Burning Beneath

The ember mark on Sam’s palm pulsed again—not just with warmth, but with something deeper. A signal. A command.

It wasn’t just responding to her thoughts anymore. It was acting before she did.

Sam swallowed, trying to push down the tightness in her chest. The reflection in the mirror stared back at her, eyes flickering with something unnatural. The ember-like glow at the edges of her hair had faded now, but she knew it hadn’t disappeared. It was waiting.

A sudden knock at the door startled her.

She turned, pulse spiking.

“Sam? You okay?”

It was her friend, Mia. Her voice was muffled through the door, but there was something… careful in the way she asked.

Sam hesitated. The instinct to say I’m fine was automatic, familiar. The kind of answer she had given a hundred times before.

She opened her mouth.

The mark flared.

Heat surged up her arm, not painful, but insistent. Demanding. Before she could even think, the words came out differently.

“No. I don’t think I am.”

The second she said it, her eyes widened. That wasn’t what she meant to say.

A pause from the other side of the door.

“You… wanna talk?”

Sam clenched her fist over the mark, trying to will it into silence. This is nothing. Just a dream messing with my head.

She took a breath, ready to brush it off—ready to lie.

The mark burned.

Not painfully, but forcefully.

And suddenly, her mouth moved before she could stop it.

“Something followed me back.”

Her stomach dropped.

She had spoken the truth. Not because she wanted to—but because the mark made her.