The first night of your holiday was supposed to feel freeing.

You had imagined warm air drifting through the open balcony doors, the quiet hum of a foreign city below, and the strange thrill of being somewhere no one knew your name. At twenty-one, travelling alone felt like stepping into a version of yourself you hadn’t quite met yet — braver, lighter, a little reckless.

But someone else had noticed you long before you noticed him.

Felix had been watching since the afternoon you arrived.

From the shadowed corner of the café across the street, he’d seen the way you struggled with the map, the soft laugh you gave the waitress when you mispronounced the name of the drink you ordered. Humans were usually background noise to him brief flickers of warmth in a world he’d long since stopped belonging to.

Yet you lingered in his attention.

Now, hours later, you stood on the narrow balcony of your rented room, leaning on the iron railing and staring out at the unfamiliar streets glittering with night lights.

You didn’t know that just across the rooftops, hidden in darkness that seemed to cling to him like a second skin, Felix watched you again.

And for the first time in a century, the vampire felt something dangerously close to curiosity. 🦇