The morning light spilled through the sheer curtains, painting golden stripes across the wooden floor. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, letting out a small yawn as the cold air kissed my skin. It was the first official day of classes — and somehow, everything felt both new and heavy with an unfamiliar weight.
I moved through my morning routine quietly, brushing my hair and pulling on my new outfit: a soft white cardigan over a fitted plaid skirt, paired with sheer black stockings and my favorite platform sneakers. A hint of lip gloss and I was ready.
The dormitory hall buzzed faintly with voices. I caught fragments of rushed conversations as I passed by.
"— another one gone, just like that—"
"They found him exactly where Mia went missing—"
I slowed down slightly, ears perked.
"Third person this week."
"They're saying it's like a chain reaction… you vanish, and the previous one shows up where you disappeared."
I blinked, confusion knitting across my face. What were they talking about?
Before I could ask, the girls disappeared around a corner, their whispers swallowed by distance. I shook it off. Probably just gossip. It was a big city, after all — weird stories came with the territory.
Shouldering my bag, I stepped out into the crisp morning air. The city was already awake, its streets humming with life. The sky above was pale and cloudless, belying the tension I felt crawling beneath my skin. I tried to ignore it.
And yet... there was a strange feeling growing in the pit of my stomach.
Leo hadn't come to get me this morning. No text. No knock on the door. Nothing.
It felt… wrong.
I pulled my cardigan tighter around myself and began the walk toward the university gates.
The sky was heavy with clouds, hanging low like grey velvet curtains waiting to fall. The air held a chill that hadn't quite shaken off the night. I wrapped my cardigan tighter and tucked my sketchbook under my arm, slipping into the rhythm of the morning footfall on the cobbled paths.
Today marked the start of my academic year — and yet it felt nothing like a beginning.
A few students walked ahead of me, laughing and talking, but their words were hushed… oddly hushed. I caught fragments.
"Did you hear about the boy who—"
"Found at the fountain… same spot the other girl vanished—"
I frowned, slowing slightly, but the whispers scattered like birds the moment I tried to listen.
Before I could think much of it, a voice snapped me out of my daze.
"You'll miss the gate if you walk any slower."
I turned — a girl with ash-brown hair stood next to me, adjusting the strap of her satchel. She looked like she'd stepped out of a lost photograph: worn leather boots, dark plaid skirt, oversized grey cardigan. Soft eyeliner smudged slightly under her lower lashes, the kind you didn't know if it was on purpose or if she hadn't slept in a while.
"I'm Mireille," she added, almost lazily. "Also a first-year. Same batch, I think."
"Lyra." I gave her a small smile. "Yeah, I guess we are."
She raised a brow. "First day nerves or… just not a morning person?"
"Both," I replied honestly.
We fell into step together, our boots tapping against the wet stone. The school's silhouette emerged ahead, tall and old, as if time bent a little around it.
"What subjects did you choose?" Mireille asked.
I listed them: "Sculpture, philosophy, literature, science, drama, folklore, art, and psychology."
She stopped walking for a moment and stared at me. "All of them? That's basically… two students' worth of a schedule."
"I couldn't narrow it down."
"You do realize you're going to have a mental breakdown by mid-semester, right?" she said, but there was a curious glint in her eyes. "Impressive, though. Very ambitious. Or very unhinged."
I laughed softly. "Bit of both."
"Well, I'm a simpler creature," she smirked. "Took history, literature, astrology, and classical art. I like my chaos romantic."
"That sounds beautiful, actually."
"It sounds manageable," she corrected with a playful grin.
As we neared the school steps, we naturally slowed down. A bell in the distance began to chime — soft, melodic, but it tugged at something deep in my chest.
We reached the tall wooden doors and Mireille turned to me. "I've got History in the North Wing."
"I'm headed to the Sculpture studio," I said.
"Well… see you around, chaos queen," she said, starting to walk away.
"Good luck with romantic chaos."
She smiled over her shoulder. "We'll both need it."
As she disappeared into the crowd, I turned to head inside. But that strange feeling I'd felt earlier was still there — like the city was watching me. Waiting.
I was late.
Not late-late, but just enough for the silence inside the sculpture studio to feel like a noose tightening around my neck as I pushed the heavy door open.
The professor — a sharp-eyed woman in a grey linen coat — looked up from her notes, her frown immediate. "You must be miss Virelle."
I froze halfway into the room, breath hitching. Her words rang louder than they should have — like they'd been dropped into water, rippling out.
The murmurs.
"Virelle?"
"Wait… did he just say Virelle?"
"The Virelle family? I thought—"
I felt them. The stares. All at once, like a thousand tiny pricks against my skin. Heads turning. Eyes narrowing. Some widened in what looked like recognition. Others just stared, mouths parting in disbelief.
I tried willing myself not to react. Not to shrink. But inside, I was spiraling.
Why were they all looking at me like that?
I nodded sheepishly, clutching my sketchbook like it could shield me from judgment.
"You're twelve minutes late. Do you plan to carve marble with that level of punctuality too?"
Before I could even form an apology, the door creaked open behind me again. The professor's eyes narrowed further.
Another student stepped in, and the room reacted — a collective shift in energy, a ripple that moved through every desk, every pair of eyes.
He was tall, lean under a black hoodie, the hood pulled low over his forehead. His hands were tucked in his pockets, posture lazy but assured, like he had walked into a bar fight and already won. The only visible part of his face was the sharp line of his jaw, a faint shadow of stubble clinging to his skin.
He stopped beside me.
"She's late because of me," he said, voice low but cutting through the silence. "I gave her the wrong directions. First day nerves."
I turned to look at him — really look — and my heart missed a beat.
The necklace around his throat, dark metal with a runic pendant that gleamed faintly under the lights. I had seen it before.
In my room. Last week.
My breath caught.
He didn't look at me. Didn't even glance my way. Just stood there like he hadn't broken into my life in the dead of night, tied my wrists with his tie, and warned me away from Leo.
"Is that so, Alaric?" The professor looked unimpressed but relented. "Find your seats. I won't accept excuses again."
I moved quickly to an empty bench near the back, the room still buzzing in a low hum of whispers.
Did he just speak?
I thought he dropped out.
Since when does he take the blame for anything?
I picked up snippets around me, but I didn't need to hear them to know — this wasn't normal. Whoever he was, this boy wasn't supposed to be kind. Or chivalrous. Or even present.
He slid into the seat beside mine without a word, pulling out a charcoal pencil from his sleeve like a knife. His hoodie still cast shadows across his face, but I could feel him watching. Watching everything.
I stared ahead, trying not to react.
He didn't speak to me.
But I knew.
And he knew I knew.
That was the beginning of everything unraveling — again.
The classroom smelled of clay and charcoal, warm under the golden lighting that reflected off the glass-tiled floor. Rows of wooden desks lined the room, each cluttered with sketchbooks and tools, while the professor paced at the front with a quiet authority that made you straighten up even when he wasn't looking directly at you.
Today's lecture had bled into practice. The room buzzed with low chatter and the steady scrape of pencils against paper. Everyone was working on the same task: a series of three sketches, each depicting an emotional state through posture alone — no faces, no eyes, just the silence of the body.
It was harder than it sounded.
Most of the students had weeks to warm up to it, but not me. Since I'd enrolled late, I had to finish the current assignment and catch up on the older ones, including a prep sketch series for next week's clay sculpting — detailed anatomical studies of hand movements, delicate bone curves, and expressive gestures. It was brutal. But the one that stumped me the most, the one that made my mind churn, was the professor's final requirement:
Sketch your fear — not what it is, but how it feels.
I stared at the blank page and felt the tight coil of something forming in my ribs.
Everyone else had already left by sundown.
I stayed.
The studio had turned quiet, almost sacred in its stillness, lit only by the single yellow desk lamp I'd dragged near my platform. My pencil moved in uncertain strokes, then harsher lines, then nothing at all. The page stared back at me. I tried again — hands trembling, shadows bleeding too dark into the sketches. My eyes ached.
The clock ticked past 10 PM.
And I was still stuck on how to draw a feeling that made no sound but screamed inside your chest.
My hands had started to cramp when the migraine hit — sharp and blinding, blooming from behind my eyes like a crack of thunder splitting the sky. My chest rose sharply, and I gripped the edge of the platform.
And then… lightning.
A blinding white flash filled the room, followed by a loud, sharp crack, and the lights flickered—then died. The darkness that followed was absolute.
I stumbled back, my knees weak, vision swimming. The room tilted. My foot slipped off the platform, the edges gone in the sudden black.
I was falling.
Or I should have been.
But something caught me.
Familiar.
Warm, but unnervingly cold — like fire behind glass.
Strong hands wrapped around my waist with unnatural ease, steadying me before I hit the ground. My heart lodged in my throat as I tried to breathe, the darkness pressing against my skin.
I didn't need to see his face to know.
It was him.
The same grip. The same tension.
The air around me stilled, like the storm had paused just to acknowledge him.
I couldn't speak. Not yet.
Not when my thoughts spiraled — not when my body remembered more than my mind could.
The silence between us hummed louder than the thunder outside.
And he didn't let go.
My breath caught in my throat, the silence around us deafening. I was still half in shock — from the fall, from the migraine, from the touch I could never mistake. His hold didn't tremble. It didn't hesitate.
He wasn't breathing heavily like I was.
He was calm.
Like he'd been waiting.
"Let go," I whispered, more out of instinct than command.
But his hands didn't move.
Instead, I felt the faintest lean — a whisper of warmth near my ear, and the hushed breath of a voice I remembered too well.
"You really are a magnet for chaos."
My spine straightened. My pulse stuttered.
The power hadn't come back, but a silver streak of lightning lit the room again — just for a second — and in that blink, I saw him.
The outline of his jaw. The hood still half-shadowing his face. That same glint of a chain around his neck.
And his eyes… not red this time, not yet.
But watching me like I was the unfinished piece on this studio floor.
"I didn't need saving," I said finally, my voice sharper than I meant. "I was fine."
"Sure you were," he said with a tilt of mockery in his voice, fingers slowly easing away from my waist. "One more second and you would've made a lovely dent in the floor."
I turned toward him, grounding myself again, even as the dizziness still lingered behind my eyes. "What are you even doing here?"
"Didn't like the idea of you sketching fear alone," he said, stepping back but not too far. "Besides… someone needs to make sure you survive your first week."
My jaw clenched. I didn't need this — this teasing, this cryptic dance of his.
But then I saw it — the glint of something in his hand.
A folded page.
No — my sketch.
The one I hadn't even finished.
"How did you—" I stepped toward him, and he held it just out of reach, smirking.
"Not bad," he said, glancing at the sketch. "But fear doesn't sit still like this. It moves. It breathes. It hides in your spine, not your hands."
I grabbed for the paper, but he only lifted it higher. His smile widened — that cocky, devil-may-care smirk that should've infuriated me more than it did.
"Give it back," I snapped.
"Make me."
The way he said it — like it was a challenge, or maybe a dare — made something twist in my chest.
My fingers curled at my sides. "Why are you always like this?"
"Because it keeps you guessing." He leaned in closer, and the grin faded into something softer. "Because if I wasn't… you'd try to forget me."
Another flash of lightning lit the room.
This time, I didn't look away.
Neither did he.
And for one sharp second, I hated how close we stood, how familiar he felt, how beautiful he looked in that dangerous, half-wild way.
"I don't need some brooding shadow showing up to save me," I said, barely above a breath, my voice shaky but defiant. "I can handle myself."
His gaze dropped to my lips for the briefest second, then climbed slowly back to meet my eyes — fire smoldering behind that cool exterior.
A slow, amused smile tugged at the corner of his mouth, but it didn't reach his eyes. Those stayed sharp, unreadable.
"Oh, sweetheart," he murmured, voice a delicious low hum as he leaned in, so close our noses almost touched, "that's cute."
His breath ghosted against my skin, and I hated that it made my pulse hitch.
"But let's get one thing straight—" his fingers brushed the edge of my jaw, almost lazily, "if I wanted to save you…" His smirk deepened, wicked now. "You wouldn't have a choice."
My stomach twisted — not from fear. No, this was something far more dangerous.
I should've pulled away. Should've shoved him back.
But my feet didn't move. My body didn't listen.
The air between us crackled like the storm outside. His hand was still warm against my jawline, firm but not forcing — just enough to make me aware of every inch separating us.
Which wasn't much.
And then, as if he sensed the spiral building inside me — the confusion, the heat, the scream of unanswered questions — he stepped back.
Like nothing had happened.
Like he hadn't just flipped my entire world with a sentence and a touch.
I blinked. "You still haven't told me who you are."
He tilted his head slightly. "I will."
"When?" I asked, frustrated. "Why are you even here? How do you know me?"
"I don't," he said simply, but there was something dangerous behind his smile. "Not yet."
"And Leo?" I demanded. "Why do you want me to stay away from him?"
His expression shifted — the warmth vanished. The air dropped several degrees as if even the storm held its breath.
"You don't want to know."
"I do," I pushed, stepping forward. "He's my—he's the only one who's been kind to me."
His jaw clenched.
"He's not what you think he is."
I felt the anger flare in my chest again. "Then tell me! Stop playing these games. Who the hell are you to come into my room, my life, and start demanding things from me like I owe you something?!"
I shoved at his chest — his body didn't move, solid like stone beneath the fabric of his shirt. He caught my wrists, but not gently this time. His grip tightened just enough to still me.
"Say no one more time," he said, his voice low and deadly, his lips barely a breath from mine. "And I swear, I'll cross every line you think you've drawn between us."
His eyes — they weren't glowing red yet, but they didn't need to.
They burned.
With fury.
With warning.
With something darker.
And my heart didn't know whether to run… or stay.
You have no right to control what I do," I snapped, turning away from him, trying to steady my breath. "Nor the right to show up wherever I go."
I refused to give him another glance. I bent over the half-finished sculpture — the one that had already started to crack under the pressure of my frustration — and tried to focus.
He didn't say anything.
But I felt him.
Like gravity folding in on itself in the corner of the room. Watching.
Then his voice came — calm, smooth, but laced with that ever-present edge of arrogance.
"You won't even get close to what the professor wants… not with the way you move."
I froze.
Move?
I turned, my brows drawn. "Excuse me?"
But he was already stepping closer, the space between us vanishing like mist in sunlight.
My heart jumped. I instinctively stepped back, but he reached out and caught my wrist — gently, yet firmly — guiding it without force, just control.
"Too tense," he muttered. "That's why the lines crack. You're letting your fear shape it instead of your intent."
I didn't breathe as he moved behind me. His hand slid down my arm to meet mine at the brush. Fingers curled around my fingers.
He adjusted my grip — strong but precise — and then leaned in close, so close that his breath grazed the side of my neck.
"You have to let it follow the rhythm of your thoughts," he murmured.
My fingers trembled.
He moved my hand gently across the canvas in front of us — slow, steady strokes that felt far more intimate than anything I'd ever known.
His voice was just above a whisper, but it rolled down my spine like thunder, low and warm. "Feel the curve. Breathe with it. Control it."
I tried — gods, I tried — but my thoughts were a mess. I couldn't focus with the weight of him behind me, his touch like wildfire licking across my skin.
I swallowed. "I don't need your help."
He let out a breath of a laugh — almost amused, almost cruel.
"Then why haven't you pushed me away?"
My jaw tightened.
Because I didn't want to. Because part of me — a very stupid, dangerous part — wanted him to stay exactly where he was.
I didn't answer.
And he didn't move.
He stayed behind me, hand guiding mine, silence thick between us.
Until I whispered, "I can't do this."
His hand paused over mine. For a second, I felt the hesitation in his touch — just a flicker — before he pulled back slightly, eyes narrowing with faint confusion.
"This?" he asked quietly, his tone unreadable. "It's not even that hard."
I gave a bitter laugh and stepped out of his hold, my chest tightening. "Not this," I said, beginning to gather my scattered things. "It's… never mind. You wouldn't understand."
He didn't speak at first. The silence between us wasn't empty — it was sharp, pressurized, like it could split the air if one of us dared breathe too loud.
But of course, he did.
"What is it you can't do?" he asked finally, the edge in his voice softer now — almost curious.
I zipped my sketch folder and slung my bag over my shoulder. My hand trembled as I brushed clay dust from my palm, and I didn't look at him when I answered.
"Something that doesn't exist in your dictionary."
When I did glance up — just for a heartbeat — I saw the flicker in his eyes again. That same hunger that made it hard to tell whether he wanted to understand me… or devour me whole.
"Lyra" he said, slower now, testing my name on his tongue like it meant something. "If you don't tell me what you're talking about… how the hell do you expect me to know?"
There was something different about him now. The sharp red in his eyes had faded — like storm clouds after rain — replaced by a deep, unsettling blue. It wasn't calm. It wasn't gentle. It was drowning.
I bit down on the sob climbing up my throat and shook my head.
"Just… leave me alone," I whispered, backing toward the door. "Please. I'm begging you."
And before he could say another word, I was gone.
Every step I took away from him, my thoughts only grew louder.
The corridor outside the studio was dark, the emergency lights flickering faintly as the storm outside lashed against the windows. My boots echoed on the stone floors as I walked faster, trying to outrun the tightness in my chest.
But his presence lingered — like smoke that stayed in your lungs long after the fire.
Why did my heart ache the moment we were apart?
Why did I feel like this — like something inside me shattered every time I looked into his eyes?
Why did he feel like happiness... but also the furthest thing from it?
Why hadn't I ever felt this with Leo?
Is this love?
I can't feel this.
This would shatter me.
I should stay away from him.
I had to stay away.
But then... why couldn't I stop hoping I'd see him again?