“These Are the Consequences of Sleeping With…”

The rain hammered the city that night, turning the streets into silver rivers. Most people hurried home, shielding themselves from the storm, but Asha Torres walked slowly, her mind spiraling into the same loop it had been trapped in for weeks.

How did everything go so wrong so fast?

Three months ago, she had been steady, grounded, cautious. She had rules—tight rules—about who she allowed into her life. Then he showed up.
Liam Cortez.

Charming. Magnetic. A smile that could melt steel. The kind of man who walked into a room and made the oxygen shift toward him.
Asha had ignored the red flags—because for the first time in years, someone made her feel seen.

And that was her first mistake.

Tonight, she replayed the moment that changed everything.

It was at her friend Maya’s rooftop party—a place filled with string lights, soft music, and the kind of relaxed laughter that comes after two glasses of wine. Asha had been standing near the edge, watching the city skyline glow under the night sky, when a smooth voice drifted behind her.

“You look like you’re solving the world’s problems.”

She had turned, and there he was. Dark hair, warm eyes, confidence wrapped around him like a tailored suit.

“I’m just thinking,” she’d said.

“I hope it’s good things.”

They talked for hours that night—about travel, dreams, regrets—everything you’re never supposed to share with a stranger. But he didn’t feel like a stranger. He felt like someone she had known in another lifetime.

And by the end of the night, when he leaned in and whispered, “Come home with me,” the rules she lived by dissolved like sugar in hot water.

That was the night she broke her own boundaries.

The night she slept with him.

The night her life began to unravel.

Two weeks later, Liam disappeared.

Stopped texting. Stopped calling. Every trace of him evaporated as if he had never existed. Asha felt foolish, betrayed, angry—until the nightmares began.

The first was just shadows. The second included whispers. By the third night, she saw a woman standing at the foot of her bed, soaked with rain, hair covering her face.

“You shouldn’t have touched him,” the woman whispered.
“You don’t know what he is.”

Asha woke screaming, her heart pounding violently. She tried convincing herself it was stress or regret. But then the scratches appeared—three long red marks across her shoulder. She lived alone. Her door had been locked.

The next night, a voice whispered into her ear while she slept.

“You broke the rule.”

Asha began leaving her lights on. But that didn’t help. She saw movement in mirrors, heard footsteps in her hallway at night, smelled cold ocean water in her living room.

She finally confided in Maya.

“Are you sure you’re not imagining this?” Maya asked.

Asha pulled her shirt down, showing the scratches.

“Did you do that to yourself?” Maya whispered.

“No,” Asha hissed. “Something is inside my home!”

“Maybe you should talk to Liam,” Maya said gently.

“I’ve tried. His number doesn’t exist anymore.”

Maya paused. “Wait… you said his last name was Cortez?”

Asha nodded.

Maya’s face turned pale.
“Asha… the Cortez family is… well, they aren’t normal.”

“What does that mean?”

Maya swallowed. “Liam had a girlfriend. Or a fiancée. Or something. She died four years ago under very strange circumstances.”

Asha’s blood froze.

“Died? How?”

Maya lowered her voice. “They said she drowned. But the body they found… it didn’t look like drowning. People said it was the family curse.”

Asha shook her head. “What curse?”

“For generations,” Maya said, “every man in that family loses the woman he loves. The ones who get too close… they die. Or disappear.”

Asha felt cold all over.
“You’re telling me I’m being haunted by his dead girlfriend?”

“I’m saying,” Maya whispered, “you got involved with the wrong man.”

That night, Asha didn’t sleep. She lit candles, played calming music, and told herself fear had taken control of her logic.

But at 3:17 a.m., the temperature in her apartment dropped sharply. Her breath fogged in front of her.
The candles flickered violently.

Asha froze.

From the hallway came slow, wet footsteps.

She stood up, trembling, clutching the nearest object—a heavy glass vase.

“Who’s there?” she whispered.

The footsteps stopped.
Silence swallowed the room.

Then—

“You touched what wasn’t yours.”

Asha felt the voice inside her bones. She turned slowly.

The woman stood in the living room doorway—pale, dripping, eyes hollow like two bottomless pits.

Asha stumbled backward, knocking over the table. “Please,” she cried. “I didn’t know!”

“You took my place,” the woman said, voice jagged with sorrow and rage. “You tried to replace what can never be replaced.”

“I wasn’t trying to—”

“You slept with him.”

Asha shook her head. “It was one night—I didn’t even know about you!”

The woman stepped closer. With each step, the lights flickered.

“You broke the bond,” the spirit hissed.

Asha backed against the wall. “Please… Liam should’ve told me! I didn’t do anything wrong!”

The woman stopped inches from her face.
For a moment, her expression softened—grief flickering through her hollow eyes.

“He was mine,” she whispered. “And death doesn’t change that.”

Suddenly, a rush of cold air blasted through the apartment, knocking Asha to the ground. The candles went out. Glass shattered. A deep, inhuman whisper filled the room:

“You will not take him from me.”

Asha crawled backward, heart pounding, lungs burning. She reached her front door and yanked it open—stumbling into the hallway and slamming the door behind her.

She didn’t stop running.

The next morning, Asha moved out without returning inside. She left everything—her furniture, her clothes, her photographs. None of it mattered.

She changed her number.
She quit her job.
She left the city without telling anyone where she was going.

Because now she understood.

The consequences of that night weren’t heartbreak or embarrassment.

They were supernatural.

Unavoidable.

Permanent.

Asha had slept with a man whose past was still alive—
and that past was willing to kill to keep him.