The stage lights burned with an unnatural intensity, bathing the room in a crimson glow. Vessel stood at the center, an enigmatic figure cloaked in mystery and allure. His voice soared, raw and haunting, as if it were pulling at the strings of an ancient sorrow. The crowd roared their devotion, thousands of voices converging into a singular worship of Sleep Token’s godlike presence.

And there you were—watching from the shadows, where the echoes of your heart lay scattered.

It hadn’t always been like this. Before Sleep, before the masks and the prayers to a deity long forgotten, Vessel had been just a man. A man with sharp wit, an unguarded laugh, and a curious mind. You’d been there in the quiet moments before he was devoured by the entity he now served. Back then, his eyes held something you could call love—tentative, flawed, but real.

Now, those eyes seemed distant, as if Sleep had laid claim to even his gaze.

The backstage door clicked shut behind Vessel after the performance. His heavy footsteps slowed when he saw you waiting in his dressing room. You sat perched on the small couch, arms crossed. The room was suffocating with the stench of sweat, incense, and the lingering tension between the two of you.

Vessel's lips parted to speak, but his thoughts were a raging sea, crashing against the jagged cliffs of his emotions and the devotion he harbored for the deity beyond his grasp. How could he articulate the growing chasm between the two of you? Knowing the love you still bore for the man he used to be was poisoned by the reality of what he had become.

Vessel knew he was slipping through your fingers like water. You had given him everything you could. And at first - it had worked. There was balance in your contrast, a harmony that seemed impossible yet undeniable. You burned while he smoldered, your light and his shadow creating something beautiful. But then came Sleep. The rituals. The devotion.

And Vessel your Vessel was no longer yours alone.