The Violet Sigil – Short Gothic Fiction

“The sigil writes in a language the soul already knows.”

by D. Medina

The first time the weight came, Lena woke into it.

It wasn’t sound that roused her, nor light. It was pressure—quiet and absolute—pressing her into the mattress as if the room had filled with an invisible tide. Her limbs obeyed no command. Her jaw unlatched in a silence that somehow felt loud. For a moment, she thought of the sea, the way it flattens the body when you try to shout underwater.

Then the shape gathered above her.

Not a face—faces have edges. This one didn’t. The blur leaned close. A chill, stale and intimate, moved over Lena’s cheek.

“Shut up,” the not-quite mouth hissed. “No one can hear you anyway.”

The words slid into her ear like a bead of ice. She felt them drip down the narrow staircase of her spine, cold and exact. The room watched her—she was sure of it. The dresser, the blinds, the cracked plaster—all of it seemed to lean in for her answer.

She had none. Terror struck dumb cannot find speech.

The weight deepened.

Then something shifted: a pulse in her wrist, a thread of heat uncoiling under her sternum. It rose by degrees. With it came a sliver of movement. Not a scream—just a breath. She forced that breath through the narrowest opening of herself and, as if offended, the blur snapped apart like ash flung into wind. The pressure lifted.

The room reassembled. Cheap blinds. A glass of water sweating on the nightstand. A nail head ghosting through paint where a picture once hung.

“No one can hear you,” Lena whispered to the ceiling, testing the echo. She lay awake until the sky in the window went the color of old milk.

By morning, the story had already become two stories inside her: the kind that can be dismissed, and the kind that can’t. At work, she carried the first.

Lena’s office lived under fluorescent lights that never hummed and somehow sounded like they should. Six cubicles made a shallow pond of carpet, each populated by a person who had learned not to speak at full volume. She calculated figures for a records department no one wanted to know existed, then passed the totals to someone who barely looked up to say thanks.

The carpet was new enough to lie. Every time she touched a filing cabinet, the metal popped her finger with a clean spark. When she brushed shoulders in the break room, the contact snapped blue—only her, never them.

“Static season,” Henry from Payroll joked once, rubbing his arm. “Strange it’s always you.”

She smiled, but didn’t answer. A cloud carries lightning it didn’t ask for.

That afternoon she felt the heaviness again—between the copy machine and the exit door, fog pooling in a hollow. She paused with a stack of staples in her palm, suddenly sure that if she stood under the exit sign long enough something would happen: a fall, a voice, a fracture. She took the long way around instead.

Henry’s head lifted. “Why’d you skip the copy run?”

“Did I?” she said lightly. He frowned but let it go.

That night, the weight returned.

It arrived like a decision. The air thickened, syrup-slow. The mattress groaned as though remembering her shape too well. The corners of the room swelled with silence. Then the air folded down upon her, pinning her to the bed.

The blur gathered—faster now, as if practice had improved its memory—and bent close.

“Shut up,” it said. “No one can hear you anyway.”

Lena did not fight as she had the first time. She waited. She listened to the way its outline broke and knit itself with every word and thought: You are made of the margin between what is said and what isn’t.

That steadied her.

“No one needs to,” she told it—not aloud, but in the voice you use when you think, the one that knows your timbre best. “I hear me.”

The blur kinked as if snagged. The weight bore down harder.

“I hear me,” Lena repeated, and warmth collected at her side like a presence taking its place.

The violet circle appeared—suddenly, clean as a coin at the bottom of glass. Lines drew themselves inside it, deliberate and sharp.

The not-face recoiled as from a mirror it disliked. The pressure slackened.

“No one can hear you,” it whispered again, but now it sounded less like truth and more like a phrase losing its conviction.

“Enough,” Lena said, and the circle heard her.

Sometimes the miracle is that a thing holds.

On Friday, the florist’s window caught the late sun. The heart someone had drawn in dust months ago had blurred at the edges, but still held its shape. On impulse, Lena pressed two fingers to the glass and drew a circle inside the old heart—a small, perfect consequence.

That night she left the blinds open. Her plant sat on the desk, its fourth leaf unfurling like a green ear. For an instant she thought she saw a faint violet circle reflected there. It faded, but the leaf kept its shape.

No one said “shut up.” The air did not press.

Sometimes you win by being heard. Sometimes you win by hearing yourself.

And sometimes a violet circle appears in the air of a small apartment above a closed florist, leaving just enough trace in glass and leaf to remind you: it writes for you.

Disclaimer
All content published on this site reflects the personal views, creative expressions, and interpretations of the author, D. Medina. While topics may touch on literature, spirituality, or personal reflection, they are not intended as professional, medical, or legal advice. Readers are encouraged to approach all essays, poems, and stories as works of creative exploration. Sharing of content is welcome, provided proper credit is given to the author and a link back to this blog is included. Unauthorized reproduction without attribution is prohibited.