The apartment was quiet, except for the faint hum of the city outside and the soft scratch of her pen across paper. Laura Vane leaned over her desk, shoulders aching, a mug of cold coffee forgotten beside her, and stared at the blank page.
Another day had passed in grayscale: emails, meetings, deadlines. People demanding her attention. Life pressing down with the weight of invisible chains. She had been saving everyone else, her coworkers, her family, even strangers, and in return, she had been left with exhaustion, a hollow chest, and a heart that no longer remembered how to hope.
Writing was the only escape.
She closed her eyes for a moment, letting her pen hover over the page. Then she wrote.: The world is made of hearts, some fragile, some dark, some burning with a fire no one can see. And some...are waiting for someone to remember them.
The words felt alive under her fingers. She shivered. She always felt it, the pull,the way the story she wrote began to breathe outside the page, like tiny sparks in the corners of the room.
Her main character appeared in her mind: Kael Draven. Dark hair falling over sharp, dangerous features, eyes that could pierce through the soul. He was meant to be ruthless, a shadow in the world she had created, yet tonight, he lingered a moment longer in her thoughts than usual.
A cold draft brushed her neck, and she looked up. Shadows pooled in the corners of her room, deeper than the night should allow. For a heartbeat, she imagined Kael standing there, half in mist, half in flesh, his gaze fixed on her.
"You didn't create me, Laura. You remembered me."
The voice was soft, a whisper carried through the quiet of her apartment, or perhaps through her own imagination. She shook her head. No. Impossible. She was alone.
But the page in front of her glowed faintly, golden light seeping along the inked letters. Her heart thumped, and she realized; the line between her story and her life had begun to blur.
She leaned back, breathing fast. The fantasy had always been her refuge, a place where she could escape the mundane, the exhaustion, the loneliness. But tonight, it felt… alive. Hungry.
And she wanted it.
A shiver ran through her as she picked up her pen again. The story waited, as if it knew she would need it more than she knew herself. The veil between her reality and the world she wrote was thin. She could cross it anytime… but once she did, there was no turning back.
"Then let's begin," she whispered to the shadows...or to him.