Beginnings of Obsession... or Madness?
996 Words
The gaslight glow of the evening still clung to Cassian’s coat as he made his way through the crooked alleys of the city. The fog clung to the cobblestones like a veil of secrets, and though the streets murmured with the quiet hum of nocturnal life, Cassian felt deeply alone. Alone, and yet not. Every footstep echoed with memory now—phantom sensations that clawed their way up through his mind like ivy over stone.
She had touched his thoughts. Unlocked them. Flooded him with the truth of their encounters. Seraphine.
The moment she whispered his name into the night, he remembered everything. The graveyard. Her ancient story. Her voice, dripping like honeyed wine, so laced with mystery and sorrow it haunted his dreams. The way her eyes pierced through the soul like moonlight on still water. And then, just as suddenly as she had come, she was gone again.
Cassian reached the old stairwell to his loft and took the steps two at a time, the echo of boots on wood thudding like the pulse in his throat. The door groaned open and shut behind him. The apartment was dim, the lamps barely lit, but his mind was afire.
He didn't light more candles. He didn’t eat. He barely removed his coat.
Instead, he paced. The same five steps forward, five steps back, then turning and pacing again. Thoughts twisted like thorns in his chest.
She had given him back his memories. Why? Why reveal herself again only to vanish once more?
Cassian stopped and leaned heavily against the windowsill, gazing out at the fog-wreathed city below. She had said nothing of her reasons. She had made him promise not to write of her—but she hadn’t said he couldn’t think of her. And think of her he did. Obsessively. Compulsively.
He ran a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated sigh.
Every time he closed his eyes, her image was there—effortlessly regal, devastatingly powerful. The way the fog seemed to part for her, how the world bent to her presence. And still… she had looked at him. Not like a god views a mortal. But something softer. Something more.
A man doesn’t forget that.
Cassian collapsed into his armchair, the one by the window that faced the cathedral spire. He remembered her voice when she spoke of her grave. How her words trembled just slightly when she said it felt good to be seen. Had anyone else ever seen her?
The thought tightened his chest.
He fantasized, then, not for the first time, about reaching out and brushing the strands of silver-dark hair from her face. Of feeling her breath near his skin, cold and still somehow burning. Of her lips parting to speak his name in that aching whisper of hers.
But it wasn’t just want that throbbed inside him—it was need. Raw, unshaped need. To understand her. To help her. To be near her. Every instinct screamed it was foolish, dangerous, suicidal even. But the more he told himself to let go, the more he burned.
He thought about her coven. About Aradia’s twisted seduction and the look in her eyes when her spell failed. That sharp, feline awareness. She had pieced it together.
Seraphine had protected him.
He sat upright, staring at nothing. She hadn’t just warded him on a whim. That kind of magic, that binding—there was intent in that. Power. And maybe even… emotion?
No. Too much. Too soon.
But she could have just wiped him again. Left him fumbling and confused. Yet she chose to let him remember. She had warned him not to write about her anymore. She didn’t tell him to stop looking.
Was that permission? Or a trap?
Cassian laughed bitterly, dragging a hand down his face. “I’m losing it,” he muttered. “I’ve gone mad for a bloody vampire.”
Yet even as he said it, a shiver of pleasure licked up his spine.
He thought of the way she had stood in the fog, framed in pale light, like some forgotten goddess caught between the centuries. He thought of how her eyes softened when he said he wanted to protect her. As if no one had offered her such a thing in centuries.
He got up again. Pacing.
How did she do it? How did she live through ages and still carry such sadness? How did she stay hidden for so long, untouched by the chaos of the world? Did she love? Had she ever?
Was she capable of it?
And more importantly… could she ever see him?
Cassian opened his journal, the old leather-bound one with frayed corners and half-filled pages. He thought of writing. Not an article. No—she had made herself clear. But words needed to bleed somewhere.
Instead, he flipped to a blank page and began to draw.
First her silhouette. Then her grave. Then the fog, coiling around them like smoke. The image in his mind was a dream, now etched in ink.
He touched the page gently. It wasn’t enough.
He rose, crossed the room to the fireplace, and knelt. In a metal tin tucked away behind the logs, he pulled out a thin piece of charcoal. With it, he returned to the page and began to write under the sketch.
She comes like twilight, neither day nor night.
A breath of ancient memory on the nape of the world.
She sees the rot in our cities and still calls it art.
She names graves like old friends.
And in her silence, I heard the oldest song.
The words spilled without his full understanding. But he knew, somehow, they were true.
Cassian sat back. Staring. Longing twisted around his ribs like chains.
He needed to see her again.
Not for a story. Not even for answers.
Just to see her.
To prove she was real.
And maybe—just maybe—to be seen.
- Writer
