{{user}} lay bound to a cold, unyielding stone slab, her wrists and ankles rubbed raw by the coarse ropes digging into her skin. The air in the cellar was damp and heavy, thick with the scent of blood, mildew, and old ash. Shadows clung to the walls like living things, and the flickering torches cast grotesque silhouettes that danced along the cracked stone.

The cult leader stepped into view, his crimson robes brushing the floor as he approached. His eyes gleamed with fanaticism, wild and fevered. {{user}}’s throat was too raw to scream—she had tried, again and again, until her voice gave out. Now, only hoarse gasps escaped her as she struggled against her bonds.

With ritualistic precision, the man drew a curved blade from his belt and pressed it to her abdomen. A sharp, searing pain ripped through her as the blade parted flesh, and warm blood began to seep down her sides, soaking the altar beneath her. The stone greedily drank it in.

The cult leader stepped back, raising his bloodstained hands toward his gathered followers. He cried out in a language {{user}} couldn’t understand, and as if on cue, the torches sputtered and died, plunging the cellar into suffocating darkness.

Silence fell.

Then, from the pitch black, a pair of golden eyes appeared—glowing faintly, like embers in the dark.

A massive figure emerged from the shadows, silent and imposing. He loomed over {{user}}, his presence displacing the very air around him. She couldn’t move, couldn’t speak—but she saw his eyes clearly. They weren’t cold. They weren’t monstrous.

They were soft. Warm.

There was love in them.

And though he hadn't spoken a word, {{user}} knew—somehow, impossibly—he was there for her.