Hunger beneath the moon.

Silence and faceless dream.

By the time Kael returned home, night had fully settled. The house greeted him the same way it always did, with empty silence. He moved through it without turning on any lights, letting the kitchen's dim glow spill softly into the space as he prepared something simple. A steak thick and barely seasoned. Cooked just the way he preferred, rare enough to still hold warmth at its core, but not enough to satisfy anything beyond the surface, for him and for Az.

He ate slowly, methodically, as if the act itself mattered more than the food. Each bite was deliberate, controlled. Something he could measure, he could finish, unlike everything else.

This will not be enough, Azruk said quietly. Kael didn’t look up.

It’s not meant to be, he mind-linked his answer.

No!

He finished the meal without feeling full, without feeling anything, really. The plate sat empty, but the weight inside him remained untouched. Kael leaned back slightly, exhaling through his nose.

“I don’t feel it tonight,” he said. The pull, the surge, the warning that usually came before everything unraveled.

That means nothing.

Kael gave a faint, humorless breath.

“I know.”

There were no normal nights, not for him and Azruk, only pauses, and even those could not be trusted.

He stood, cleaning up without thinking, letting routine carry him through the motions. Then, without hesitation, he transformed.

The shift came easily whenever he wanted it. Azruk surfaced beneath his skin, not in violence, but in presence, stretching into form as Kael allowed it. They were together, aligned for once. They stepped outside; the night air was cooler now, carrying the distant sound of waves breaking gently against the shore. Kael had given the rein to Azruk, and they were in sync, moving down the path to the beach that was familiar to them.

They needed this escape tonight; the silence, the guilt, was almost too much to bear. The ocean stretched endlessly before him; they needed the seclusion, the unforgiving vastness it offered. He stepped into the water without hesitation. First, in wolf form—strong, fluid, cutting through the surface with ease. The cold didn’t bite. The depth didn’t threaten; it just… held him. For a while, there was nothing else, no thoughts, no memories, just movement. Then he shifted back to human again.

The transition is smoother now, less violent, like slipping between two versions of the same existence.

He moved through the water differently this time—slower, heavier. More aware of the weight of his own body, of the effort it took to stay afloat, of the exhaustion that never truly left. Eventually, he returned to the shore. The sand was cool beneath his feet as he walked along the edge of the water, the waves brushing lightly against him before retreating again, back and forth, endless, like everything else.

Kael stopped, staring out at the horizon; there was nothing there, no one. Just the vast, open space of a world that had no place for him.

“I could have shared this,” he said quietly.

Not to anyone, not even fully to Azruk, just… to the night, to the emptiness.

"Yes," he responded, but it carried no comfort, only agreement, only truth.

Kael stood there longer than he meant to, letting the silence settle, letting the loneliness stretch until it filled everything, because fighting it had never worked, ignoring it had never helped, and there was no one to fill it.

Eventually, he turned; he walked back the way he came. Step by step, leaving nothing behind but faint impressions in the sand—already being erased by the tide. The house was just as empty when he returned, just as quiet and just as unchanged.

Kael moved through it slowly, exhaustion settling deeper now—not the kind that sleep could fix, but the kind that lived beneath everything else. He sat for a moment, then leaned back, staring at nothing.

“I don’t want sleep,” he admitted under his breath, because sleep meant dreams, and dreams meant memory turned into a nightmare.

Nightmare meant loss, grief; it meant an inability to forget and block out. What he wanted…was something else, something he couldn’t name, something he couldn’t have.

Kael closed his eyes, not to rest, not to escape, but simply because there was nothing else left to do. The night carried on, just as it always did. Sleep did come, but not gently. It began without shape, without place, just a sensation. He felt it before he saw anything.

A touch. Light at first—barely there—like the memory of warmth rather than the warmth itself. It moved across him slowly, deliberately, as if learning him… or remembering him. Kael stilled within the dream, aware, too aware.

“You’re here…” he murmured, though he didn’t know who he was speaking to. The answer came not in words but in presence. She was there; he knew it. Not from sight—but from everything else. The closeness. The warmth. The way the air shifted around him, filled with something softer than anything he had felt in waking life. A woman, he was certain of it. She was there; he knew it. Not from sight—but from everything else. The closeness. The warmth. The way the air shifted around him, filled with something softer than anything he had felt in waking life. Her hands moved again, more sure this time, familiar, intimate, not invasive and not forced.

He wanted it; he craved her. Kael reached for her instinctively, his own hands meeting something real—form, warmth, softness—but when he tried to look, nothing. Her face—wasn’t there, or rather—he couldn’t see it.

“Show me…” he said, voice strained now, not from fear—but from need.

His hands moved to her face, trying to trace it, to understand it, to find it, but every time he tried to focus—it slipped, blurred, gone.

Frustration flickered through him, sharp, immediate, because everything else was so vivid. The closeness, the shared breath, the feeling of being touched not by instinct… but by something deeper.

Something he hadn’t known in centuries. Their lips met, soft, lingering, real enough to make his chest tighten. Kael leaned into it, deepening the moment, trying to anchor it, to hold it in place before it could fade like everything else in his life. But still, he couldn’t see her.

“Please…” he whispered to her, the word breaking slightly. “Just—let me see you…” No answer, only the continuation of the moment, endless, perfect, and incomplete. Kael tried everything, pulling her closer, slowing time, focusing.

Forcing the dream to sharpen, to reveal what it kept hidden from him, but it refused. Every attempt only made the absence more obvious, more unbearable. This, this was what he had been missing, not the hunger, not the curse, not the endless nights, but this.

The connection, the closeness, something shared, mutual and human. It was right there, within his reach, and yet still denied. The frustration built, deep and heavy, a quiet ache that pressed into every part of him.

“No…” he said softly, shaking his head. “Don’t take this too…”

Even as he spoke, the dream began to slip, the warmth faded, the presence thinned. Her touch lingered just long enough to make its loss sharper. Kael reached for her one last time, and found nothing. He woke abruptly, his breath uneven and his body tense. The room was dark around him, real and empty and unforgiving. For a moment, he didn’t move; he didn’t think. He just lay there, caught between what had been and what was. Then reality settled, cold and immediate.

Kael exhaled sharply, dragging a hand over his face as frustration settled into him—not just physical, but deeper than that.

It had not been real; it was just another illusion, another reminder of something he could not have. He sat up slowly, staring into the darkness of the room.

“She had no face…” he muttered.

She had no form you could hold, Azruk’s voice came quietly.

Kael shook his head.

“No… she was there,” he was certain.

Kael leaned back slightly, eyes still open, still distant.

“I almost had it,” he said quietly, not to anyone.

Almost, but almost was never enough.