The fluorescent lights of Warren & Associates flickered with a tired hum, as if reminding its employees they were still trapped inside.
Liam Thomas sat at his desk surrounded by piles of papers, open spreadsheets on the monitor, and a forgotten cup of cold coffee by his hand. His shoulders were slumped, his breathing slow and heavy, and his gaze fixed on the blank screen as though seeing straight through it—reality itself blurred and fading.
A faint tremor in his fingers betrayed that his mind wasn't there. It was elsewhere—lost in a dark, haunted corner of memory from which there seemed to be no escape.
"Liam, did you review the report I sent?" a coworker's voice broke through his isolation.
"Uh… yeah, I'm on it," he replied automatically, without even lifting his eyes.
A soft instrumental tune floated through the office, dissolving into the monotony of typing and murmured voices. Yet that melody had the cruel talent of dragging him back—to the past, to memories he wished he could erase.
What's all this for? he thought, dropping his hand onto the desk as if it weighed too much to lift. Work, bills, loneliness… again.
He unlocked his phone out of habit, and somehow ended up in the gallery.
The glow of the screen lit his face—and there she was. Miranda.
For a moment, the air thickened around him. A knot formed in his throat as that frozen smile seemed to twist the knife of remembrance. The warmth of that day clashed with the hollow chill of the present, and though he tried to look away, his eyes stayed trapped—caught in that bittersweet loop of nostalgia, guilt, and tenderness. Miranda, smiling among autumn trees, wrapped in the scarf she loved.
Her gaze wasn't fake. In that moment, she had loved him—or at least, that's what he believed.
Then the office dissolved from his mind, and all he saw was her face—Miranda's. The woman he had tried to love with everything he had. He remembered that last cold night perfectly, when their silence had already grown into a canyon between them. Miranda, more absorbed in her phone screen than in him, her eyes distant, her gestures detached.
"Why do I feel like you're not really here anymore?" he had asked, desperation leaking through his restraint.
She sighed, lifting her gaze slowly—tired, foreign eyes meeting his.
"It's not you, Liam. I'm just… drowning in this."
The phrase still echoed like a wound in his ears—especially after the police came, weeks later, to tell him that Miranda had been found dead in the woods. Her neck torn open by strange, unexplainable wounds.
They called it a crime of passion and left it at that. No suspects. No answers.
Guilt had haunted him ever since—dense, suffocating, pressing against his ribs every time he closed his eyes.
What if I hadn't left her alone? What if I'd been there? Would that forest have claimed me too?
His fingers tightened around the cold mug. A tremor rippled through his arms.
He bent forward, elbows on his knees, the invisible weight of remorse crushing his chest—unrelenting, immovable, eternal.
But just as the darkness began to reclaim him, another face rose in his mind: Alessia.
Her voice—soft, melodic—carrying that calm that always surrounded her presence. Those deep eyes that seemed to hold centuries of secrets.
It was strange how someone so new could already occupy such a sacred space inside him, pushing away the shadow that had devoured him for years.
…
Across the city, Alessia's apartment was wrapped in perfect darkness, the blinds sealed to block every trace of daylight.
She moved silently, like an elegant shadow that treated light as a personal threat. The air smelled faintly of sandalwood and melted wax.
Barefoot, she glided over the cold wooden floor, shivering slightly—not from the chill, but from the thoughts that haunted her.
The gloom was thick and alive, breathing with her, whispering memories that refused to sleep.
At last, she sat before a small glass bowl filled with clear water.
She closed her eyes, focusing her senses—calling upon that ancient, secret gift of her vampiric nature. Her mind drifted outward, crossing invisible distances… until it found him.
Liam.
She saw him clearly—bent over his desk, drowning in melancholy.
His emotions flowed toward her, pure and transparent. She felt his grief for Miranda's death, his guilt for failing to save her—but most of all, she sensed the strength and sincerity of what he felt for her.
Desire held in restraint. Tenderness. Fascination. Peace—the kind only her presence could grant him.
The intensity of it startled her. She gasped, eyes snapping open, the vision shattered.
A single tear slid down her pale cheek, glinting in the light of a candle.
"You can't stop thinking about me either…" she whispered, voice trembling with pain and hope all at once.
Rising slowly, Alessia crossed to a painting on the wall—an old, somber forest scene.
Her reflection caught in the glass—not her face, but memory itself.
In her mind, another woman appeared there: Miranda, arguing with a man—her boss, perhaps.
He gestured, angry. She shouted something through clenched teeth. Then he left—storming away.
Miranda checked her phone, typing something she would never send.
Then she felt it.
That chill crawling up her spine. She turned.
And there she was.
Anna Viktorie.
Standing still as stone. Watching.
Her silence froze the forest around her. The air grew heavy with the scent of wet leaves and the metallic tang of fear.
Miranda trembled, her body already knowing what her mind refused to accept.
A single branch cracked under her foot—the last sound she would make.
Her eyes widened as the truth dawned: the figure before her wasn't human.
"You…" Miranda breathed, stepping back.
Alessia jolted from the vision, hand flying to her mouth to stifle a sob. Guilt and sorrow twisted through her like barbed wire—but beneath them pulsed something darker, older.
The impulse.
She didn't know if she had acted out of protection—or jealousy. Rage. The unbearable thought of watching him betrayed while he gave himself so completely.
"What would you do, Liam," she whispered to the shadows, "if you knew what I did for you?"
Would he hate her… or forgive her?
She wasn't sure which possibility frightened her more.
Outside, the night moved on—indifferent—as two souls on opposite sides of the city wrestled in silence with memories, choices, and emotions that bound them invisibly, irreversibly.
Because deep down, both Liam and Alessia knew their paths were intertwined—by secrets unspoken, by irreversible acts, by feelings neither fully understood nor could resist.
And within that invisible bond lay both salvation… and damnation.
That night, the office melody faded into silence, leaving Liam alone with the ghost of his thoughts.
And in the absolute darkness of her apartment, Alessia allowed herself one last tear before her heart sealed shut once more.
Only one question lingered in the air—
When, how, and who would finally shatter that fragile invisible thread holding them both on the edge of an abyss,
where truth whispers…
and darkness answers.