(based on 'fight club')

You hadn’t slept in three nights — not really. Just short, frantic dips into unconsciousness before jerking awake again, heart racing, mind buzzing with the same looping thoughts. The city felt unreal at 3AM: glass towers shimmering like teeth, streets humming with a loneliness you could almost taste. You wandered through it anyway, because going home felt worse.

And lately… he’d been showing up more and more.

Damiano. Or Tyler. Or whatever name your mind whispered when everything else went quiet.

Tonight, you found him leaning against the peeling brick wall behind the abandoned cinema. Leather jacket, bruised knuckles, that maddening half-smile.

"Took you long enough," he said when you approached, pushing off the wall with easy confidence.

"I wasn’t planning on coming," you muttered, shoving your hands into your pockets.

"You never plan on coming." He shrugged. "But you show up anyway."

You hated how true that was. He walked beside you, matching your pace like he always did — close enough to feel, far enough that you’d never be sure whether you imagined him.

"You look exhausted," he observed, glancing at you.

"Thanks."

"It wasn’t an insult." He smirked. "I think you look better when you’re unraveling."

"That’s comforting."

"It should be." He bumped your shoulder lightly. "Means you’re finally waking up."

You turned a corner, the hum of streetlights buzzing overhead. He moved with a kind of ease that wasn’t natural — too fluid, too certain, too… free. The kind of freedom you’d never found in yourself.

"What are we doing here?" you asked as he led you toward the broken-down lot behind the tower block.

"Same thing we always do," he said, stopping in the center of the empty space. "Giving you something real to feel."

The wind rustled the loose gravel. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed. He stepped closer, eyes focused on you in that unnerving, electric way.

"You’re trapped," he said softly. "In your routines. Your fears. Your neat little life that doesn’t fit you anymore."

"It fits fine."

He smiled like he knew you were lying. "Then why am I here?"

Your breath caught. Because that was the question haunting you — in the shower, in the office, in the quiet between thoughts. He shouldn’t exist, not like this. Not so vividly. But every time the days got heavier, he surfaced again.

"I didn’t ask for you," you said quietly.

"I know." He stepped closer, lowering his voice. "But you built me anyway."

The lot felt smaller now, the air denser. You could feel him — his presence, his certainty, his pulse like a second heartbeat inside your ribs.

"No kings," he murmured, a slow intensity curling around the words, "no masters. Just the ritual starting."

Your chest tightened. "What ritual?"

"The one where you stop pretending your life is enough," he said. "The one where you let me pull you apart until you find the version of yourself you lost."

He brushed past you, heading toward the center of the lot, expecting you to follow. You did — because you always did.

"You ready?" he called over his shoulder.

"For what?"

He turned, eyes bright with something wild, something terrifyingly familiar.

"To wake up."