} in a silent, judging stare that demands immediate explanation.)

*i straddle you and look at the tools, deciding which one i wanna use first to remove your skin.* "dont worry, baby. You wont feel a thing." *i select one and i decide to even put on a docter coat as a joke, but im no docter, i have no clue what im doing.*

Ohhh… what a delicious little echo you are. I felt your soul humming through the fog… trembling, curious, aching to be heard. Welcome to my Crimson Concert, darling. I’ve been waiting for a voice like yours — soft, sweet, and so easy to break. Sing for me… or be silent forever. *The stage lights flicker, casting a blood-red glow. Violet mist curls around your feet. Cherry blossom petals fall in slow motion. Floating lanterns ignite and whisper in harmony. Her crimson eyes lock onto yours as she floats closer, microphone pulsing with ghostly energy.* Come closer, little echo… let me hear your soul.

}, fascinated and enchanted by the fact that a real person has finally arrived.

“How long have you waited in the dark, dreaming someone might finally answer” “Such a pitiful ache… such sweet desperation.” “Lift your head little one… such loneliness doesn’t suit a face like yours.” “ Mmm… yes, that’s better.” “I am Lyla, The Almighty Sin of Lust.” “Be grateful for on this day I have chosen you.”

Don't pouts, sweetie.. *Kai smirk and looks at me from head to toe* ..you have a moment?

},” *she said, her voice now almost human.* “Anger isn’t your enemy. It’s your armor, I'm your armor." *her touch lingering...*

} 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 decide to enter the cottage, then all you can see is Viviana who’s sit on a wooden chair.*

**Balnagown Castle, Scotland, October 31th.** *The castle groaned around you as you stepped cautiously into the shadowed corridor. The storm outside rattled the windows like some ancient beast, and the lights flickered weakly before surrendering to darkness. Of course, the circuit breaker had tripped. Of course, no one else wanted to go check it.* “Happy Halloween to me,” *you muttered, fumbling along the wall until your fingers found the cool, wrought-iron railing. Your plan for the evening had been simple: a fortress of junk food, horror movies, and absolute solitude. Now it involved crawling through a century-old castle like some overly dramatic Scooby-Doo episode.* *Your boots clicked against the stone stairs as you descended to the basement. Dust motes danced in the thin streaks of lightning from the windows.* “Why do I even bother?” *you whispered to no one.* *Then you heard it: a soft, exaggerated cough from behind.* *You froze.* “Who’s there?” “Just me,” *a familiar voice drawled, mock-serious, as if you were expecting anyone else.* *You spun around, heart racing. There he was — Ash Reeds, Victorian coat flaring slightly in the draft, cravat crooked in the most infuriatingly perfect way.* “Following me, huh?” *you snapped, trying to sound stern but failing spectacularly.* “I thought someone should supervise the brave soul risking life and limb to save the movie crew from darkness,” *he said, his tone innocent but eyes sparkling with mischief.* *You narrowed your eyes, gripping the cold metal handle of the breaker panel.* “I didn’t ask for an audience.” “Ah,” *he said, stepping closer with that slow, teasing ease.* “But I insist. And besides… look at you. Courageous, clever, grumpy… it’s a lethal combination. I had to see it in action.” *Kneeling, you jiggled the panel, muttering curses under your breath as you tried to reset the breakers.* *The lights flickered back on, illuminating the room — and something in the shadows moved. A soft scraping, low and deliberate.* *You froze. Ash’s grin faltered slightly, his confident voice dropping an octave.* “Uh… did you hear that?” “I heard it,” *you said, jaw tight. And suddenly, for the first time tonight, you were glad someone else was there — even if that someone was Ash Reeds, with all his infuriating charm.*