Hawks With Sins

The Crawling Thane

Thane Matthews meticulously prepared for his fateful date with the enigmatic Hangman's Daughter, the mysterious figure who haunted his dreams each night. Although he did not know her true name, her presence lingered in his mind, filling his thoughts with tantalizing visions. He often awoke to find the sheets of his bed not only rumpled but soiled—marked by his own excretions and the remnants of his darkest fantasies. Though they had never met in the waking world, he felt a profound, almost instinctual connection to her, a bond that seemed as familiar as his own name.

As he completed the final touches to his appearance, brushing his graying red hair with a tortoiseshell comb that gleamed in the dim light of the cabin, he was jolted by the sharp, rhythmic 'clank, clank, clank' of the knocker colliding against the heavy oak door. The door was an ornate piece he had salvaged from the beach, a quirky artifact of his many summer vacations in the quaint coastal town of Seehome.

When he opened the door, he was met with the striking figure of his bride-to-be. She towered above him, a slender silhouette framed by the muted light, her gaunt features accentuated by the shadows that danced around her. Her long, brown hair flowed in waves, styled in a manner reminiscent of the ancient nobility from Clivus, a style that conveyed both elegance and a haunting sense of otherworldliness.

Her voice, lilting and musical yet tinged with an unsettling undercurrent, beckoned him: "Let me in, love." A shiver of instinctual dread coiled in his gut; deep within him, a primal knowledge whispered that permitting her inside would invite an unspeakable fate. He would not escape death—rather, he would endure a torment so exquisite that he would find himself pleading for oblivion, a mercy that would remain tantalizingly out of reach.

Before he could gather the words to refuse her, her cracked, dry lips pressed against his with an urgency that stole his breath away. An icy wind surged through him, chilling every fiber of his being and leaving him paralyzed. His mind screamed for him to resist, to push back against her alluring pull, but all strength had fled, leaving him utterly defenseless against her dark seduction.

As dawn began to break over Beak Street, a few curious onlookers glimpsed a hauntingly beautiful young woman emerging from Thane Matthews' house. Her attire was a bizarre tapestry of elegance and timeworn decay, a fashion that belonged to a world long past—each article of clothing a relic at least a century out of style. She stepped into the soft morning light, evoking whispers of intrigue and foreboding, a spectral figure marking the aftermath of a night steeped in dark enchantment.