow emanating from behind it, a light that seemed to pulse faintly, like a heartbeat.

I sat up, my heart quickening. The air in the room grew cold, and I could feel that familiar vibration, but stronger, more insistent, as if something huge was pressing against the very fabric of reality. I reached for the lamp, but the switch clicked uselessly. The glow intensified, and the curtain began to bulge inward, as if something on the other side was pushing it.

A shape began to form, pressing against the thin material—a silhouette, tall and gaunt, with a head too large for its body. It had long, spindly arms and legs, and its fingers, if you could call them that, were elongated, like the branches of a dead tree. The head turned, and I saw two glowing eyes, like embers, staring right through the curtain at me.

I wanted to scream, but my throat closed up. The figure raised a hand, and the curtain slid up, as if pulled by an unseen string. What I saw made my blood run cold. It wasn’t a ghost. It was a creature of glass, its skin transparent, revealing veins of liquid mercury that pulsed with a sickening light. Its face was featureless, save for those burning eyes, and its mouth was a jagged crack that opened into a void.

The creature pressed its face against the glass, and I heard a high-pitched keening sound, like a fork scraping a plate, but inside my skull. It spoke, not with a voice, but with a vibration that resonated through my bones. ‘You see me,’ it said, and the words echoed in my head, even though its mouth didn’t move. ‘You are the first in a hundred years.’

I scrambled out of bed, backing against the far wall, my hands fumbling for the switch as I tried to find any means of escape. The creature’s hand pressed against the window, and I saw the glass begin to crack, spreading like frost in the cold. It was coming through. I had no way out but the door, and that was on the other side of the room, past the window.

In desperation, I grabbed the heavy book from my nightstand—an old encyclopedia—and hurled it at the window. The book passed through the creature as if it were smoke, and shattered the glass. The creature let out a sound that was both a shriek and a laugh, and it stepped into the room. The shards of glass hovered in the air, then shot toward me, embedding themselves in the wall around my head, forming a cage. I was trapped.

The creature advanced, its feet leaving no footprints on the carpet. It stopped in front of me, its burning eyes inches from mine. ‘You have a choice,’ it said, its voice like the scraping of windblown sand. ‘You can join me, and see the truths that lie beyond the veil. Or you can remain here, and I will make you forget, and you will live out your days in blissful ignorance.’

I stared at it, my mind racing. This was not a ghost, not a demon. It was something ancient, something that had been watching this town for centuries, waiting for someone to truly see it. I thought of my family, my friends, my life. I wanted to forget. I wanted to wake up in the morning and pretend this never happened. But the creature’s eyes held a dark beauty, a promise of knowledge that was almost seductive.

‘I choose to forget,’ I said, my voice trembling.

The creature nodded, and a cold hand touched my forehead. I felt a rush of warmth, and the world went black.

When I woke, it was morning. The window was intact, the book was on the nightstand, and the room was warm. I had a headache, but I couldn’t remember why. I shrugged it off and went about my day. But sometimes, at night, I see a faint reflection in the window, a shape that isn’t mine. And if I strain, I can hear a whisper, just on the edge of hearing, saying, ‘You forgot. But I remember.’ And I know, deep down, that forgetting was the greatest horror of all.