Six hundred years after Adrian's death, Kieran realized he could no longer remember what happiness felt like.
He understood it intellectually—happiness was a positive emotion, characterized by contentment, joy, satisfaction. But the feeling itself had become as foreign to him as sunlight.
He tried to remember moments of joy from his long existence. His human life, before he was turned? Too distant, blurred by over sixteen hundred years. His early centuries as a vampire? Merely survival.
The only true happiness he'd ever known was Adrian. In every lifetime, those brief moments of connection, of love, of being understood by another soul.
And now those memories were fading too.
He couldn't remember the exact timbre of Adrian's voice anymore. Couldn't recall the precise way his nose crinkled when he laughed. The details that had once been crystal clear were now watercolors left in the rain—running together, losing definition.
"Tell me about him," Marcus said one night, finding Kieran in his usual spot—their old bedroom, surrounded by fading remnants.
"I can't." Kieran's voice was hollow. "The words don't come anymore. It's like trying to describe sunlight when you've lived in darkness for centuries. The language fails."
"Try anyway."
Kieran closed his eyes, reaching for memories that felt like ghosts. "He was... warm. Even as a vampire, even with cold flesh, he was warm. Like he carried sunlight inside him." A pause. "Or maybe I'm imagining that. Maybe I'm creating memories to fill the void where real ones used to be."
"You're not imagining it. I met Adrian. He was exactly as you describe."
But Marcus's assurance brought no comfort. Because if Kieran couldn't trust his own memories, what did he have left?
Nothing. Just an eternity of emptiness, stretching ahead without end.