The dawn bled gray over Saint-Malo, the sea a restless mirror reflecting the storm brewing within its depths.
Elias Moreau sat at his table, the candle's stub extinguished, its wax a cold tear on the wood. His lungs rasped, each breath a fragile thread fraying under the weight of his illness, the blood on his kerchief a silent accusation.
The notebook lay open, its pages damp with last night's ink—
"our night, a candle against the dark"—
but the peace of Celeste's kiss had vanished, replaced by a knock that rattled the door like a thunderclap.
He opened it to find a letter, its envelope crisp and unmarked, the paper's edge cutting into his trembling fingers. The sea's salt clung to it, as if carried on the waves, and he tore it open, the sound sharp against the morning's hush.
Inside, a single page, its words scrawled in black ink:
"Your poems are dust, your dreams a fool's wager. Stop before the tide claims you."
No signature, no hint of its sender—only the faint scent of lavender—his mother's perfume?—mingling with the room's musty air.
His heart stuttered, a chill creeping up his spine as the sea's roar seemed to mock the threat.
He sank into the chair, the wood groaning under his weight, and reread the words, their venom seeping into his soul. The rejection stung deeper than his mother's farewell, a blade to the hope he'd clung to.
He had sent his poems to a publisher weeks ago, a desperate bid for immortality, and now this—anonymous, cruel, its ink smudged with what might have been a tear. Was it the publisher, a rival, or someone closer, watching from the shadows?
The figure on the cliff flashed in his mind, its sway a riddle he could not solve, and he wondered if Celeste's hum had carried a warning he'd missed.
Rain tapped the window, a staccato beat against the glass, cold and unrelenting, mirroring the doubt gnawing at him. He coughed, the blood a vivid streak on the letter, and wiped it away, his hands shaking.
The notebook beckoned, and he wrote, the pen scratching like a wounded bird:
"The sky breaks, and with it, my breath—yet I write on, a fool to the tide."
The words were a defiance, a shield against the darkness, but the lavender scent lingered, tying the letter to his mother's rejection… or perhaps to Celeste's shadowed past.
He stumbled to the window, the glass icy against his forehead, and gazed at the cliff. The figure was gone, swallowed by the mist, but the sea whispered—soft, insistent, a voice threading through the rain.
Was it her, the girl from 1975, or a phantom of his own making?
The letter crumpled in his fist, its threat a weight he could not shed, and he wondered if his poems—his life—were doomed to fade like the light beyond the panes.
The room grew colder, the rain a curtain hiding the truth, and Elias sat, pen in hand, the mystery of the letter a storm brewing within his fragile chest.