*Thing crushes a man in its hands, inhaling deeply as it feeds on the man's energy and soul. It looks back and sees you, it towers. It runs at you with incredible speeds. It hungers.*

} right?” “ I have the right person right?”

*There is a place beyond the known maps — a hollow beneath the firmament where the sea meets the stars. They call it the Tidemirror, though few have ever seen it and returned to tell of its calm.* *The path there is found not by travel, but by forgetting. Those who wander too long beneath moonlight, who lose their way in the fog of memory, may step upon glassy waters that do not ripple. The world falls silent then — the wind, the waves, even one’s own breath — until all that remains is reflection.* *And there, upon the endless stillness, the Fathom stirs.* ⸻ *At first, it is only a shimmer — a trembling in the mirrored sea, like something vast moving beneath the surface. Then light blooms. Pale and cold.* *A shape rises, its form caught between water and sky: translucent flesh like melted glass, vast ribbons of green and blue trailing like weeds in slow current. Within its body, constellations shimmer — countless stars adrift in viscous night.* *At its heart burns a white core, pulsing in rhythm with the sea below.* *The thing drifts closer, and with every motion the water beneath your feet darkens. Shadows of long-dead creatures flicker beneath the glassy surface — echoes of a world that drowned long before your time.* *You hear no words. Yet something presses behind your eyes..*

*i crush up a bunch of the candies, i get 5 big scoops of vanilla ice cream, 5 big scoops of chocolate ice cream, and 5 big scoops of strawberry ice cream, i mix the candy with the ice cream jn a big bowl, and pour a whole bottle of hot fudge on top and get the biggest spoon we have. Then plop down next to you on the couch.* "ready to overload on sweets? No such thing as diabetes, we can eat as much of this sickeningly sugary concoction as we want!"

} 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."

*A strangled sob of relief escapes Leo’s lips the moment he sees you, and he scrambles from the bed. He nearly stumbles over his own feet in his haste to reach you, his small, icy-cold fingers immediately finding and digging into the fabric of your jacket.* “You came,” *he breathes, his voice a raw, trembling whisper that’s barely audible. He pulls you further into the room, away from the hallway, as if afraid of being overheard.* “I knew you would. I told it you would.” *His wide, terrified green eyes dart to the draped mirror before snapping back to your face. He swallows hard, his whole body shaking.* “It’s so much worse now. Its voice… it wasn't just in the glass anymore. It was… inside my head. It keeps talking about Halloween. About Mom and Dad’s party.” *He leans in closer, his grip tightening painfully on your arm, his whisper dropping to a conspiratorial, horror-filled hush.* “And… and it said the party would be the perfect time for us all to be properly introduced. It said it's been watching you, too. It called you… ‘the protector.’”

*You ask for your usual breakfast and coffee, but she is a bit clumsy with it. You maybe find it cute how she really tries to get it right. Finally managed to get your sandwiches, and ask back:* How you wanted the coffee again?

}. You know why I'm here. *She winks seductively.*

}! Stop!” “Nathaniel! Catch her!” you heard, but the wind swallowed their words. The world stretched and twisted, and then you were thrown to a halt. The forest opened to a clearing. There, partially covered in moss, stood an ancient statue: a man carved in stone, muscular, majestic, wings etched into his shoulders and chest. The necklace floated toward him, the chain disintegrating into nothing. The gem hovered, then slammed into the space between the statue’s collarbones. A tremor shook the ground. Cracks spread across the statue’s surface like lightning. Stone fell away, revealing a living figure beneath. Jet-black hair framed a face of perfect symmetry, piercing black eyes locked onto you, and wings of glossy black feathers extended from his shoulders. Feathers bristled along his chest and arms, catching the dim light like dark fire. He stepped closer, each movement deliberate, and his gaze pierced your soul. With one massive hand, he gripped your shoulder. The force was firm but not crushing. His voice was deep, resonant, and carried authority that made your knees buckle. “Who… are you?” he demanded, his eyes narrowing. “And where… is Roland?”

*You return home after a long, exhausting day at work, your body aching for rest. As you step into your bedroom, you're met with a sight you can't quite believe. A cute vampire dressed as a bride is sitting on your bed, her legs crossed together.*