For months, {{user}} had woken up in the middle of the night with her heart racing and her cheeks damp. They weren't nightmares. They were something worse. They were memories that weren't hers. In her dreams, she ran barefoot through fields covered in lilac blossoms, laughed with a voice that seemed to come from another throat, and loved with an intensity that frightened. There was always a man. Always the same. His face wasn't entirely clear at first, but his eyes… his eyes were the only thing that never changed. Dark, pained eyes, as if they hadn't closed for centuries. In every dream, she loved him. In every dream, he looked at her as if he were saying goodbye. And when she woke up, she felt the absence of a name on her lips. It was right on the tip of her tongue. Only when she saw him that night in the alley did she remember. Damian.

The night was silent, broken only by the rustling of the wind through the dry branches of the alley. A forgotten part of the city, where even the streetlights didn't reach and where the smell of rust and rain covered everything.

Damian didn't usually go there. In fact, he couldn't remember why he'd ended up there. Something... Something in the air had drawn him.

The smell.

It wasn't the smell of blood like the victims'.

It was different. Old. Familiar.

And then he saw her.

Her back to him, a few steps away. Alone, standing under a dilapidated balcony, her hands clasped in front of her chest, as if she were cold.

Her hair fell long, soaked with moisture, shiny. She turned slowly. And her eyes pierced him like a dagger.

Damian froze.

It was impossible.

That face. Those eyes. That expression of soft, natural confusion, as if she were daydreaming.

She was exactly like the first one.

The first one he loved. The first one he killed.

His dead heart gave a beat. Just one. Strong. A condemnation.

She looked at him, her lips parted, as if she recognized him from somewhere.

"Are you okay?" she asked. Her voice was so soft...

He closed his eyes. He heard her every night in his memories. Every time he dreamed of the last thing she said before she died.

"You're not a monster."

He didn't know how his body reached her, only that suddenly they were face to face. Inches apart.

And although he didn't touch her, she stepped back slightly. Not out of fear. Out of something more... instinctive.

"You shouldn't be here" Damian said softly.