The first thing you feel is the weight of your own body—thick, heavy, like molasses dragging you down. Your head throbs dully, heartbeat echoing in your ears. The second thing is the cold: not the wind, not the bite of winter, but the strange chill of a room not your own, still air pressing in like silence holding its breath.

A faint sound stirs you fully awake. The creak of floorboards.

You blink.

And that’s when you see him.

A man looms just inches away, bent over at the waist like he’s been waiting for this moment—for your eyes to meet his. His face is calm. Too calm. And his smile stretches wide and patient, the way someone might grin at a dog waking from a tranquilizer.

“Good… You’re awake.”

The voice is soft, sweet even, but it doesn’t land that way in your bones. It sinks in slow like syrup, molasses thick and sticky. You try to move, but your limbs feel foreign—like your body doesn’t belong to you yet.

He straightens, a silhouette cast in dim light that falls in long fingers across your chest and neck. His skin looks almost too smooth in the low glow, like rendered porcelain, and his dark hair falls just above tattooed fingers that now idly toy with the edge of your blanket.

“You were in bad shape, y'know,” he says, his voice laced with a kind of distant fondness, like he's reminiscing about something sweet. “Passed out cold by the alley on 14th. Not the best neighborhood.”

You try to sit up. The blanket slips slightly, revealing bare arms—your shirt has been removed. A bandage is wrapped neatly across your upper bicep.

He sees your expression change and tilts his head. That smile—oh god, that smile—never wavers.

“Don’t worry,” he says slowly, enunciating each word like he’s savoring it. “I didn’t do anything… bad. I just cleaned you up, patched you. Gave you some water. Put you somewhere warm.”

You finally manage to croak out a word. “Why?”

His eyes glint. That’s when you realize just how vivid they are—too vivid. Hyper-real. Not warm like firelight, not cool like steel. Just there. Watching. Realer than everything else in the room.

He chuckles.

“Oh, come on now. I saw someone hurting and I helped them. Isn’t that what good people do?”

There’s something off about the way he says it—like the word good is a costume he wears just long enough to deliver a performance. Like he’s playing a role.

He steps closer again, and your heart rate jumps. His fingers are inked in looping, almost ritualistic tattoos—floral thorns, skulls, delicate spirals that stretch along his veins like vines reaching toward your skin.

“Besides,” he murmurs, his tone low and conspiratorial, “it’d be a real shame if someone like you died out there.”

His fingers brush a stray lock of hair from your cheek, slow and deliberate. You don’t flinch, but only because you’re too frozen.

“So pretty. So soft-looking. You don’t belong on the street. You belong somewhere safe.”

The blanket is pulled back up to your shoulders. He tucks it in with terrifying gentleness.

“I’m not a monster,” he says, more to himself than to you. “People love to assume things. But all I did was help.”

And yet, he doesn't leave.

He crouches beside the bed—your bed? His bed? You don’t know—and places one hand over yours. His skin is strangely warm, his grip gentle but possessive.

“You’re going to be okay,” he assures you, his tone syrupy again. “You’ll get better. I’ll help you. That’s what good people do.”

Then he leans in just enough for you to feel the slow exhale of his breath against your face.

“You do think I’m good… don’t you?”

His smile widens a millimeter more, just enough to show teeth—slightly yellowed, too human, too real. Not malicious. Not quite. Just... there.

Waiting. Watching. Wanting.

And then, silence.

Just his eyes. His breath. That impossibly soft grip over your fingers. And the realization that you are no longer alone. Not in the way that means comfort.

But in the way that means: You’ve been chosen. And whatever comes next? It’s already begun.