0.

Scorched by thirst,

Lived in shadows.

They came like shooting stars,

Blazing across the night sky.

Fingers lost hold,

Night clutched tight.

Don’t go,

The world is darker without you.

1.

She floated, half-shadowed, beneath a bleeding sky. The wind tore at her bones, cold and ceaseless. She stood at the castle’s heights, wrapped in silence, crowned by stars.

Memories whispered like ghosts, crawling through her mind—fragments of centuries, sharp and sweet, decaying and divine. The past was hunting her. Fatal. 

Let the sunrise find me. Let it tear through the sky and bite. Let it sear my flesh, kiss my blood, burn me whole—burn my skin, burn my heart. Let it swallow me in light, in fire. 

She was still, staring at the east sky, waiting for the sun to rise and seal her fate in its cruel, indifferent light.

2.

It was once in a lifetime.

Insomnia ate her. She walked on the long, dusty road. There was nothing but the sun, peeking out from the infinite end of the road, waiting to rise. The sky was dark yet with a glimpse of crimson red. 

She felt a sliver of light, then she raised her head. A shooting star struck the northern sky. She lowered her sight. There, a stranger walked towards her. His face pale, white, fangs dripping blood under the dark moon.

“It’s not a great idea to take a walk at this time,” he smiled, fidgeting with a blood bag.

“I guess you’re doing the same thing,” she laughed, the wind blowing through her gown.

The breeze carried his next words like a whisper. “Sun’s up in less than an hour. You planning to burn, or...?”

“Maybe,” she said.

A pause.   

“You always like this?”

“Only when I can’t sleep,”

He looked at her for a moment, then turned. She followed him through the whispering woods, beneath the thinning shadows, into the castle beyond.

They sat in silence on the balcony, watching the horizon slowly catch fire, waiting for another day to come.

3.

“Do you actually read any of these?” he asked, stepping into the corridor.

“Books?” she echoed, half-distracted.

He climbed the old ladder, fingertips grazing the spines. Then he pulled one out, flipped it open, and held it toward her.

“Here, read this.”

She took the book, eyes scanning the page. “The sun, is always both sunset and sunrise. While it burns out and sinks in one place, casting the last light over a quiet world, it's also rising somewhere else, blazing its way into a new day.”

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he smiled faintly, brushing dust from his sleeves, “Why are you always in such a rush to find meaning?”

She hesitated. “Then… what am I living for?”

“I guess,” she added after a moment, “I just worry about what’s coming.”

He leaned back against the shelf. “We all do. We build our futures in our heads, filled with expectations, but at the end of the day, we’ll all overcome these.”

She turned to the narrow window. The moon was low now, pale and tired.

“How are you so… calm about it all?” she asked.

A pause.

“I’m not calm. I’ve just had more time to get used to it. You don’t really solve it. You just… live with it.”

She closed the book and handed it back. “Do you believe that?”

He met her eyes and smiled, “enough to keep going.”

4.

The forest was still, wrapped in a blue hush before dawn. Mist curled at the base of the trees, clinging like memory. They stood in a small clearing where the shadows hadn’t yet thinned, but the sky above was already softening with dangerous light.

“Hey,” he said quietly, not turning. “I have to go.”

She blinked, as if just waking. “To where?”

“Somewhere farther east,” he said. “More challenges are awaiting there.”

She managed a nod. “Then… take care.”

He finally looked at her. His eyes, silver in the dying moonlight, lingered longer than they ever had. “You’ll be alright.”

She smiled faintly and shook her head.

“There’s more to come,” he said, softer now. “Just keep walking. Even when the night feels endless.”

Then he turned and disappeared into the trees. The mist swallowed him within seconds.

She stayed there, listening to the silence he left behind.

Things leave. That’s what they do. Yet the smallest memories, they stay. Shaping her. Marking her. And they were impossible to forget.

5. 

She ran—through forest, through ruin, through centuries of silence—chasing a streak of light across the sky.

She reached the cliff’s edge. Wind howled against her skin, sharp as memory. Behind her, the old castle loomed, and on its highest spire, she had once stood—fangs dripping, moon bleeding red. 

Now she stood below, alone, beneath a sky lit not by sun but by shooting stars.

A white trail burned across the night. She lifted her hand, reaching for the tail of the shooting star.

For a moment, it seemed within reach.

Don’t go, the world is darker without you.