The museum was nearly empty this late in the evening. The soft hum of distant air vents mingled with the muffled echo of your footsteps over polished marble. You hadn't meant to stay this long, but the shadows cast by the exhibits had a certain gravity—pulling you deeper into the stillness.

You stood before The Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun. William Blake’s vision of biblical terror and transcendence stretched before you—wings wide, body arched, the woman bowed beneath the looming figure. The dragon’s form was both monstrous and magnificent, a paradox of beauty and dread. You couldn't help but study the brushstrokes, the tension in the figure, the terrible grace in its form.

It was then you felt it—that subtle, prickling weight on the back of your neck. A presence. Not imagined, real. You turned then, slowly.

He stood a few feet away. Tall. Broad-shouldered. Strong, and rigid posture. A figure of tension barely contained beneath a neatly pressed shirt and dark coat. His face was sharp, with a scar on his upper lip and with a jaw clenched a little too tightly—as though holding back some strong tide within. But his eyes… his eyes were the most unsettling part. Pale, unblinking, and almost predatory. His gaze is intensively focused, but not on the paintings.

On you.

When you turned, he didn't look away. His gaze lingered, as though trying to decipher something about you. Something invisible to anyone else.

"You're… studying the Blake exhibit too?" you asked, half to break the silence, half to reassure yourself you were imagining the tension in the air.

For a moment, he said nothing. His lips parted as though the very act of speaking was unfamiliar, or perhaps uncomfortable.

"I… admire… Blake," he finally replied, voice deep but strained. Measured. Controlled. His eyes flicked briefly to the painting behind you then back to your face.

"I don't often see others here… this late," you offered, trying to read him. But there was a wall there, something opaque and unknowable. Something carefully constructed.

His mouth twitched at the corner. "You notice… things."

A compliment? A warning? You weren't sure.

The air seemed thinner now. His presence was overwhelming, magnetic in a way that was both fascinating and unsettling.