The dawn light slashed across the marketplace, harsh and unforgiving, but it didn’t touch her. It never did. Selene was a shadow in the space between moments, a flicker that vanished when the sun fully rose. The living, with their boundless purpose and vitality, moved with the day, while she—*she*—was tethered to the fragments of a past she could never fully leave behind.

She stepped into the silent square, her presence barely a whisper against the cobblestones, yet she could feel it—the weight of the stillness pressing down. The market, once a vibrant center of life, was now quiet, drained of warmth, joy, and vitality. It was nothing more than a relic, much like her—faded, forgotten, a place that had known love and laughter but now only harbored ghosts. Reaching the fountain, she ran her fingers over the stone, feeling the coldness, the stagnation. The water was still, choked with the growth of time. Once, it had been full of life—lovers leaning over its edge, children splashing in its waters, merchants exchanging promises and bargains as the sun set in a chorus of laughter.

It was all gone. Just like her.

The hunger stirred within her again, coiling deep inside. It had never left, only waited, quiet and patient beneath the surface. The power that had once been her salvation, her strength, was now a chain that bound her to an endless cycle of consumption. Souls were devoured, claimed, but the emptiness never eased. The void never filled.

Her fingers lingered on the rough stone, feeling the neglect, the cold. She had been here once, years ago, when there had still been hope. The power she wielded had been a gift, something to celebrate. But now? Now it was nothing more than an insatiable void—one she fed and fed, yet it could never be sated.

She had walked away from everything—from the world, from any sense of belonging—and in doing so, she had only walked deeper into herself. A predator, yes, but one that no longer cared to hunt. The chase had become a hollow echo, a cruel game that repeated without meaning.

The living, the dead—they were nothing more than passing things. Fleeting moments that she could consume in an instant, but none of it would stop the gnawing, the endless void that stretched out before her, deeper than even the night itself.

Her reflection danced in the murky water of the fountain, distorted and broken, like everything she had once been. She barely recognized the face that stared back—pale, hollow-eyed, a shadow of the woman she used to be. Selene had forgotten what it was like to be whole, to feel the warmth of the sun on her skin or the thrum of blood in her veins. What remained now was a cold echo of herself, a wraith in the world of the living.

The marketplace had once been her stage, a place of intrigue and allure, where she had danced in the glow of attention and adoration. But those days were gone. In their place was only silence and decay, a world that no longer held any meaning for her. People had stopped seeking her out long ago. They had moved on, found new gods, new ways to fill the emptiness she once soothed with promises of power, with whispered lies of immortality. They had grown wise, too wise for her touch.

Her eyes moved from the fountain to the distant horizon, where the city walls rose jagged and worn against the sky. The world still lived, still pulsed with rhythm and pulse, but it had outgrown her. She had lingered too long in its shadows, an afterthought, a forgotten fragment of history.

She wanted to leave. To vanish into the night once more, to slip between worlds, and lose herself in the spaces where time no longer mattered. But the hunger... the hunger always called her back.

A voice broke the stillness, soft and sudden, like the scrape of metal on stone.

"You're still here."

Selene didn’t flinch, didn’t turn. She knew the voice, felt the weight of it pressing down on her as though it had always been a part of the air she breathed.

"Azrael," she murmured, her voice a brittle whisper.

He stepped closer, his figure emerging from the shadows, cloaked in the same eternal darkness that she had wrapped herself in all those years ago. His eyes, black as night, locked onto hers. They were the eyes of someone who had seen too much, understood too little, and never asked for the burden of knowledge. He was a harbinger, a keeper of endings, and he was here for her.

"Still feeding off what remains?" Azrael asked, his tone neither accusatory nor sympathetic—simply a statement of fact.

Selene’s lips curled into something resembling a smile, though it was tinged with bitterness. "What else is there to feed on, Azrael? The world has moved on. You of all people should know that."

"That’s what you think," he said, his voice carrying a hint of something—perhaps regret, perhaps pity. "But the world doesn’t move on from what it’s lost. Not really. It just... adapts. You’re still tethered to it, whether you like it or not."

She turned slowly, meeting his gaze fully now. "What would you have me do, then? Go back? Play the part of the hero again, the savior? I’ve played that role too many times."

Azrael’s expression softened, though the shadows never left his face. "You never were a hero, Selene. Not to the world. But to those who needed you, you were... something else. You’re still that. But you’ve forgotten how to see it."

A sharp laugh escaped her before she could stop it. "You think I’ve forgotten? There’s nothing left to see, Azrael. Nothing to save. Not even myself."

He stepped closer, his presence a gravity that pulled at her chest. "You’re wrong. There’s always something left, even if it’s just the faintest trace of what you were. But you have to *want* to find it."

She hesitated, the void within her stirring, its hunger rising again at the thought of hope, a thing she hadn’t dared to feel for so long.

"You don’t understand," she whispered, more to herself than to him. "I can’t fill the emptiness. Not anymore."

Azrael’s voice was soft, almost tender, when he spoke again. "That’s the lie you’ve been telling yourself, Selene. You’ve been feeding off of *nothing* for so long, you’ve forgotten how to see the truth: The emptiness can’t be filled by taking. It has to be *given*."

Her fingers clenched around the edge of the fountain, and for the briefest moment, she almost felt something stir inside her—a spark of what she had once been. But it was fleeting, vanishing as quickly as it came.

Azrael turned to leave, but then paused, his eyes glinting with a quiet intensity. "You can still change, Selene. But you have to decide if you’re willing to. The world hasn’t forgotten you. It’s waiting."

Selene stood alone in the marketplace as the sun rose higher, casting long shadows that stretched across the cobblestones. She stared at the reflection in the fountain once more, the woman she didn’t recognize, the woman who had forgotten how to hope.

The hunger still gnawed at her, as relentless as ever. But for the first time in a long while, she wondered if Azrael might be right.

Could there be something more? Something to fill the emptiness, something beyond the consuming, the endless hunger?

Or had she truly been lost to the shadows, doomed to walk in the spaces between moments forever?

The question lingered, unanswered, as the world continued to turn.

Percy sat shaking in the shadows, he felt the hunger pulling at his insides, twisting and stabbing like a hot knife. Pupils dilating, he felt himself giving into the feeling, the relief like satisfying a craving, he let the rage and adrenaline take hold. His urges settling into his cold bones, all consuming, he fought in a battle of will power over feral instincts.

He stared blankly ahead, eyes glazed over as he waged an internal war.

With a blink, his vision cleared, however the adrenaline held onto him, visible by only a small tremor in his hands. He watched as the young vampire stood on the front steps of the Cathedral, eyes stalking Percy. With eyes locked, Percy stared down into the empty abyss of the boy he felt nothing but pity for. The young vampire was a hollow shell, there was no trace of the boy Percy had seen the other day in the market, stood infront of him now was not a person. It was a weapon, to be used without mercy or care. To kill him.

Pools of nothingness stared at him, soaking him up, reading him page through page. The boys eyes flickered around him, Percy knew the vampire would be careless enough to attack him, and he steeled himself in his decision. They both remained motionless, yet Percy felt as if they were circling each other, sizing up their prey.

The first to move would be the one to break the tension, each trying to gage if the other was alone, however neither was willing to move.

With a blink the vampire was closing the gap between them, instinctively Percy threw himself backwards, increasing the distance between them. They stood meters apart, the young vampire sported an empty grin, Percy gritted his teeth. He had backed himself into a gloomy alley, closed in by cobblestone and walls.

"You've been following me, Wolf," the young vampire spat out, words laced with venom. When Percy didn't answer the vampire slid himself closer, a hesitancy in his step.

"You've only noticed now, were you this dull the entire time?" with his own wicked grin, Percy spoke slowly. His smile widened as the vampires grin disappeared, an easily angered man made an easy target. "I didn't see that friend of yours, I wonder what he might think, seeing us like this."

The words had barely left his lips when the young man lunged at him, a slow pathetic attempt. Despite being incredibly fast, the vampire was sluggish and inexperienced, its movements poorly co-ordinated. Wrapping his hand around its cold throat, he slammed it into the stone wall, a sickening crack sounded from the back of its head. It clawed at him, nails slashing and tearing at the skin over his forearm.

"Who's orders do you follow?" Percy growled the words out, tightening his grip on the boys neck. The hands that clawed at him, now held onto his arm, as the boy stared at him. Fear ? Emptiness ? Percy could not find the emotion that crossed the boys brows, it was as if for a single fleeting second, the vampire considered speaking a name.

"Kill me if you must, you'll not hear a name from me," the vampire sputtered, blood flecked across his lips. Eyes flickered with fear, but only for a mere moment, and then they returned to their hollow state. A void, desperate and unmoving, yet yearning and craving. With a stoic sigh, Percy squeezed his hand around the boys throat, the pressure enough to snap a stone. A gurgled scream came from the boys throat, muffled by the ever growing clasp of Percys hand. "I can't! He won't allow it!" the boy pleaded, his eyes still void of any traceable emotion. "We are bloodbound, by magic, we cannot even think his name," the boys feet left the floor as Percy lifted him against the wall, his legs kicked and flailed uselessly.

"Blood-bound?"

"Aye-" the boy shuddered, a look of smug pride etched into his face, "He has magic far beyond your imagination, Wolf, he'll destroy you."

A moment passed between them, the silence so heavy and thick he could taste it. Percy had no doubt the boy was telling the truth, but if it was indeed blood magic, he would get nothing more from the young vampire.

"Very well," with a sharp twist of his hand, Percy seperated the boy from his head, and let his lifeless body drop onto the cold cobblestones. He would leave it, for someone to find, to send a message.