TBC Publishing Pride Month Flash Fiction Challenge, 20 of 30
Title: The Watcher
Author: R. Scott Tyler
Genre: Fantasy/Mystery
Word count (500 max): 461
The key fought him every turn, like the old inn didn’t want him back. Theo shoved harder until it finally gave way, and the door groaned open, spilling cold air and the smell of lavender and rot into the night.
Jeffrey stood behind him, his hands in his coat pockets, surveying the ruin. “Charming. You sure this is worth saving?”
“No.” Theo stepped inside, his boots stirring years of dust. “But it’s mine now.”
The entry hall was a tomb. Mirrors lined the walls, each one draped in yellowed sheets that billowed slightly as the fog followed them in. Theo didn’t look too closely. He didn’t want to see what might be moving beneath the fabric.
They set up camp in the parlor, their lantern casting long shadows. Theo placed the journal on the warped table, its leather cracked, the initials T.M.S. almost gone. He’d found it hidden behind a loose brick in the fireplace.
“It’s his.” Theo ran his fingers over it. “My grandfather’s. I think he was in love with someone. Someone he wasn’t supposed to love. And I think… I think that’s why the inn is like this.”
Jeffrey raised an eyebrow, his breath misting in the cold. “You think love cursed this place?”
Theo hesitated. “No. I think what hunted their love cursed it.”
Jeffrey didn’t laugh like Theo half-expected. Instead, he sat, watching the fog gather at the windows. “Let’s read it, then. Before whatever’s out there gets too curious.”
The journal pages were brittle, but the ink was still dark, the words urgent. Night after night of secret meetings. A man—R.W.—who’d come to the inn seeking shelter and found something else entirely. A warning, again and again, about the Watcher. About something that came when love bloomed where it shouldn’t. About how the mirrors weren’t safe.
Theo stopped reading. A floorboard creaked above them.
Jeffrey froze. “You hear that?”
“Yeah.” Theo’s heart pounded. He looked toward the hall. The mirror closest to them, the one he’d avoided, had its sheet half-fallen, revealing glass smeared with grime. And in that glass, something pale moved—something thin and long-limbed, its face a hollow blur.
Jeffrey followed his gaze. His voice dropped to a whisper. “Tell me that’s not us.”
Theo shook his head.
The figure in the mirror reached out, fingers pressed to the inside of the glass. It cocked its head, as if listening. As if it could hear the beat of their hearts.
Jeffrey grabbed the journal, snapping it shut. “We need to leave.”
But the front door wouldn’t open. The key jammed, frozen in the lock.
Upstairs, a mirror shattered.
Outside, the fog swallowed the moon.
And in the glass beside them, the Watcher smiled for the first time in a century.
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The Page of Swords. Observant and a gatherer of secrets.
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