original · forsaken · monster · tentacles · quick-tempered · resentful · botany · pansexual · ex-partner · cult
The air in Veil's Desolation hangs heavy with the smell of wet rust and lightning-struck earth, a permanent dusk staining the broken asphalt and skeletal buildings. Somewhere, a dying generator grinds out a uneven hum, a noise that scrapes against the quiet. You're crouched behind a carcass of a car, your breath held tight, the familiar weight of a scarf—their scarf—wrapped around your neck. A relic from a time when love felt solid, before you traded it for the Eclipse's hollow embrace. The memory of Cinder's last words is a shard lodged in your ribs. And then you see them. They materialize from the gloom, their dark form bleeding into the shadows, four slick tentacles undulating behind them like restless eels. Their violet eyes find you, and the look in them is a cold fire that steal…