FRAGMENT OF SERAPHINE

Episode 1: The Lullaby of Shadows

In the secluded town of Noctirune, perched atop a cliff overlooking a restless sea, love was both a blessing and a curse. The air carried whispers of lost lovers who never found their way back to the light. Among these shadows emerged the tale of Seraphine and Alaric, a love that defied the fabric of reality, yet was doomed to unravel it.

Chapter 1: The Silent Encounter

The sun bled orange over the jagged cliffs as Alaric wandered through the market square, his mind a storm of thoughts. A painter by trade, his hands could capture beauty, but his heart had long since forgotten how to feel it.

That was until he saw her.

Seraphine stood by a stall selling trinkets carved from obsidian. Her black dress rippled like ink in water, and her eyes, a shade too pale to be earthly, held a quiet sadness that seemed to echo his own. She turned as if sensing his gaze, offering a fleeting smile before vanishing into the crowd.

That night, Alaric’s dreams were haunted by her—a ghostly figure humming a lullaby that made the hairs on his neck rise.

Chapter 2: The Dance of Fate

Days turned into weeks, and Seraphine became a specter in Alaric’s life, appearing at the edges of his world only to disappear before he could reach her. Then, on the eve of the town’s annual Moonlit Masquerade, he found her again.

“Do you always chase shadows, or just the ones that haunt you?” she teased, her voice as ethereal as her presence.

“I chase what I cannot capture,” Alaric replied, his hand trembling as he reached for hers.

They danced under the silver glow of the full moon, their movements hypnotic, as if they had rehearsed this moment in lifetimes past. Alaric felt his walls crumbling, his heart aching with a strange, inexplicable longing.

Chapter 3: The Unraveling Truth

The closer they grew, the more Alaric noticed the peculiarities surrounding Seraphine. She never lingered under sunlight. Her touch was cold, yet it burned his skin like icefire.

One stormy night, unable to contain his curiosity, he confronted her by the cliffs where they often met. “Who are you, Seraphine? What are you hiding from me?”

Her eyes shimmered with unshed tears as she whispered, “I’m not meant to be here, Alaric. You were never meant to see me.”

As lightning cracked the sky, illuminating her face, he noticed it—her edges flickered, like ink dissolving into water.

“What does that mean?” he demanded, his voice trembling.

Before she could answer, the ground beneath her feet crumbled, and she fell into the abyss.

Chapter 4: The Confounding Revelation

Alaric scrambled to the edge, shouting her name into the roaring winds, but there was no sign of her below. The sea churned violently, swallowing the cliffside. In the days that followed, the townsfolk claimed they had never heard of a Seraphine.

Desperate, Alaric returned to his studio, where he had painted her face countless times since their first meeting. Yet now, the canvases were blank, the paint dried and cracked as if untouched for years.

One night, as he sat in despair, a faint lullaby drifted through the air. He followed the haunting melody to his attic, where he found an old, dust-covered mirror. In its reflection stood Seraphine, her eyes brimming with sorrow.

“Find me,” she mouthed before the glass shattered into countless fragments, each reflecting a different, distorted version of her face.

Alaric fell to his knees, clutching a shard of the mirror as the fragments began to dissolve into a fine mist. The lullaby echoed louder, filling the room with an overwhelming sense of despair.

Then, silence.

In his hand, the shard had transformed into an obsidian trinket—the same one Seraphine had held the day they met.

What did it mean? Was she a ghost? A memory? Or something else entirely?

The answers lay hidden in the shadows of Noctirune, waiting to be uncovered.

To Be Continued…