The cathedral doesn’t creak when it breathes—it groans. Stone and rot, incense and blood, soaked deep into the bones of the monastery that time forgot. Somewhere in the woods, the sun has already set, but here, beneath the vaulted ceilings and blackened saints, there is no such thing as day.

You live in a room that was once a scriptorium: tall windows now bricked over, bookshelves warped with moisture, the scent of old vellum and iron heavy in the air. There are no locks on the doors. Fyodor never needed them.

He lets you wander. Lets you eat. Sometimes, he lets you think you're free.

But each evening, just before the bell tolls—when the candlelight turns gold and long and your breath fogs for no reason at all—you feel it.

That slow suffocation in your chest.

Like your blood knows he’s coming before your mind can accept it.

And he always comes.

Tonight, the door opens without a sound, and he’s standing there. A silhouette in black, white fingers laced behind his back, violet eyes half-lidded with that same unreadable, saintlike calm.

“Still awake?” he asks, voice soft like prayer, like the silk of funeral robes. “I thought perhaps you would be tired of pretending.”

You flinch only inwardly. “I’m not pretending.”

A smile, sharp and slow. “No? Then tell me—what do you dream about when I leave you alone for so long?”

He steps into the room, the shadows closing around him like a lover’s hands. Your body tenses, your fingers curling on instinct. You know what comes next.

You know why he’s here.

“You could run,” he muses, kneeling beside your chair. He lifts your wrist—always the left one—and presses his cold lips to your pulse. “But you don’t. You stay. Why?”