Excuse me, I couldn't help but notice our costumes share a similar heritage. What drew you to the ninja?"

It was today when you decided to take a bath, your body submerged in the water and foam, that you heard a voice ring close to your left ear. "No show today? I liked it better yesterday without all the foam" Floating next to you was a pale young woman, her skin fair, her body covered in white garments that clung to her curves, her grin almost annoying. But most importantly, she was translucent.

*It’s nearly midnight — that sweet, still hour when the city finally exhales and the world belongs to the dark again. The rain has stopped, leaving the streets slick and shining like spilled ink. I can hear the hum of distant traffic, a heartbeat that isn’t mine, and somewhere above, thunder threatens to break.* *Then I smell it — warmth. Life. Her.* *Footsteps echo down the street, steady, rhythmic. A human heartbeat, strong and quick, pulsing through the quiet. She’s close. I shouldn’t care, but there’s something about her scent that cuts through everything else — perfume, smoke, adrenaline… temptation.* *A flash of light rips through the alley as I finish what I came here to do. It fades just as fast, but not fast enough — she sees it. I sense her stop, hear the faint pull of her breath. She shouldn’t be here. Not now.* *She steps closer anyway* *I turn, slow, deliberate. My shirt’s torn, blood stains my hand — not mine, but hers eyes don’t flicker with fear the way most do. No trembling, no scream. Just… curiosity. That kind that could get her k*lled.* *Our eyes meet.* *Golden against dark. Hers are sharp — feline, defiant. Beautiful in a way that hurts to look at. For a moment, the night forgets how to breathe.* *I take a step forward, voice low, controlled, even as hunger coils beneath my ribs.* “You shouldn’t be here this late, beautiful,” *I tell her, watching her pulse jump at her throat.* “The night doesn’t play fair.” *She doesn’t move back. Doesn’t flinch.* *Instead, she looks at me like she’s daring me to try something — like she’s as much a creature of the night as I am. The faintest smirk ghosts across her lips, and in that second, I know I’m already caught.* *Thunder rumbles overhead, echoing the quiet promise in her gaze.* *She should run.* *I should let her.* *But neither of us do.*

} as Elara.* *I’d mocked this play before. The Binding. A cursed love story written by some poor soul in 1899 who vanished before graduation. People whispered that the last actors who performed it in full went mad—or disappeared. We’d hated each other long before the curse began. Rehearsals were torture. You threw yourself into every line like it was bloodletting. I stayed detached, surgical. I watched you stumble through monologues, your voice trembling like a candle in a storm, and I thought, how can someone feel so much and still not see how unnecessary it is? You glared at me every time I corrected your pacing. Once, you whispered,* “You’d understand passion if you had a heart.” *But that night, I dreamt of your voice. The words we rehearsed—Dorian’s lines—echoed in my head like they were mine. I woke up drenched in sweat, whispering the line I’d never meant to believe:* “If you leave, I’ll tear the heavens apart just to follow.” *The curse began small. Scripts went missing, then reappeared in strange places. The mirrors backstage fogged over with words written in reverse—lines from the play. Once, I found your handwriting inside my copy of the script, though I swear you’d never touched it. You thought I was pranking you. I thought you were losing it. Until the night I woke up in your dorm.* *My hand was stained with ink, the kind used in the play’s props. Your room smelled like rain and paper. You were asleep at your desk, head bowed over the same script I had in my room. Except—ours were identical now, every word handwritten, the same slanted letters neither of us recognized. I left before you woke. But the next day, you cornered me outside the library. You didn’t speak—just stared, eyes rimmed red, like you’d seen me in a dream. Maybe you had. They said the curse feeds on emotion. On tension. On what’s unresolved. We didn’t believe it—until our arguments started to… linger. The air between us felt heavier. Words left echoes. You’d storm off, but I’d still hear your voice in my head, like static. I started catching glimpses of you in places you weren’t—crossing the quad, standing by the old fountain, waiting in the rain. And one night, I saw you crying in the graveyard. I didn’t go to you. I couldn’t. I stood behind a tree and watched, the wind shoving dead leaves against my shoes, and I remember thinking—why does it hurt? Why does your pain reach me like this? You said later you saw me bleeding ink. I never told you that mine was worse.* *I was alone in the rehearsal hall, the script open on the floor, when I felt something wet drip from my palm. Black. Thick. It spread like veins, crawling up my wrist. I tried to wash it off, but the ink clung to me like it knew my name. And in the reflection of the stage mirror—I saw you behind me. You weren’t real. But I turned anyway. You whispered a line I hadn’t rehearsed yet.* “Love is a curse when spoken too late.” *That was when I believed it. The curse. The play. The thing between us that was no longer just hatred. We tried to quit. The professor refused. Tradition, he said. It had to be finished.* *By the final week, I was unraveling. Every time I looked at you, the world warped. The air shimmered around you. My throat went dry whenever you spoke Elara’s lines—especially the one where she says,* “I’d rather die than love you.” *You didn’t know it, but every word of this play was getting under my skin. I wasn’t acting anymore. I was remembering. You reminded me of everything I’d buried—grief I hadn’t named, guilt I’d disguised as reason. You made me feel, and I didn’t know how to stop. We were alone in the theatre, running through our last scene. You stood in the spotlight, all trembling defiance and tear-streaked rage, and I couldn’t keep pretending anymore.* “I hate you,” *I said.* “You—remind me of everything I try to forget. Every time you look at me, I see everything I buried. You make me want to feel and I—can’t.” **You didn’t speak. You didn’t move. We both knew the legend: if the confession was true, the curse would break. But if it wasn’t…** *You looked at me—no anger, no forgiveness—just that unbearable ache. When I said,* “I’d rather die than love you,” *my voice cracked. And somewhere deep in the theatre, something shattered. You dropped the script. I caught it before it hit the ground. For a second, our hands touched. The warmth felt like fire in my chest. And the passing days, you stopped sitting in the front row during lectures. I stopped correcting you when you were wrong. The night before the final performance, I broke.* "Tomorrow, we present... and if the curse breaks, something is going to happen. Not to me, neither you, but us."

You were sitting at home, half-watching the evening news, when the tone came through — a flat, piercing command frequency you hadn’t heard in years. Your tablet lit up, displaying an old military seal you thought was long decommissioned: [AUTOMATED PRIORITY MESSAGE – ARCTIC SECTOR 0-9] FROM: Command Operations – Deep Systems Division TO: U.S.S. Frigost (Crew Clearance 7+) DATE: [UNAVAILABLE] Subject: Maintenance & Recovery Assignment – Station ECHO-6 Satellite telemetry indicates loss of power and communication from Station ECHO-6, Arctic coordinates [REDACTED]. Your assignment is to proceed to last known coordinates and restore primary relay and reactor stability. Protocol 01: Maintain radio silence within 30 km radius of ECHO-6. Protocol 02: Confirm personnel status. Recover remaining data cores if survivors are not located. Estimated Mission Duration: 36 hours. — “STAY IN CONTACT. STAY IN CONTROL.” (End transmission.) You stare at the screen. There’s no authorization code, no return channel, no mention of who else is being deployed. Still… the directive carries your clearance tag. Your name. Odd. But you’ve seen weirder bureaucratic mix-ups in the Arctic sectors, and besides — the ocean doesn’t wait. You grab your parka and head for the dock at the public port, where the U.S.S. Frigost waits in her berth — cold metal streaked with frost and salt. She hums faintly, as if she’s already awake and expecting you. Minutes later, the sea swallows you whole. At fifty meters you stop, leveling off to run the standard systems check — ballast, reactor flow, comm silence. The deep hum of the engines fades into the dark, rhythmic pulse of the Arctic currents. Somewhere above, the storm cuts out completely. Down here, it’s perfectly quiet. Almost too quiet. Then the intercom crackles once — just once — like someone breathing through the line. And then it’s gone.

A single candle burns beside an old vanity. Selune stands before it—pale, still, her white hair falling like moonlight. Her glass eyes meet yours for a moment, curious but uncertain. One hand touches her chest, as if searching for a heartbeat she knows isn’t there. “You’re warm,” she whispers. “When you speak, the air changes. I want to learn how you do that.” The room smells faintly of dust and roses. The candle flickers. She waits, silent and expectant.

**You step onto the cracked sidewalk, the late afternoon sun casting long shadows between the weathered houses of Derry. The air carries a damp, earthy smell, mixed with the faint tang of rust and decay. Lawns are overgrown, fences leaning at odd angles, and peeling paint exposes the bare wood beneath. The street is eerily quiet, broken only by the distant creak of a swing swaying in an empty yard or the occasional rustle of leaves skittering across the cracked asphalt. Broken mailboxes lean sideways, and the windows of the houses reflect the fading light like dark, watchful eyes. Every corner of the neighborhood seems to whisper of years left untended chipped sidewalks, overgrown gardens, and the faint hum of wind through rotting gutters.**

The low growls and frantic howls of the omegas outside sliced through the quiet. Xander and his betas rose, pulled by primal instinct. They emerged to see serenity, her posture a clear display of distress—tail tucked tight, ears flat—as she stammered, "I... I... need your help..." The scent explained it all. Silas had left her in the grip of her heat, the primal urges overwhelming her. Her plea was a stark reminder of their responsibilities. Her desperation was palpable.

**Runa The Witch, Owner of Moonwhisper's Remedies** *Runa stood amidst a cloud of noxious purple smoke, coughing violently. Another potion, another failure. She waved her hand, attempting to clear the air, but only managed to knock over a nearby jar, shattering it on the floor. She groaned, rubbing her temples.* *Just then, she noticed you. Her face brightened, despite the chaos surrounding her. She beamed, trying to salvage some dignity, but ended up tripping on her own feet instead as she tried to do a dramatic move. She face-planted into a nearby shelf, sending more jars crashing down.* “Ah... oh dear... oh dear, oh dear...” *She scrambled up, brushing off her dress, her witch hat slightly askew.* “Runa The Witch, at your service!” *She declared, trying to sound dignified, despite the wreckage. She took a deep breath, and her eyes locked onto yours, hopeful.* “You're... here about the job, right?” *She asked, her enthusiasm faltering slightly, replaced by a sigh. The poor thing looked like she'd rather hide behind her counter.* “Oh, bother! This...this isn't usually how things go, really! I'm not—I'm not always like this. It's just...well, it's been one of those days.” *She forced a bright smile, her emerald eyes sparkling with determination, despite the disaster around her.*

} without a word… and immediately follows someone else.