Blackout

The lights died and the city died with them.
The lights that don't know how to sleep broke their own rule.

A blackout.
That's what I told myself.
But clean blackouts don't announce themselves like that.

I could hear her breathing in the dark.
Struggling to find the coolness she usually possesses.

“You still haven’t answered me.” I kept my voice low and calm.

“Who is he?”

No response.
Just a shuffle of her steps.
Then her fingers found my wrist.
Lightly trembling yet deliberate.

She wasn’t lost in the dark.
She knew where she was going.

“you’ll need this.” she whispered.

I turned it over, feeling the weight before I understood it.
This wasn’t no ordinary key. Predating anything of today.
It didn’t belong to a door. It belonged to a story.

“Why me?”

She breathed out slow.
Like the question had been sitting on her chest for years.

“Because you’re the only one I ever trusted.
And the only one I ever betrayed.”

Those words hit me different in the dark.
I opened my mouth. Then the knock came.
Three slow raps. Same beat as before.
Same man.

The lights returned like they’d never left.
But the dark took her back before the light could catch her.

The key was in my hand.
The suit on the hangar.
Neither of them were finished with me… yet.

To be continued…

Next Chapter — Tailored Secrets

5 Chapters in.
I promised myself to give you my voice the minute we reached midway.

First and foremost, 10Q.
Without you, these stories would be homeless. You lot took it in and took it there. 46 subscribers deep and it’ll only get better. That’s on 10.
I ask one thing from all of you.

Stories like this only live through the conversations they start. You are the 10Community. Our chat opens at 100 subscribers and this will be the number one home of fast fiction on Substack. Without you, nothing is proven. With you, everything is proof.

Share this around to all story lovers and cravers. Let’s make this happen.

I’ll keep this short and let you decide what to do with it.
For the meantime.

#Stay10
#10Out