The Final Midnight

The thirtieth night. The final night of the contract.

Vera sat on the edge of the black silk bed. She was wearing a gown of white silk that Silas had laid out for her.

The grandfather clock ticked. 11:58 PM.

Silas stood by the window, looking out at his dominion.

"The contract ends tonight," Silas said.

"And what happens?" Vera asked. Her voice was hollow. She felt light, as if she were made of smoke.

"You have a choice," Silas turned. "You can walk out that door. You can try to rebuild a life in a world that has forgotten you. You can struggle. You can starve. You can feel the cold again."

He walked toward her.

"Or," he said, kneeling before her. "You can sign a new contract. A permanent one."

"To become a statue," Vera whispered. "To be put in the gallery."

"To be preserved," Silas corrected. "To sleep forever in the Velvet Void. No pain. No debt. No abandonment. Just beauty. Eternal, perfect beauty."

He looked at her with that terrifying, dominant love. He stroked her cheek.

"Why struggle in the sun when you can reign in the dark, Vera?"

Vera looked at the window. The dawn was hours away. She tried to remember what the sun felt like. It felt like burning. It felt like squinting. It felt like failure.

She looked at Silas. He offered peace. He offered an end to the noise.

"I'm so tired," she said.

"I know," Silas soothed. "Let go."

The clock began to chime.

* BONG.*

Midnight.

Vera laid back on the pillows. She arranged her hair. She folded her hands over her chest.

"Will it hurt?" she asked.

"Not at all," Silas promised. "It will feel like taking off a tight shoe."

* BONG.*

Vera closed her eyes. She took a deep breath. She let it out, and she didn't take another.

The sensation started at her toes. A coolness. A hardening. The flesh turned to stone. The blood turned to dust. The racing heart slowed, then stopped, forever frozen in a beat of perfect contentment.

* BONG.*

The transformation washed over her face. Her expression smoothed. The lines of worry vanished. She became pristine. White. Marble.

Silas watched the transformation with the reverence of an artist. When the clock finished tolling, he reached out and touched her cheek. It was cold stone.

"Good girl," he whispered.

He stood up. He picked her up—she was heavy now, solid marble, but to him, she was light as a feather.

He carried her into the gallery. He found the empty pedestal he had been saving for her, right in the center, where the moonlight hit the hardest.

He placed her down.

He stepped back and admired her.

"Perfection," he murmured.

He turned off the lights, leaving Vera Lane in the dark, trapped in a dream she would never wake from, the crown jewel of the Midnight Collection.

Silas walked out to the balcony to watch the sun rise over a city full of dreamers, hungry for his next acquisition.