Title: "Echoes of the Black Dress at The Lark"

Mara always said the club, which she inherited from her aunt, had a pulse of its own. The Lark, with its labyrinth of velvet-lined booths, brass-railed bar, and that faint whiff of spilled gin, operated like a living organism—breathing in energy as people thronged through the doors, then exhaling it in a haze of sweat and music each night. Beneath the icicle glow of the bar lights, Mara thrived, watchful and alert. She didn’t have the luxury of letting things slip—not in her line of work, and certainly not in her club.

Her evenings started before the sun fully quit the sky. Mara would arrive just after sundown, keys jangling in her hands, heels clicking on the tiles. She’d sweep through the dance floor, picking up stray napkins and confirming the DJ’s setlist. She preferred to do these things herself, remembering her aunt’s mantra: “If you want to own a place, you must first know every inch, every secret.”

By seven-thirty, she’d be behind the bar, sleeves rolled high, dark hair twisted off her neck. Glasses clinked as she lined them up, giving them a last polish with a crisp towel. Her eyes never lingered anywhere for too long; she had a way of scanning, taking in the regulars—Big Tommy and his boisterous crew by the jukebox, Jean and her rotating circle of girlfriends near the stage, old Mr. Holloway nursing his whiskey in the shadowed corner.

Mara poured drinks with a careful rhythm: pour, measure, stir, serve, smile. She counted the seconds for every shot, ensured the tap handles ran clear, watched hands over wallets and drinks alike. Nothing escaped her—who arrived together, who left separately, whose hands trembled with secrets.

The first clue that this night would be different was that stillness—a kind of hush that rippled from the door. Mara looked up as the doorman stepped aside for a petite girl who seemed, at first, almost muted against the backdrop of neon and chatter. She was small, pale, wrapped in a black dress that clung to her in inky waves. The light shivered on her, unable to quite settle. Her hair was long, dark as the river at midnight, and her lips a slash of vermilion.

Mara’s hand froze mid-pour, a bead of gin pooling over the glass’s edge. Something about the girl was wrong—not her clothes, not her beauty, but the way she moved. She didn’t walk so much as glide, every step measured, silent. In a place as raucous as The Lark, quiet could be its own alarm bell.

The girl paused at the bar, eyes sweeping the bottles lined up like soldiers on parade. Her gaze found Mara’s, and for a moment, it was just the two of them—owner and stranger. Mara forced a practiced smile.

“What can I get you?” she asked.

The girl’s voice was soft, yet it slid through conversation and noise like a blade. “Something bitter.”

Mara reached for the Campari, aware of the way the glass was suddenly slick in her palm. She watched the girl as she measured out the vermouth, poured and stirred. No rings, no purse, nails lacquered black, hands unmoving on the marble counter. Her eyes, if anything, were too dark, pupils swallowing up the light.

“First time here?” Mara asked, but the girl only inclined her head—a gesture too precise and graceful, like an old photograph come to life.

It didn’t take long for the customers to notice her. There were glances, whispers, that animal sense that something was out of place. Even Jean, never shy around strangers, quietly shifted her seat away from the bar. The air felt colder. Mara suppressed a shiver. She stepped into her role with more purpose, serving drinks with extra care, monitoring the girl’s reflection in every mirror behind the bar.

Everyone else seemed to fade into the periphery. The usual disputes erupted—a spilled drink, a harsh word by the restrooms—but Mara found her attention inevitably drawn back to the girl in the black dress. She drank slowly, eyes never wavering from Mara.

Another round of drinks, and still she lingered. Mara felt exposed, as if she were the one being catalogued, weighed, measured against some secret standard. She tried conversation again, found herself grasping for anything normal.

“Busy night,” Mara said. She reached for a lemon, sliced it with deliberate care, feeling the scraping sound echo in her bones.

“Yes,” the girl responded. A beat. “You watch everyone, don’t you?”

Mara’s blood cooled. She recovered, forcing laughter. “Part of the job. I like to know who’s enjoying themselves.”

“For your safety?” the girl asked, her lips not quite smiling, not quite frowning. “Or theirs?”

Mara stared at her. In the mirror behind the bar, the girl’s figure seemed oddly insubstantial—a vague shape, colors blurring.

She tried to shrug it off as superstition. She poured another drink, dodged questions about the girl when regulars asked. But as the night deepened and the music grew louder, the club itself seemed to shrink. The light flickered, shadows curled in the corners. Mara felt them pressing closer.

Then the girl finally spoke, voice a whisper only Mara could hear, even in the crush of the midnight crowd. “You’re good at watching, Mara. But what do you do when something watches back?”

She pressed a slip of paper into Mara’s palm—no weight to it, just a cold shock on the skin. When Mara looked down, she found only the club’s business card with her own handwriting—her private number, scrawled in ink she never remembered using.

She jerked her head up, but the girl was gone. The seat was empty, the glass untouched. No one remembered her arrival, no cameras caught her passage. Only Mara’s memory remained, and the sensation that The Lark was gazing back at her now, as if seeing with someone else’s eyes.

The club closed late, emptied out reluctantly into the predawn cold. Mara lingered behind the bar, ritualistically cleaning. Bottles wiped, towels folded, money counted with trembling fingers. The shadows persisted; the air never quite warmed. She tried the lights, but the bulbs buzzed and flickered.

Before locking the door, Mara looked into the mirror behind the bar—a mirror she’d known since childhood, her aunt’s favorite. Her own face peered back, haggard and anxious. But in the glass, over her shoulder, something moved—a flick of black, the faintest ghost of a grin, a crimson mouth.

Mara spun, but the bar was empty.

Now, every night, Mara watched the customers with more hunger, more fear. Because behind her, in every mirror, she sometimes caught a glimpse of a black dress—sometimes standing, sometimes seated, always watching. The Lark’s pulse beat stronger, a heart in the walls, counting down. Mara never trusted her memory, her own handwriting, or the shadows cast upon the floor.

She worked behind the bar, always carefully, always watching—knowing now, with a certainty colder than gin, that something else was watching her right back.

This story was generated by user vella.ris69 with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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