GLOW

Glow:  A Short Story by C. Flemish

 

The glow appeared every night, just before 3:00 a.m.

At first, I thought it was a dream. A soft pulse of amber light floats above the dresser, hovering like a firefly. If fireflies ever moved like they were watching you. I didn’t question it. I was tired. Every morning, I woke up a little weaker. Lips dry. Fingers tingling. My mouth carried a persistent metallic taste, as if I had been chewing on a coin. One morning, a single drop of blood stained the pillow.

The man in 4B has not left his apartment in days.

The hallway smells like soup and metal. My mail key sticks in my hand. 4B’s doormat is wet from the inside. I don’t know my neighbors, not really, just the door numbers. But lately, I dream of them. Mr. Imani from 6A digging at his skin. The pale woman in 3E crying while shaving her daughter’s head in the tub. I don’t know why I dream about those things.

My own reflection no longer matches. My eyes are too large. A wet sheen glistens on my cheeks. I shine when I sweat. And I sweat constantly.

Last night, the glow landed. Right between my eyes. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t scream. My mouth opened on its own.

I think I saw legs. Insect legs. Gentle, familiar. And then, it was gone. I went to the hospital to get checked out.

“Probably stress,” the ER said. “Everything looks fine.”

I’m not stressed. I’m in love.

He comes to me in dreams. A tall man, skin like earth after rain. Hands strong and slow. He touches me like he’s memorizing me. His mouth was warm against my neck. He doesn’t speak, but I feel his words in my bones, pulling me in closer.

When I wake, my heart pounds like I’ve run somewhere. My chest aches. My body is flushed. But I don’t feel empty. It is something else.

I call him mine. And he is. Even now, I smell him in the room. Sweetness, like sugar burning on the back of the stove. I keep a journal. I write down everything, the things he tells me, the way he touches me, the nights we spend together. I think I love him. I know I love him.

The neighbors began to change in ways I barely noticed at first.

Mr. Imani from 6A started talking to the plants in the lobby as if they could answer. One morning, he collapsed into a plastic chair, skin pale and drawn, whispering numbers that made no sense. The woman in 3E walked slower, her daughter’s hair was uneven and patchy, and she told everyone it was lice. Small things, easily dismissed, but I felt the pull of it, an invisible tether from my chest to theirs.

At the coffee shop, I carried two bags up the stairs without thinking about the weight. The barista’s eyes lingered on my hands, puzzled. At lunch, I climbed three flights of stairs instead of two.

I told myself it was nothing. But every time I glanced at someone in the hallway, there was a flicker. A  dulling. A shadow of their former selves. My secret grew, tucked behind the warmth in my ribs, humming like a small instrument tuned to one note.

The dreams came nightly.

He smelled of soil, smoke, and sweet, sugary oil. Not a man exactly, nor a bug, but both at once. He folded the world around me, made my chest a cathedral. His touch taught me things I had forgotten: how to open my mouth for him, how to cradle the memory of a person so it would not hurt when I took from them.

One night, I had a dream about a child wearing a yellow sweater. He placed his palms on the child’s forehead and hummed until the little thing slept and slumped forward like a lump of dough. I woke with a bloom of heat beneath my shoulder, a small red print on the sheet. I could not remember the child’s face clearly in daylight, only the exact way it had looked in the dark.

Days blurred.

Friends drifted. People looked dimmer, weaker. Smiles thinned. Lips cracked. Chalky teeth. The little boy in 2B clutched his rabbit to his chest, staring too often at the floor. The woman in 3E moved out quietly, taking two suitcases and a small bag of things. On the building app, someone posted about a bug going around the city. Another called it a scam. Comments multiplied, explanations stacking like firewood.

Through it all, I felt the warmth. The humming. The love. I wrote it down, every word. The handwriting grew tighter, a map of obsession and devotion.

I changed, too.

Cheeks narrowed, jawbones sharp. My Collarbones pressed under skin like sculpted lines. Bra straps slipped. Skirts stretched longer. My hair went unwashed, longer than ever before. I laughed when neighbors remarked on my thinness. But inside, the bloom of warmth pulsed, the hum never leaving.

It wasn’t violence, I told myself. It was a necessity. A rhythm. They were gifts. Each weakness is a note in the song we shared.

Then the glow left me.

I expected the fullness to stay. But my chest hummed only once, and then silence. I felt hollow, like a vessel drained of honey. Outside, the apartment bustled with activity, couriers lingered, baristas stopped offering extras, and Mr. Imani moved like a ghost.

The glow had found a new feeder two buildings down. I saw him briefly, a man with a bag of warm bread, eyes like a weather vane. He hummed. I watched from my curtained window as a tiny amber flicker moved behind his pane, slipping through a crack.

Three days later, the apartment manager entered my place.

He gagged at the smell. Wet, coppery, heavy with rot. Lights buzzed, one flickering orange.

Anna lay in bed. Sheets blackened beneath her. Eyes open. Lips parted.

“Oh God,” he whispered.

Something glowed behind her teeth. It was an unsettling shimmer, moving within the shadows of her mouth. An insect’s foot slowly moved from her throat. Bright amber light. The manager turned and vomited across the floor. He struggled to the window, gasping.

A sharp sting kissed his wrist.

Nothing.

The buzzing in his head had already started.

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