"Rosamund!"
Rosamund woke up and opened her bright blue eyes. She scanned the darkness of her bedroom. She could have sworn she heard someone call her name but everything seemed quiet by now. She sat up in bed to get a better look. There was no one in there.
"It was just a dream, stupid," she scholded herself.
She was about to lie back down when she heard knocking on her front door. Her heart stopped beating for a second but the knocking continued. She got out of bed and slowly crept through the darkness of her house. The knocking continued relentlessly.
"Who is it?" She yelled.
No answer came but the knocking didn't stop. She made it to the front door and stopped. The knocking stopped at the same time.
"I got a gun!" She yelled.
That wasn't true but she hoped it would scare whoever was on the other side away. She leaned her ear on the door and waited for one long minute. She couldn't hear anything. She finally took a deep breath, unlocked the door and opened it. No one was there.
Happy to see her threat of a gun had worked, she closed and locked the door again. She caught her mirror reflection in the small mirror hanging on the wall. She turned on the light so she could better see herself. She looked tired which was understandable. It was in the middle of the night. She ran her hands through her auburn, shoulder long hair and ruffled it.
"Go back to bed, stupid," she said.
She reached for the light switch again but something brown in the corner of her eye stopped her. She turned her head and looked down at the floor. Muddy footprints were leading from the front door and into the house.
"No!" She whispered fearfully.
Everyone knew the ghost story of this town. That knocking would sound on your front door one night. If you were stupid enough to open the door, the monster would let himself in and leave muddy footprints on your floor. You would follow those footprints and find him in your house somewhere, and he would take your soul. You would forever belong to him and be forced to follow him blindly.
"It's a prank," she whispered to herself.
She cleared her throat and worked up her courage. It had to be one of her friends playing a prank on her. They had talked about this ghost story just last weekend at a party.
"It's not funny, guys!" She yelled. "Come out! You had your fun now!"
No one answered. She refused to show she was scared.
"Fine!" She growled lowly.
She followed the footprints through the house. She was sure she would find one of her friends jumping out to scare her, probably with a camera up in her face. It was probably Mustafa or Mia for their stupid Retribution YouTube channel. Scaring people for laughs. It really wasn't funny to Rosamund.
"Mustafa? Mia? I know it's you!" She yelled.
The footprints were leading into the bedroom. She stopped outside of the room, scared to go back in there. It made no sense. She couldn't be absolutely sure they hadn't been there when she left the bedroom since she walked in darkness, but she still was pretty sure that wasn't the case.
"Fuck it!" She growled. "I swear to god if you put me on YouTube, our friendship is over."
She walked into the bedroom and hit the light switch to make sure no one was hiding in the darkness. What she found made her freeze for a second. It wasn't Mustafa or Mia or anyone she knew who was standing on the floor. It was a monster of a man. The myth about him was true. She was caught in the ghost story that she hadn't believed up until this second.
"Braun," she whispered.
"Rosamund," he said. "I'm here to take your soul. You let me inside so you can't deny me what's now mine."
She spun around on the spot to run away. She didn't even make it out of the bedroom. An ice cold hand landed on her neck and made her blood run cold. She felt a pain unlike anything she had ever experienced before, and then everything went black and dead quiet.
Braun looked down at the dead body on the floor. He had her soul locked away inside him. For every soul he took, the stronger he got. One day he would break free of the chains keeping him in the darkness. One day he would no longer have to knock on people's doors and wait for them to unwillingly invite him into their homes. One day he would rise up and rule the world, stronger than any man or woman still alive, with his army of souls following him and doing his bidding.