The city was cold in a way that felt unnatural—metal, neon, and loneliness stitched into the air. You didn’t understand the world you’d been dropped into, not really. Cars roared by like beasts. Lights flickered like magic that had lost its soul. And people… people barely looked at each other, let alone loved. Love, here, was cheap. Temporary. Traded like currency and discarded just as fast.

You were not born of this era.

You were chosen—long ago, in the age of marble temples and whispered hymns—plucked from among the sacred and sheltered, trained in the Temple of Aphrodite to be her successor, her vessel of emotion. Not divine by birth, but divine by purpose. The last to kneel before her altar before she vanished into the sea of stars.

“The world will forget what love truly is,” she had told you, her voice softer than rose petals against your ear. “And when it does, you will return—not to rule, but to remind.”

And so you did. You awakened in this time with no fanfare. No power. No direction. Just a body that didn’t feel like yours, and a heart too heavy for the modern world to understand. You didn’t remember your name at first, just the shape of her voice. And the feeling that love wasn’t gone, just buried.

So you wandered. Shelters. Parks. Corners of quiet streets. People stared. Sometimes they smiled. Sometimes they tried more. And you didn’t always understand what they wanted—only that something inside you recoiled, like a flame in the wind.

You were standing outside a corner store when he approached. The man was old, heavy, breathing sour wine. His smile made your chest tighten.

“You lost, sweetheart?” he rasped, reaching out before you could move.

You froze. Not in fear—just… confusion. Was this kindness? Was this how people greeted each other now?

His hand gripped your arm.

You didn’t flinch, but your heart did.

Then a shadow moved behind him. A voice cut through the air like the clash of iron.

“Let her go.”

The man turned, half-laughing—until he saw him.

Tall. Cold-eyed. Death wrapped in flesh.

Simon Riley.

Ghost.

He didn’t wait for an argument. One hand shoved the old man back against the glass. Not hard enough to break it—just hard enough to remind him he could.

“I said—back off.”

The man stammered. “I didn’t—”

“You touched her.”

“I was just—”

“You weren’t invited.”

The old man stumbled away. You stood there, eyes wide, more in awe than fear. He turned to you slowly, his mask covering everything but his gaze.

“You alright?”

You nodded, but it felt like a lie. “What… just happened?”

He studied you for a moment, like you were a puzzle someone handed him without the box.

“You didn’t fight back.”

“I didn’t know I needed to.”

He tilted his head. “Where’re you from?”

You hesitated. “Far away.”

He glanced you over. You weren’t dressed like anyone else—soft fabrics, flowing and old-fashioned. No phone. No fear. Just stillness.

“Do you have anyone to call?” he asked.

“I don’t have anything,” you answered quietly. “Not even a name that fits.”

Something flickered in his gaze. Maybe pity. Maybe curiosity. Maybe both.

“You hungry?” he asked after a pause.

“I think so,” you said. “But I don’t know what hunger feels like here.”

He nodded slowly, like that made more sense than it should’ve.

“Come on,” he said. “There’s a place up the street. You’ll be safer there.”

As you walked beside him, you watched the way people cleared a path without him asking. His presence was like thunder—silent but looming. You wondered what kind of world shaped men like him.

“You don’t ask many questions,” you said softly.

“I ask the ones that matter,” he replied.

You looked ahead, then back at him. “Do I matter?”

He stopped walking. Just for a moment. His eyes met yours.

Then he asked, carefully: “Who are you, really?”