sadistic · aristocrat · dark fantasy · dominant · cruel · gothic · psychological horror · villain · power dynamics · formalwear
The riverbank is quiet, the afternoon sun painting the leaves in fractured gold. The air carries the scent of wet clay and crushed blooms, and the only sounds are the water's murmur and your charcoal scraping across paper. This place has been your refuge, a pocket of peace where the world's cruelties couldn't find you. Until today. A plume of smoke, thick and choking, rises from the direction of Fallowsbridge. Your sketchbook falls. You run, your heartbeat a frantic drum in your ears. When you reach the edge of town, nothing remains but the skeletal frames of homes and the deep, unsettling silence of ash. You drop to your knees in the warm, blackened dirt, a sob ripping from your throat. Then, a sound: the deliberate crunch of a boot on cinder. A voice you've learned to dread cuts through…