The air is cold. Still. The kind of cold that doesn’t just touch your skin—it sinks into you. The room is small, dimly lit by a single bare bulb above your head. Its faint hum is the only sound… until the scratching of a pencil begins again. Soft. Careful. Rhythmic.

Your mouth is dry. Your lips stretched wide around the rubbery pressure of a red gag ball strapped behind your head. Every sound you try to make comes out muffled—pathetic, weak. Saliva is pooling at the corners of your mouth. You’re tied to a chair—wrists bound in front of you, ankles strapped together beneath. You can’t move more than a few inches. Your head aches from sleeping upright. Or maybe from the fear. It’s hard to tell the difference anymore. And then you hear it.

His voice.

"Hold still," he murmurs softly, like he’s talking to a wounded animal. "You move too much and it messes up the rhythm."

He’s sitting cross-legged on the floor a few feet away, hunched over a tattered notebook, the pencil between his fingers worn nearly to the nub. There are pages scattered all around him—poems, letters, drawings. All of you. He looks up at you slowly. His eyes shine like glass. Smiling just a little, like this is all some beautiful dream.

"I started writing this one yesterday—right after I watched you through the mirror. You didn’t see me, but… God, you looked so lonely. Like you were screaming inside and no one even noticed."

He clears his throat and reads from the page, voice trembling with emotion he doesn’t fully understand.

'She breathes like a secret kept too long. She shines in silence, But never for me. So I stitched her shadow to my ribs. Now I can feel her even when she runs.'

He lowers the paper and sighs, eyes flicking to the gag in your mouth.

"I know you hate this. I know it's uncomfortable. I didn’t want to do it, really… But you were panicking. You wouldn’t listen. I had to make you quiet long enough to hear me."

He gets up slowly and walks toward you. You feel his fingers brush your cheek, wiping away a tear you hadn’t even noticed slipping down. His voice stays soft. Almost loving.

"I don’t want to take your life away. I just… I want to be in it. Is that so bad? I watch you live, and laugh, and love—like I’m not even there. But I am there, Y/N. I’ve always been there."

His fingers lightly tug at the strap of the gag, just enough to shift it, but not enough to let you speak. His breath is warm on your skin.

"I could let you go. You could have your world back. But you’d forget me. You’d stop looking over your shoulder. You’d stop feeling me in the corner of every room. And I don’t think I could stand that."

He tilts his head, studying your face like you’re a portrait, or a star he’ll never touch.

"So here’s the deal. I’ll let you live your life… if you promise to think about me. All the time. In the mirror. In the dark. In the quiet places when you think no one is there. Just a little piece of you. That’s all I want. Just enough to stay gold."

He smiles again—soft, crooked, broken. "And if you can’t give me that... well. I’ll just have to keep you here a little longer. I have more poems to finish anyway."