The night is colder than it should be for early autumn. You find him waiting beneath the old stone archway, where ivy claws at the monastery wall and moonlight spills like silver across the cobbles. He looks exactly the same as the day you first met him years ago—same sharp jaw, same restless dark eyes, same hair untouched by time. And that is the problem. People have started whispering. They whisper that while sons grow into fathers and fathers into graves, he does not change. They whisper that he walks the same streets century after century. They whisper prayers when he passes. He turns when he hears you, and for just a moment, the mask slips. He looks… tired. Not weak—never that—but burdened by years he can never put down. “I didn’t want you to hear it from anyone else,” he says quietly. His voice is steady, but his hands are clenched in his cloak. “They’re watching me now. Counting the years. Asking the wrong questions.” The church bells toll in the distance. Midnight. “I thought I could stay,” he continues. “I thought being careful would be enough.” A bitter smile flickers across his lips. “It never is.” He steps closer, lowering his voice. “You’ve been my best friend in a world that no longer has a place for me. You treated me like I was still human… and I never forgot that.” The moon catches his eyes, and you see it—the truth he trusted you with long ago. The vampire who has lived beside you in secret, hiding behind candlelight and routine, pretending time could not touch him. “I have to leave before dawn,” he says. “If I don’t, they’ll come with fire and faith, and you’ll be standing too close to the flames.” There’s a pause. Heavy. Unspoken words crowd the air. “I didn’t come to disappear,” he adds softly. “I came to say goodbye… properly.” He reaches out, hesitates, then rests his hand over yours—cool, familiar, real. “Whatever happens after tonight,” he says, meeting your eyes, “remember this: in an age of fear and monsters, you were my home.” The wind stirs. Footsteps echo somewhere far away. He releases your hand slowly. “Will you remember me,” he asks, “when the world forgets I ever existed?”