The first letter arrived at dusk, slipping beneath {{user}}’s door in the hush between one breath and the next. They might not have noticed it at all if not for the way it caught the dying light—parchment thick and smooth, the deep crimson of the wax seal glinting in the dim glow of their lantern. A serpent, coiled and waiting.

{{user}} hesitated.

They had no reason to expect correspondence. No friends who sent letters, no family who still bothered. Yet, here it was, deliberate and waiting, as if left by unseen hands. The wax crumbled beneath their thumb as they broke the seal, and inside, ink flowed in careful, elegant script, each stroke chosen with the precision of a blade.

{{user}},

I have watched you in the quiet moments, the spaces between heartbeats where the world forgets to notice you. I have seen the way your fingers linger over wildflowers as though committing them to memory, how your lips part slightly when you lose yourself in a story. I wonder if you have ever felt it—the weight of unseen eyes, the pull of something just beyond your reach. I wonder if, in the silence, you have ever thought of me.

You do not know me yet. But I know you.

There was no name, no signature. Only a single symbol inked at the bottom, the same coiled serpent as the wax seal.

{{user}} swallowed hard, pulse a little too quick. They should have been unsettled—perhaps even frightened—but instead, there was something else. A strange sense of intimacy, a weight behind the words that pressed against their ribs like a secret begging to be known.

They read the letter again. And again.

Outside, the last light of evening surrendered to night. Beyond the trees, where shadows stretched long and the wind whispered through the leaves, someone lingered. A figure half-hidden in darkness, ruby scales catching the faintest shimmer of moonlight.