Lux [h.s]

one

It was night, and it was cold.

Cora was sitting in her usual spot, wasting time cleaning a glass that by that point was so shiny someone could've thought it was made of crystal just to pretend she had something to do that didn't involve watching over the multitude of people sitting at the tables in front of her.

It was a tedious but necessary job, as they couldn't have any fights breaking out at the hostel. They'd had some issues with them in the past that had brought to the involvement of the count's guard, and they'd be forced to increase the security if they were to happen again, to the loss of half of their clientele.

The people in front of her were loudly talking to each other, laughing and shouting, bubbles of loud excitement fuelled by the one alcoholic drink too many at least half of them had consumed and the late hour. In the left corner a group of men were playing a game of cards she wasn't familiar with, a man on the right was standing on the table as he recited his latest adventure with a wondrous tone of voice that suggested it'd only taken place in his fantasy, while some girls stared at his bright indigo eyes with dreamy looks on their faces.

They would all go to bed soon, Cora knew that, and then the main lights would be turned off and she would stay there, pretending to clean that glass, until the first hours of the night, when her aunt would come back from downtown and take her place.

It was an easy task, one that she was certain she could fulfil. What she didn't know, though, was that something was about to happen that would make it much harder.

She couldn't tell what it was, if the sudden silence that fell on the room or the slam of the front door, that announced the arrival of a new stranger. What she did know, though, was that she looked up and he was standing there, comfortable in the deepest quietness as if it was his own home.

That was bad, and she knew it. She should've closed the door in the second the clock had struck nine, a gentle reminder for every lonely wanderer outside that the hostel was no longer allowing people in, but she'd forgotten to, and now he was there.

She could already hear her aunt's shrill shouts because of her failure to keep to their usual schedule. Nobody was to be given a room after nine, and most especially, nobody was to be given a room by someone other than her aunt. She knew how the rules worked. She had to do her part perfectly, or else the whole system would fall to the ground—that was what she'd been taught.

The stranger in front of her, though, was the proof that for once in many months she hadn't done what she should've done. He was her little personal harbinger of destruction, destruction that would be brought upon her by the sharp words of her aunt when she would find out.

He stood there, looking straight ahead, for some seconds, and then moved a step forward.

Just like the fall of a branch in a clearing makes all the birds fly away chirping, the voices all around him started again in the second the low tap of his boot on the floor echoed in the room.

She watched him approach the counter she was sitting behind, her heart in her throat for a reason she couldn't point out.

Looking at him, he was just like everyone else: a hat, a coat, even a little brown bag, big enough just to contain a few essentials, making it clear that he didn't plan to stay there for long.

But he wasn't. She couldn't tell how she got to that conclusion. She knew.

The stranger was tall, taller than at least half of the men she'd seen on that day, his height helped by the hint of heel under his black boots, that thumped gently on the wooden floor as he walked towards her. His hair was of a warm brown, slightly curly, peeking out from his feathered midnight blue hat and hiding part of his forehead as it fell to reach a little under his nose in soft waves. It wasn't long though, definitely shorter than some of the hairstyles in that room, and yet it managed to look effortless, as if all he'd done that morning was putting his hat on.