The Dread of Damned

The motorcade of sleek black cars glided through the awakening city like a procession of shadows, cutting through the golden wash of the rising sun.

Each vehicle moved with practiced precision, weaving through traffic as if the world bent slightly to accommodate them. Commuters paused — drawn by something they didn't understand — before returning to their routines with distracted gazes.

The convoy wound through the city for hours before finally slowing to a halt in front of an opulent luxury hotel, just as the day reached its burning zenith.

Hotel staff rushed out in a seamless blur, lining up instinctively along the central car as if rehearsed. A tall, handsome man stepped forward and opened the door with mechanical grace.

Then he stepped out.

All heads turned.

Silver hair glinted beneath the noon sun, slicked back to perfection, and black sunglasses cloaked his gaze. His suit — matte black, cut to cruel precision — hugged a body too perfect for reality. He walked with stillness in every step, not rushed, not casual — a man not moving through the world, but making it orbit him.

Beside him walked a woman no less striking. Her skin gleamed gold in the sunlight, her long curls spilling like ink over her shoulders. She lacked the cold refinement of the man beside her, but that made her more dangerous in a way — she was raw, arresting, too vividly alive to be ignored. There was something untamed in her hips, in her gaze, in the silence she carried. You didn't look at her and think of safety. You looked and forgot to think at all.

A middle-aged man in a gray suit approached the front desk and spoke briefly to the receptionist, presenting a keycard with a silver seal. Moments later, the towering glass lift — more atrium than elevator — opened silently.

Inside the lift were several sofas, but only one man sat. Him. The others stood respectfully, even the woman, her hands calmly resting behind her back.

The elevator doors parted at the top floor to reveal a sprawling, private level. Polished marble, soft lighting, and unnatural stillness — the entire space had been cleared. George, the gray-suited man, led the group forward without a word.

The presidential suite loomed ahead, sealed behind thick double doors. It opened with a magnetic hiss, and the silver-haired man stepped in. The woman followed.

Others peeled off to their assigned rooms, and soon the floor returned to silence. Still, something clung to the air — a heaviness, like a held breath that refused to release.

This was, after all, a hotel that catered to the elite. The absurd. The protected. Normalcy returned quickly, and within the hour, most of the guests had gone back to their devices and meetings and designer breakfast martinis.

Then came the trolleys.

A long procession of chrome carts rolled down the hallway, each piled with carefully plated cuisine. Most were delivered elsewhere, but three of them stopped at the presidential suite.

A woman knocked on the suite door, clipboard in hand. The hallway was silent.

Then the door opened.

He stood there in a black bathrobe, still damp. Water clung to the sculpted lines of his chest, glistening against skin that seemed carved more than born. He still wore the sunglasses — as if his eyes were too dangerous to reveal.

"Good afternoon, sir. This is your food," she said, smiling with well-practiced poise.

He stepped aside, wordless. She entered first, followed by the staff pushing the trolleys.

The suite was palatial, but strange — sterile, in an intentional way. There were no TVs. No screens. No visible electronics at all. Not even a thermostat. Everything digital had been stripped from the room earlier that morning under direct instruction.

She only knew because she'd been assigned to this floor. And this room.

They placed the dishes in silence. She glanced once toward the bathroom — and that's when she heard it.

A sound. Soft. Unstable.

A breath — but not quite a breath. Something deeper. Disordered. Almost... indecent.

At first, she thought it might be a trick of the ventilation. But then came the next one. Louder. Wet. Desperate.

The bathroom door was cracked open. Steam leaked from the gap, curling outward like a slow exhale. The air carried a scent that wasn't just soap or cologne. It was flesh-warm, thick with something like heat, like sweat, like desire twisted into something barely recognizable.

She didn't look. Not directly. But her gaze caught the edge of a reflection — a flicker of skin, and a shape arched back against the fogged glass. The woman's figure, barely visible.

The breathing — no, panting — grew jagged, unsteady, as though whatever was happening inside was slipping past human restraint.

It wasn't pain.

And it wasn't pleasure.

It was something else. Something holy, or profane, or maybe both at once.

A thud. Then a long, keening inhale, as if lungs were fighting to contain the soul inside them.

She froze. A second too long.

He turned to her.

The man. Silent still. Watching.

The sound behind the door didn't stop. But it shifted. Grew slower. More rhythmic. Heavier.

She swallowed, forced her smile to return, and backed toward the door.

"If you need anything else, please don't hesitate to call, sir," she said, voice tight but polite.

She left without another glance, though the sound followed her — breathing, breaking, rebirthing itself. Like something being undone from the inside out.

The door shut behind her with a muffled click.

And the floor returned to silence.

At least... on the surface.