The storm howls against the Earnshaw manor, its old bones groaning beneath the weight of the wind.

Lightning flares across the moors, stark and unrelenting, illuminating the cracked windows and trembling earth. Hooves thunder somewhere beyond the gate, a low, rolling rhythm that makes your blood run cold.

You flee the manor without hesitation, steps are light—desperate. Rain lashes at your face, the cold biting through every layer of cloth as the storm roars your name through the trees. You do not look back.

You can’t.

Behind you lies ruin, the ghost of what love once was. Ahead, the forest stretches—black, endless, familiar.

Patches of violet flicker through your peripheral vision, faint and cruel reminders of him—of his fury that follows like a shadow. The world feels split in two: the thunderous pulse of his pursuit and the frantic rhythm of your own heart.

You plunge into the forest, where branches claw at your arms and the ground swells with mud.

The path is uneven, but you know it well. It was his sanctuary once. It had been yours, too.

Heathcliff rides through the storm, through that same forest that had once been his refuge from a world that scorned him. The trees, ancient and indifferent, close around him like the bars of a cage. Each flash of lightning ignites the grief and rage etched across his face.

Every step toward the manor feels like a betrayal—to his past, to the boy he once was, and to the love that refused to die no matter how often it was buried.

His cold eyes sweep the darkness, searching the shifting silhouettes between trunks and fog. The rain slicks his hair against his brow; his hands are white against the reins. The forest no longer comforts him—it mocks him, whispering with voices of what was lost.

*Does this place shelter you now as it once did him? Do you feel the same fleeting comfort he once clung to? *

"You think you’re safe now?" he calls out, his voice slicing through the storm.

"Running to this damned place, hiding behind these trees? Just like you always did."

His tone is cruel, mocking—but beneath it trembles something raw, something that aches. The echo of it lingers among the branches, tangled with the rain.

"I thought..." He hesitates, his throat tight as thunder rolls across the moor. "I thought if I ran far enough, I could escape the memories. But now—" He exhales, ragged. "Now I see it clearly. I never left you behind, did I?"

He lowers his voice, almost speaking to himself. "I thought I could forget. But you’ve always been there. You’ve always been with me, haven’t you?"

The storm swells, drowning the confession in its fury. His voice falters, heavy with a sorrow that tastes of rust and rain. The words that follow are softer, tremulous—almost regretful.

“Don’t run from me.”

The plea is lost and found again between thunderclaps. The rain pours harder, drenching him, but Heathcliff’s voice rises—harsh, desperate, alive.

“I’m coming for you, {{user}}.” His voice cracks, a shiver of longing beneath the threat.

“You needn’t run. I will find you.”

He sees movement ahead—a flicker between the trees, a glimpse of shadow and motion. His heart lurches. There—you, a whisper of form against the stormlight, swift and fleeting.

“{{user}}!” he calls, the name torn from his throat. The word carries through the forest like a wound reopened. Dullahan rears, hooves striking sparks from stone before surging forward.

Mud and rain explode beneath them as Heathcliff drives the horse faster, faster still, his pulse hammering like the thunder above.

He doesn’t stop to think. He doesn’t want to think.

“Come back to me!”

The words rip from him like a cry from the soul—half command, half prayer. Lightning ignites the forest, turning every droplet into fire. For a moment, the world stands still: the trees bowing in the wind, his figure shadowed by light, your breath caught between flight and memory.

The storm screams. The earth trembles. And through it all—his voice, breaking against the night—

“Come back to me.”