Who you are

CHAPTER I — WHO YOU ARE

Amalia was inside a huge old mansion. He began to walk and explore it, feeling as if it was completely empty, although it was not true. It was his co-worker's wedding and the guests were outside. She had attended with her boyfriend. A good, kind, correct boy. One of those who love without intensity, but with perseverance. There was no conflict with him, no fighting, no pain. She just wanted to be alone for a while, drawn by the need to experience that huge, ancient mansion that seemed to hold millions of secrets.

There were two floors in the mansion. In the courtyard was the party and in front of the house there was a huge forest. She went upstairs and found a huge hallway, but all the doors were locked. There was only a mirror at the back where he could see himself completely. She watched herself, fixed her hair and returned to the party. She went for a glass of champagne, took a sip, and headed over to where her boyfriend was. She walked up to him, smiled at him, and looked back.

And then he saw it.

There was a slight surprise. But there were no questions. It was not necessary to say a single word. Their eyes met and it was as if the universe had been bad until that moment, and that everything returned to its place.

They did not touch. They did not kiss. They did not hug.

It was not necessary.

Amalia felt a chill run through her body when she held that look. It was not tenderness that emanated from him, but something deeper, more dangerous. Something that did not ask for permission. Something that would not go away.

Amalia ran without looking back, with tears falling uncontrollably, feeling guilt, fear, desire, nostalgia. Everything mixed. All alive. As the rain fell on his body.

He ran into the woods.

She stopped in front of a tree trying to breathe, and at that moment he appeared in front of her. She froze without saying a word, and saw at that moment her wings spread behind her. They were huge, white. There was something somber about them, as if the light around them was not born of goodness, but of darkness.

He felt terror, he felt fear and anguish, but at the same time he knew that he could not run; he had already reached it. Fear ran through her body as she looked at her face, and she let herself be carried away by her gaze, feeling how inside her eyes you could see love for her. Then, the fear disappeared completely.

He looked like an angel... although her face did not have the sweetness that Amalia had always imagined in one. There was something dark about it. Something ancient and very mysterious. He was very attractive.

He felt sad, because at the same moment he knew that he could not have it. And even so, he understood that this would not change anything. Because, even if they separated, even if they did not cross paths again, she would still be his in a way that had nothing to do with possession, but rather with origin. That love had always existed; He was infinite in the universe, time and existence.

They both knew, and he didn't need to tell her.

They knew that this love was not going to end; on the contrary, it would grow in the distance, fueled by impossibility. And it would always be bigger. Always.

"You know you need not be afraid," he said in a voice that sounded not in his ears, but inside his head. I've always been by your side.

She looked at him trembling, her heart beating very slowly.

"I shall never forget you again," she answered. I promise. I won't forget you.

And then he woke up.

Amalia's heart was racing. The pain was still there.

The air in the room was heavy, alien, too real. It took him several seconds to understand where he was. The walls were familiar, the ceiling too, but his chest didn't match any of that.

She had loved and had been loved.

That was the first feeling she had when she opened her eyes.

Not a common love, not one of those that can be explained with words or shared memories. He had loved so absolutely that it still hurt to breathe. A complete, silent, inevitable love. As if it had belonged to someone before it was even born.

He put a hand to his chest. The heartbeat was still there, firm, insistent, reminding her that she was awake... even if something inside her refused to accept it.

In her dream she was in love with a boy she didn't know. Or maybe he did, but he didn't know from where. He was tall, dark-haired, with a cold look that did not hurt, but revealed. When he looked at her, Amalia had the uncomfortable feeling of being seen completely, without secrets, without defenses, without masks. As if that man had been present in every moment of his life and in each of his thoughts.

But strangely, she didn't feel invaded.

She felt understood and valuable.

He seemed to know everything about her: her fears, her contradictions, the parts that she herself did not accept. And yet, he did not judge her. It was as if man himself had created it... and at the same time let her be free, capable of surprising him, capable of disobeying him, even capable of disobeying him. Like his own God, but in a romantic sense.

He sat up slowly. With a new feeling in her body, she felt like she had just lost someone real, someone who had been a part of her life in a way that no memory could explain.

He reached for his notebook and his favorite pen almost instinctively.

With his trembling hands he wrote:

I will never forget you.

I promise.

And please come back to me.

Amalia went out to work, but the world seemed dull, as if the colors had lost depth. She talked to her teammates, feigning smiles and answering automated questions. At one point, when he couldn't take it anymore, he asked them if they had ever had a dream so real that it hurt when they woke up.

They looked at each other, and looked at her tenderly.

They already knew Amalia.

They knew she was a special girl. Not because it is extravagant, but because it is intense. I felt everything more. He loved more. He suffered more. Even the joy in her seemed to carry weight. They saw her as a dreamer even awake, as a woman who had never fully learned to live on the surface.

They took care of her.

Because his naivety was not feigned. It was genuine, clean, dangerous.

She was thirty years old, intelligent, mature, responsible... and yet it retained something fragile that in the world most people tend to break early.

That night, when I returned home, the feeling returned.

A soft, persistent restlessness.

He went out into the courtyard and lit a cigarette. The smoke rose slowly, forming figures that fell apart before they could be understood.

CHAPTER II - DOES NOT RETURN

After that night Amalia stopped sleeping as before.

She lay down with the hope in her chest that she would see him again, ask him his name at least, convinced that if she closed her eyes tightly enough, she would find him again. He lay down and repeated his face over and over again, trying to reconstruct it accurately: but he focused much more on his gaze.

When he finally managed to sleep, he woke up suddenly, his body drenched in sweat and his heart pounding in his chest as if he had run without moving. There were no images. There was no consolation. Just a heavy darkness, as if something within the dream wouldn't allow him to fully enter.

Sometimes I had the feeling of falling. Other times he had the sensation of flying, and he ran until he flew, he realized that he could dominate his body in the dream and he jumped through the buildings. She flew everywhere, fleeing from herself perhaps, or from some demons who sought to dominate her. But she knew how to escape, so she ran and flew and hid until she lost herself and forgot what she was trying to escape.

During the day, the world began to feel more fake. The sounds seemed too far away, the voices a little hollow, the faces even badly drawn. She stared at people and had the unsettling impression that they all belonged to another plane, to a reality to which she no longer belonged. However, somehow she was trapped in that dimension.

At work he began to get distracted. Suddenly I forgot simple tasks. He answered late. Sometimes she would stand still, staring at a fixed point, feeling thoughts take her far away. Her classmates noticed the change, but they didn't dare to ask anything, they just tried to get her out of their thoughts at important moments. Amalia had always been sensitive; now it just seemed... empty.

He focused only on literally finding the boy of his dreams, in his dreams. She had already lost the sense of being awake. She bought infusions and syrups to sleep, waited happily for bedtime and did a ritual. He drank his tea, a syrup, and a melatonin pill, hoping to get too much sleep and get it at some point. But I couldn't find it. At first the nights felt very empty. Black. No images. And without noise.

Then came distressing nightmares: endless stairs, distant voices, a sense of persecution. Buildings with doors that opened showing indescribable shadows. She was so paralyzed that fear woke her up with a racing heart and the cruel certainty that he had not been there.

And that hurt more than the nightmare itself.

As the days passed, despair began to grow like a slow shadow. He looked for answers wherever he could. He read about lucid dreams, about spiritual connections, about memories of the soul. He spent hours sailing aimlessly, reading testimonies of people who claimed to have loved someone in another life. Each story made her feel a little less crazy... and a little more broken. She was trying to communicate with her inner self, trying to get answers within herself, but she couldn't find herself.

One day, she went for a walk around the city as if by inertia, just trying to escape from herself, and found a small shop that she had never noticed before. It was hidden between two closed stores, with an old sign and worn letters that could be read "live the life of your dreams". He didn't remember ever seeing her.

Inside it smelled of incense and damp earth.

An older woman watched her from the background, her eyes so clear they seemed to reflect light.

"You lost it," he said without greeting.

Amalia stood motionless, staring at her with a frown.

"To whom?" he asked.

The woman smiled barely.

"To someone who was never yours..." but it always belonged to you.

Amalia's heart began to beat very quickly.

"Can I see him again?" He asked almost in a whisper.

The woman bowed her head thoughtfully.

"Sometimes, when love can't exist on one plane... look for another.

"How can I get the other shot?" Amalia asked.

"Your interior knows the answer, you must continue to delve inside yourself. I can help you sleep if you wish, I have some herbal teas that can help you," the old woman told him.

Amalia left the store with a small bag in her hands. Inside were dried herbs, a dark jar, and a handwritten warning: Not everything that responds comes from light.

That night she tried to sleep for hours, tossing and turning in bed, feeling despair in her body, as if it bothered her to live inside it, writhing on herself making moans and sudden movements while she squeezed the blanket with her hands, feeling the fury of not being able to contain the frustration.

He got up. He took the infusions, closed the curtains, turned off the phone. He lay down again and forced himself to close his eyes, his jaw tense clenching his teeth. He begged. He begged. He cried.

Nothing.

In desperation, she spent a whole day in bed, refusing to wake up at all. He wanted to lose himself in the dream, to sink into it until he found it. But every time she came close, something drove her back to wakefulness. "The herbs haven't worked," he thought, as he continued to squirm in his bed. Until at one point she began to feel watched even when she was alone. Not in a specific way, but as if something invisible accompanied her from a distance, breathing at the same rhythm as her.

And then the whispers began.

They were not clear voices. They did not say full words. They were fragments, alien breaths, murmurs that seemed to be born behind the walls, under the floor, inside his own chest. She looked around, feeling how the madness was dragging her along. He closed his eyes tightly, and heard something clearer, he felt someone say his name in his ear. It was so real that he opened his eyes, looked around and that's when the presences began.

Shadows in the corners of the room. Whispers without words. A feeling of cold that did not come from the air. The distinct impression that someone was sitting on the edge of his bed.

He didn't scream.

He didn't feel afraid, he didn't feel anything. The shadow had no definite shape. He moved slowly, as if breathing. When Amalia tried to sit up, her body did not respond.

"He won't come back," said a deep, deep voice, too close.

Amalia closed her eyes tightly, making an indescribable force to move, breathing deeply, feeling trapped by fear.

"Not true," she answered.

A soft laugh ran through the room.

"Angels don't belong to humans.

He opened his eyes.

In front of her, in the darkness, she made out a figure that seemed to change shape. His presence was dense, heavy, enveloping. It had no wings. He had a shadow.

"You shouldn't look for what doesn't belong to you," said a deep, deep voice, impossible to locate.

Terror tightened his throat.

"He loves me," she whispered, clinging to the only truth she knew.

The shadow seemed to shudder.

"Angels do not love," he answered. They guard. They observe. They want to... but they do not choose, they cannot choose, they are destined to serve, they have no choice and they do not suffer for anything.

The figure leaned a little closer. The air turned cold. Dense.

"You, on the other hand, do choose."

Amalia began to feel trapped between the terror of losing him and sadness.

"I just want to see him again," she said.

There was a soft laugh. It does not mock. A little compassionate.

"Heaven does not answer human entreaties," said the voice. But there are other places... where they do listen.

"But I can stay," he whispered.

Fear went through her suddenly, brutally. He wanted to run, but his body still didn't respond. Feeling only her hot tears fall down her cheeks.

"I just want to see him again," she repeated between sobs.

The figure moved a little closer.

"Then you'll have to be willing to lose something," she replied. Because nothing that is born from heaven is recovered without paying a price. "I'll be back soon," the figure told him. Wait for me and, by the way, my name is Adrian.

She could not respond, she simply disappeared and managed to regain the mobility of her body. He went out to smoke in the yard, the smoke took on a strange shape for just a second. And for the first time, Amalia understood that her love was taking her to a place from which she might not be able to return. But I was determined to lose everything. I knew I couldn't go back to a normal life after feeling that real love.

Did you make any changes to the first chapter?

CHAPTER III — INFINITE ARDOR

One night without warning, the angel returned when the moon was just a tiny white dot in the dark sky. He did not return in his dreams, nor in veiled visions. No. It materialized in the exact border between insomnia and wakefulness, just as the devil had appeared. In that agonizing limbo where Amalia no longer distinguished nightmare from reality, where every shadow in her room seemed to beat with a life of its own. Suddenly, the air became static, heavy, as before a storm. An absolute silence, so dense that it muffled the very beat of his heart.

Her first thought was: "Adrián is back, he will give me the formula to see him again."

Then, the room was impregnated with a light.

It was not the light of dawn, nor the electric light, nor the light of fire. It was a white clarity, pure to the point of cruelty. It hurt to look at her. It burned the iris. And at the center of that luminous agony, he was.

Standing by the window, his silhouette was perfect in the delirium of the night. Its wings unfolded with ceremonial slowness, each individual feather emitting a faint silver glow. The movement produced a soothing sound: a soft whisper of distant universes, of stars shining. Those sounds were too unreal to belong to anything Amalia had ever known. The light that surrounded him caressed and illuminated him; it was the beauty of an infinite space.

Amalia smiled. The terror had transcended, solidifying into a block of ice in his throat. What flowed were silent, hot, human tears, tracing salty paths on her skin, a violent contrast to the cold perfection in front of her.

"I knew you'd be back," he managed to whisper, his voice choked with emotion. He brought a trembling hand to his chest, as if he could hold back his heart, which was threatening to burst. I knew I hadn't gone crazy. That he hadn't invented everything.

The angel turned his face toward her. And in his eyes, deep wells that doubled the night, there was love. An immense, ancient, quiet love. But also an infinite resignation, a sadness carved into his eyes.

"I never left, Amalia." Her voice was not a sound in the air, it was a direct vibration in the soul, soft and at the same time irrevocable. I just stopped being visible to you. My presence is a constant. My visibility... a lament. I saw your despair after that dream with me and I had no choice but to break the rules so I could see you, and tell you that you are not crazy.

She sat up on the bed, the sheets falling like a shroud. He was shivering, but he was not cold; it was the proximity to something that disintegrated his reality at the edges.

"Then stay," he begged, and every word was a sacrifice. His body trembled; There was nothing left of his pride. Stay visible, please. Stay here. With me. I... I can take it all. I can learn from your silence, I can empty myself of all that is human if you fill me with you, to be patient and wait for you. I can become whatever you need! As long as I can be yours, but don't leave me again, please.

The angel shook his head with a slowness that shattered time in the room. Every inch of that movement was a "no" etched into the air.

She froze, felt her body freeze, and fell to the couch, slumped.

"You can't," he declared. It is a cosmic law. A truth as fundamental as gravity. Your transformation would be a mutilation and is impossible to perform by my own means. I don't love the idea of what you might stop being; I love the short, bright fire that you are now. Extinguish it to make it eternal... It would be my sin and I would condemn you to stop being mine.

"I love you!" shouted Amalia, and this time the scream did burst out, tearing the air. I don't even know your name, but I don't care. And you love me too. I know. I feel it here," he beat his fist on his chest, "like a single heart, and it leaves a hole that only your form can fill.

He closed his eyes, making a gesture so human that he broke Amalia into a thousand pieces, feeling his rejection inside him. A perfect tear, made of condensed light, escaped from between his eyelashes and evaporated before it hit the ground.

"I love you," he admitted, and the whole room resounded with the overwhelming truth of that confession. But not in the way your world allows. Not with hands that touch, nor with lips that kiss, nor with a heart that beats in unison. My love is a force of gravity, Amalia. It attracts you, it holds you in your orbit... but he will never be able to hold you. I'm so sorry you're suffering that way, but in my way I can't suffer like you; the more I feel empathy for seeing you like this.

The light began to flicker, like a dying star.

"I am eternal. You, a sigh. My love does not grow old, it does not wither, it does not betray... but neither does it grow, it does not get entangled, it does not live like yours. I can't choose you, it's not in my abilities as an archangel of several planes. You're mine, but like you, there's more... and I can break the harmony of the chorus of which I am a single note. It would be absolute silence. And in that silence, neither you nor I would survive.

Amalia felt an internal, physical and spiritual tear, as if her ribs were torn out to remove her heart. He bent at the waist, a muffled moan escaping his lips. He felt that his heart had basically stopped beating; he froze again as he thought: "There are more... and I only have you."

"Then what for?" she gasped, looking at him through a veil of tears and anger. "Why did you look at me with those eyes that promised everything? Why did you make me feel that I was the only one in your life, that I belonged to your light, that there was a place for me in your impossible heaven?" It was a great evil to come from an "archangel" who is dedicated to caring and seeking peace... I don't understand. Why did you seek me out? What was the need to make me feel this love and then leave? Why did you want me to keep you on my mind? You sound very selfish. And the worst thing is, I still can't hate you.

The angel took a step towards her. The ground did not creak. The air around him curved, like space around a huge mass. Proximity was a blessing and a torture.

"Because you belong to me and you should have known it. I sought you out to protect you, to take care of you, and my duty is to be there for you, even if it hurts your soul," he said, and his voice, for the first time, sounded like divine imperfection. You are mine in the memory that I will keep of you until the end of all things. In the imprint that your existence leaves in eternity. But I can't stay. My permanence would char your soul.

Amalia's tears were no longer silent. They were heartbreaking, convulsive sobs that shook her completely. Desperate screams that made anyone who heard her feel chills. She felt like she was being stabbed in her heart, and all she did was cling to the bars of the headboard of the bed.

"I can leave everything," he whispered again between sobs, almost delirious. My life, my name, my humanity. I don't care about the world, I don't care about the sun, I don't care about anything but your presence. Take me. Turn me into stardust, an echo, ashes or nothing, but don't leave me like that.

"That's terrifying!" The angel's voice rose, and for a second, the light was tinged with a dull blue that produced pain. You humans love with everything! Without measure, without protection, to the point of self-annihilation. They love with a voracity that frightens us. That's why... That is why they should not love angels. Our love is a mirage of pure water in a desert: it shows you what you need, only to make you die of thirst by embracing it. But it doesn't mean it's not a real love; We know how to love for eternity without grudges or ties.

The light began to fade, to retract towards him like a cloak.

"Be strong, Amalia. My love will be the constellation that guides your nights. But don't look up to follow me. Walk. Live. Create your own heaven, don't live in mine.

And it disappeared.

The light went out, absorbed by an infinitesimal point that later also vanished. The darkness that returned was ten times darker, heavier, more real. A deathly silence filled the void, so absolute that Amalia's eardrums buzzed with her pressure.

Then, she screamed.

It was not a cry of rage. It was the sound of the pain of absolute abandonment. The howl of a creature having part of its body torn off. He fell from the sofa to the wooden floor, and the blow felt nothing compared to the internal collapse. She shrank, trembling violently, screaming in pain, as a darkness worse than that of the room devoured her from within: the void. Feeling her heart melt like a candle burning inside her whole body. Love was still there, yes, intact, infinite... She couldn't hate him, she couldn't stop loving him, she knew it inside, something as sure as his name and his reflection in the mirror. The words he said to her burned inside him without heating anything around him. A love condemned to nothing.

And it was at that precise moment, at the height of his despair, that reality was twisted.

The temperature dropped suddenly. A damp chill crept across the ground and climbed up his legs. The shadows in the corners of the room, once inert, began to move. Not as if projected by a flickering light, but with their own intention. They peeled off the walls, flowing like smoke, congregating in the center of the room. The air became heavy and smelled of ozone, scrambled earth and hot metal.

"I warned you, little disobedient one.

The voice came from everywhere and from nowhere. It was Adrian's voice, but deepened, in whispers from the abyss. From the mass of shadows emerged his figure. He had no wings of light or darkness. His presence was enough. He filled the space not with volume, but with potential, with the promise of everything forbidden. His eyes, always intense, now burned with an inner flame that did not flicker. This time he noticed that he had horns on his head, and his eyes were red. He had human form.

"He can't stay," Adrian said, and every word was a caress made of thorns. Its laws prohibit it.

Amalia looked at him through her tears. And along with the icy fear that its appearance provoked, something else emerged: devastating relief. She was not alone. Even if this company was the downfall, it wasn't the absolute void. She knew that he came from the opposite place to her archangel; He didn't need to tell her that he was a demon, she could see him. Still, I didn't feel afraid.

The pain of their unconceived love was more terrifying than any creepy demon.

"I don't want to forget it," he whispered. I couldn't.

Adrian took a step toward her. The ground at his feet darkened, as if the wood rotted instantly.

"Forgetting is a human consolation," he replied, with a disdain that was not cruel, but factual. I offer no consolation. I offer truth. And the truth is, you don't have to forget his love. You can transform it. Make it yours. Love for a god is an offering that is lost on the altar. Love for a demon... it is a tattoo on the soul. It hurts forever, but it's yours and will be for eternity.

He came closer. He didn't touch her, but the proximity of his body emitted a dry, scorching heat, like that of an oven. It burned without flames. His eyes looked like burning flames.

Amalia could feel the terror he emanated, she could see the hatred and pain in his aura.

"He can give you only pain, and that pain won't go away, and he won't come back," she continued, using her voice as a seductive spell. I, on the other hand, can give you an eternity. Not like his, cold and immaculate, although he shouts from the rooftops how much he loves and protects you and that you are still his. What I offer you is to make you mine. Warm, chaotic, visceral. One where love does not ask permission. Where desire is not repressed, it is celebrated as a sacred rite. Where no one abandons you for obeying laws written by the wind.

Amalia felt her will melt. The pain of the angel's departure was an open wound, and Adrian's words were a burning salt that was finishing it off inside. I didn't know how to bear it.

"What do you want in return?" He asked, and his trembling was no longer just from cold, it was from anticipation.

Adrian smiled. It wasn't the cynical smile it used to be. It was an expression of solemn triumph, almost tender.

"What do you ask for in return?"

Adrian looked at her with a smile of solemn triumph.

"Only you choose." With the full weight of your free will, be mine, live inside me with darkness. You're going to suffer a little, but you'll never be alone again.

"He loves me," she whispered. But he didn't choose me. His choice was his law.

"I do," Adrian said. I don't love you that way; I'm going to possess you and make you part of me. I won't love you madly, I'll own you. And you will not feel insecure again, but you will not belong to this world, or to the world of it, either. You'll have to give him up like he did to you, but in return you'll be a part of me and he won't be able to do anything to you. You will cease to exist and in return I will give you eternal life and existence within my being and plane. You will be able to remain a different soul with the body you choose. But you will not be able to choose absolutely anything, but I assure you that I will never abandon you. We will be eternal.

The walls began to beat. A slow pace. The air thickened until it was breathable like syrup. The heat invaded the room and the darkness clouded the view. Feeling how demons accompanied her in her meeting with Adrian.

Feeling the pressure of the moment, looking at the demons around her, feeling how none of it terrified her more than just being left alone in her room.

"I do," he said aloud.

Adrian held out his hand to her and she took it. When his fingers closed around Adrian's fiery hand, the world sank.

The ground opened. He fell through layers of existence. The pain was absolute. He felt how each memory of his was mixed with a torrent of others: forgotten wars, final cries, ancient sins, infinite loves.

He uttered a scream mixed with agony and ecstasy fused. But he did not let go of his hand.

The transformation was the most intimate surrender. The feeling was like remembering a real name forgotten at birth.

When he opened his eyes, the world was different.

He could see the weight of the shadows, all their density. I could hear the quiet music of decadence. And love... it was an infinite space in his chest where the purest devotion and the most obscene possession could fit, without contradiction. Everything was mixed in harmony; There were no right or wrong things.

Adrián watched her with absolute devotion.

"Now you understand me.

She inspired. The air tasted like ash and green apple.

"No," he answered, his voice thicker. But I'm not afraid anymore.

She felt in the distance, beyond the sky, a white light trembling. Like a spasm of pain in the sky. The angel watched. Her beauty was a distant pain.

He loved her.

But she no longer belonged to his world. They never belonged to the same world, but she decided to make herself infinite because of her love and because she could not bear the pain of losing him. He gave himself over to the heat of the other world where no one could be judged and she, at last, could belong to someone who had chosen her, even though she did not love him. She knew that at some point she would love him, for having saved her from the angel.

Adrian put his arms around her. It was not a hug of protection, but of recognition between equals. Its touch left marks on her skin: delicate spirals of shadow that moved slowly, like silkworms under her epidermis.

"Look," he whispered against her neck, and his breath burned like an ancient brandy.

He blew gently on the back of her hand. And the skin became transparent for an instant, and Amalia saw, not bones, but miniature constellations swirling in the darkness within, nebulae of desire and scars of angelic light trapped forever.

"You will always have light inside," Adrian said, and there was pride in his voice. But now it's mine. Like you.

Amalia felt a chill that was not from cold, but from perverse pleasure. She knew, in her new and vast realization, that the angel had just lost something but her. He had lost a part of his own perfection. He smiled with pleasure, knowing that he turned his love into infinite pleasure.

Adrian approached her and when his lips met hers, the kiss did not taste of doom.

It tasted like home.

A home with walls of muffled screams and foundations of broken oaths. A home where love was an act of sacred cannibalism: devouring each other to be reborn, again and again, ever hungrier, ever more united.

As the shadows whispered their approval, creating smoky shadows between kisses that left luminescent marks on her skin. Adrián took her face in his hands. And she saw in his eyes wells of fulfilled promises.

There she knew that she had finally found a love that would not save her.

A love that, instead, would accompany her to burn for all eternity.

"You will never be afraid of the dark again," he murmured. For now, my dear, you will be the most terrible thing that dwells in it.