I used to think it was just quirky.

Lucien, the guy in 4B, never left his apartment during the day. His blinds were always drawn, lights always off. But at night—God, at night—he was everywhere. Walking the alley behind the building. Smoking on the roof. Once, I caught him just standing in the courtyard around 3 a.m., staring at the moon like it had something to say back.

I should’ve left it alone.

But one night, I was coming home from a late shift and found a box outside my door. No note. Just my name, written in impossibly neat handwriting. Inside: a jar of jam. Homemade, blood-red. I assumed it was from a neighbor. But I hadn’t told anyone I liked jam. Especially not blackberry. Especially not… warm.

I tasted it. And then I knocked on his door.

Lucien didn’t act surprised. He invited me in like he’d been expecting me. No lights—just candles everywhere, flickering shadows against the walls. His place smelled like cedarwood and something metallic I couldn’t place. We sat. We talked.

And I started noticing things.

Like how he never blinked.
How his hands were ice-cold, even by candlelight.
How he never once asked me a question—only listened, like he was memorizing me.

The jam? I asked. He smiled. Said, “It’s family tradition. Acquired taste.”
The way he said “acquired” made my spine stiffen.

I should’ve left. I should’ve never gone in. But I went back the next night. And the night after that.

Now I haven’t seen my reflection in three days.
And I think I know what was really in that jar.

I didn’t want to believe it at first. There had to be a rational explanation. A dirty mirror. A trick of the light. Maybe I was just exhausted from work. I was in the middle of twelve-hour shifts at the restaurant, and my sleep was garbage.

But when I tried to fix my hair in the bathroom that morning and the mirror just stared back—empty—I knew.

The thing is… I didn’t feel different. I didn’t have fangs. I wasn’t hissing at crosses or turning into mist. I was just me. Hungry, a little pale, and terrified.

I confronted him that night.

“What did you do to me?” I said as soon as he opened the door.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t play dumb. Just stepped aside, and I walked in like I always did.

“You came willingly,” he said, like that made it okay.

I stood there, arms crossed, trying not to shake. “That doesn’t mean I understood what I was walking into.”

Lucien sat down on the floor, legs crossed, like we were at a damn picnic. “You tasted it. You kept coming back. You weren’t afraid.”

“I am now,” I said quietly.

He tilted his head like a cat. “Then you’re still human enough.”

That stuck with me. Still human enough. What the hell did that mean?

I didn’t sleep that night. I started looking up all these old legends, forums, folklore sites—trying to make sense of what was happening to me. Some of it was clearly fake. But some of it felt… close. People who felt cold all the time. People who craved blood but weren’t monsters. People who said there was a halfway point.

I was in the in-between.

Lucien had started something. But it wasn’t finished.

That terrified me more than anything.

Because it meant I still had a choice.

The next few days were chaos. I stopped going to work. Couldn’t handle the smell of food. Couldn’t handle the way people smelled—especially when they were sweaty, or bleeding, or even just talking too loud.

My senses were dialed up. Everything was louder. Sharper. I started noticing tiny things—people’s heartbeats, the way the air shifted when someone walked past me.

But worst of all, I felt a pull toward Lucien. Not like romance. Not even attraction. Just… need. A horrible, quiet craving that lived in my chest and got worse every night.

I tried to resist it. I really did.

But four nights later, I was back outside his door.

“I want it to stop,” I told him.

“You can end it,” he said. “But you won’t be the same.”

“Will I be human again?” I asked.

Lucien stared at me for a long time. “Technically.”

That word again. Technically.

I asked him what he meant. He said, “There’s a way to reverse it. But it’ll cost you. You’ll lose what’s been given. The heightened senses. The strength. The memory of certain things. You’ll forget parts of who you were becoming.”

I told him I didn’t care. I just wanted to go back to normal.

He said he’d need time to prepare.

In the meantime, he gave me this tincture—something bitter and dark that made my throat burn. Said it would hold me in place. Keep the transition from going further until I was ready.

I drank it every night.

Days turned into a weird blur. I stopped eating normal food. Couldn’t stomach coffee. Couldn’t stand sunlight. I wore sunglasses in my own apartment. My friends stopped calling. My boss left me a final voicemail saying I was terminated. I didn’t care. All I could think about was making it stop before I crossed whatever invisible line was left.

That’s when things got even weirder.

One night, a woman showed up at Lucien’s door. I was already inside. She didn’t knock—she walked right in like she lived there. Short, sharp haircut. Gray hoodie. No shoes.

Lucien didn’t look surprised to see her either.

“This is Arlyn,” he said, like I should’ve known her name.

She stared at me like I was a broken appliance. “You’re the one he’s trying to save?”

I bristled. “Excuse me?”

“He never does this,” she said, looking at Lucien. “You always say it’s their choice.”

“She’s different,” he said softly.

That pissed me off. “I’m not special. I just don’t want this.”

She smirked. “If that were true, you’d never have come back after the jam.”

Then she walked out, just as quiet as she came in.

I asked Lucien who she was.

“She made the same choice once,” he said. “But she didn’t turn back.”

It hit me then. He wasn’t the only one. There were others. Maybe dozens. Maybe hundreds. People like me, halfway between one life and another.

Lucien had done this before. Maybe even meant well. Maybe not.

But this wasn’t an accident. It was a pattern.

I stopped taking the tincture after that.

I figured if I was going to end it, I wanted to really end it—not just press pause on a curse I didn’t ask for.

That same night, I packed a bag and got in my car. I drove two hours out of the city to the place where my grandmother used to live. Her house was gone, but the woods were still there. I remembered this one stretch of trail where everything felt quiet and clean.

I brought garlic. A mirror. Holy water. Yeah, I know how that sounds.

But I didn’t trust Lucien anymore. I didn’t trust anyone.

For two days, I camped out there. Let the sun hit my face. Let my body shake and sweat and go through whatever withdrawal this was.

It hurt. More than I expected. My head throbbed. My chest ached. I thought I was dying, honestly.

And maybe I was—just not in the way I feared.

On the third day, I saw my reflection again. Just a flicker. But it was enough.

I cried for a full hour when I saw my own face looking back at me.

I didn’t go back to the city right away. I needed time. I got a cheap motel job upstate. Changed my number. Stopped using social media. Stayed offline.

A month later, I got a letter in the mail. No return address.

Inside was a single note, handwritten.

“Most people never stop before the change completes. You were the first in a decade. Stay human, Finley.”

I burned the letter. But I kept the envelope.

Sometimes I still feel it, though. The cold. The craving. A shadow of it, maybe. I’ll never be exactly who I was before.

But I got my life back. I got my choice back.

And I’ll never ignore my gut again.

If something feels off—trust it.

If someone makes you feel like you’re being watched instead of seen—walk away.

Not every darkness is a monster. But not every quiet man with a candlelit apartment is harmless, either.

Sometimes the scariest thing isn’t a bite in the night. It’s realizing how easy it is to lose yourself, one small taste at a time.

You always have a choice. Even if it comes late. Even if it costs you.