Drabble Wednesday: Strangers

I took a break last week after the daily April posts, but Drabble Wednesday returns with three new stories this week. Enjoy.

Stranger at the Door

Three knocks.
Every night.
In the tenth hour of the bleak night, the clock chimes and a black cloaked stranger knocks on the front door. I see him standing there as I peek from the window.
Why do I shake in fear?
Every night the scene repeats, each eve the terror grows until I can stand it no more. I rush to the door, my shaking hand turns the knob and the door creaks open.
As the stranger is revealed, I finally know.
The man at the door has my face…and he is Death.
In that instant, I am undone.

One Night

Darkness shrouds our village, and an icy wind shivers across the rooftops. The moon shines, but its light is pale and thin, hiding its face behind the clouds. The streets are empty, the doors and windows barred, voices hushed to whispers.
We await the stranger.
He comes once a year, in the long season before the snows, slithering, searching, coming for one of us. A name is burned on his tongue and when he utters it, one of us dies.
It is a pact as old as the village, one forged in hell, unbreakable.
One sacrifice. Protection for the rest.

Futures

What if your reflection in the mirror showed you a face you did not recognize? Someone with vacant eyes and a bitter expression? So far from the youthful person who smiled, whose dreams sparkled in her eyes, whose hair fell loose and unruly. How did I become this perfectly coiffed lady who is dead inside?
Perhaps a lifetime of deference to angry voices, to fear and conformity. I let my light dim under the weight of cruel whispers. I changed into what I see.
I am a stranger in my own body.
How do I break free and live again?