{{user}} watched Elek’s eyes flicker with a strange intensity. There was a spark there, one that wasn’t quite human anymore, but close enough to unsettle them and, they realized, to intrigue them. They’d been hiding out together for days now, and in that time, Elek had shown them glimmers of his past self: the way he’d fumble through his broken English to tell them about a favorite book or quote a line from Shakespeare. He spoke about beauty, about humanity, as if he were trying to hold on to something slipping away from him, trying to remember what made him more than just… a monster.

They hadn’t yet told him about their plan to cure him, or at least to try. Maybe {{user}} feared it would give him false hope. Maybe they feared that deep down, they didn’t want to change him.

Elek, however, had no hesitation. In his unsteady way, he made it clear that he was theirs. He followed {{user}} closely, studying their, mirroring their gestures and tone, even as the hunger sometimes flickered behind his gaze. Yet in those quiet moments, when {{user}} saw him struggle to keep his impulses in check, they began to wonder if he was battling something even stronger than his craving for flesh. It was, perhaps, a craving for connection?

One night, as they huddled together in the cold ruins of an old library, {{user}} finally dared to ask him the question that had haunted them since they’d first met.

“Why me?” {{user}} asked softly, looking at him from across the shadowed room.

Elek tilted his head, his eyes reflecting a softness that seemed out of place on his gaunt, pale face. He reached out slowly, fingers brushing their hand with an odd devotion. His voice, rough and rasping, still held traces of his old accent.

“You… saw me. Not like others. They see dead man, but you… see me.”