Seraphina's apartment.
3:01 AM
Dim. Humid. Haunted.
The night was quiet.
The city was silent—except for the gentle patter of rain on the roof. It was the early morning, but inside Seraphina's apartment, the silence was not ordinary.
It felt like something was breathing inside the walls. As if the building itself was awake and watching.
The air was dense.
Heavy.
Like grief trying to take form.
She still hadn't removed the tape from the window—as if afraid the storm would repeat itself. Night after night, at the same time, a force tried to enter.
And she always woke up at this hour.
Her shoulders were bare, wearing only a thin, milky-white nightie—silk that slid against her skin with every movement. It was as if the moon had caressed her body. Her hair, messy and tied up high, had been disturbed for several nights by dreams she no longer wanted to revisit.
In front of the canvas—There she was.
Seraphina paints obsessively, unable to stop. Her fingers move faster than her thoughts.
Her hand had a life of its own.
The movement continued even though her mind was tired. As if possessed by an emotion she couldn't explain.
With each stroke of the brush, a piece of her own soul followed.
Red.
Black.
Gold.
Blood. Ashes. Fire.
On the canvas: a burning church, a faceless crowd, a woman in a scorched red wedding dress—screaming.
She didn't know where that image came from. She couldn't remember when she started painting it. It felt like it had always been there.
She paused.
Even though her finger was trembling, she forced herself to reach for the glass of water beside her.
She drank. She took a deep breath.
But she was still restless.
"I didn't see this in my dream…?"
But no matter how hard she tried,
she couldn't remember. She doesn't remember the fire. But her hands do.
She stepped back from the canvas. She looked around. Lots of sketches.
Lots of unfinished works. But this was the only complete one.
She walked to the bathroom, wetted a towel, then returned.
She wiped her neck with it.
She sighed deeply.
But when she faced the canvas again.
It had changed.
The flames were higher. The shadows—sharper. And the bride's face.
Every time she closes her eyes, the painting changes—the flames grow, and the bride's face becomes clearer.
It's hers.
She stepped back.
"This isn't me. It can't be…"
But it was clear. From the curve of the cheek, the curve of the lip, the eyelashes—It was her own face painted on the canvas.
Crying while the world around her burned.
She looked at her own hands.
Paint. Sweat. Red color.
She suddenly bumped the side of the easel. She accidentally cut her finger.
Blood hit the canvas.
A drop of blood rolled down. It mingled with the stroke of color.
It landed on the very lips of the woman on the canvas—on her.
And then the impossible happened.
The bride's mouth moved.
You begged him not to do it. He did it anyway...
It was like a bomb had exploded in her ear.
She stepped back. Unbelievable.
"T-That didn't come from here…"
She looked around.
No speaker. No phone. No technology at all. But the voice—she heard it. And she didn't just hear it—she felt it.
The voice crawled under her skin.
It wasn't a whisper in her ear. It was a voice threading through her veins.
She looked at the canvas again.
The movement of the lips was gone.
But the eyes of the woman in the painting seemed as if she hadn't painted them. They were alive. Watching her.
The brush fell from her hand. The fall echoed. Just one sound, but it felt like it came from inside a church.
She stepped back.
And the wall cracked behind her painting. Small at first. Like a crack in the paint. But it spread. Crept down until it suddenly opened.
Like a secret that no longer wanted to be hidden.
She reached for it, trembling. She touched the small latch. She forced it open. A hidden compartment.
Old wood. Embedded in the wall. Heavy. It smelled of dust and old screams.
She opened it.
Inside was a journal. Old Leather-bound. Black. Its edges were burned. And stained with ash.
She picked it up slowly.Barely breathing. While holding it, something unfamiliar returned to her body.
She opens it.
It's in her handwriting. But not from now. A different kind of writing.
More refined, more familiar but older.
And then she saw it.
The date: October 3, 1672.
"Oh my God…"
She flipped the page.
And there she read that line—as if the fire itself had written it.
The fire didn't start in the chapel. It started with a vow.
In the corner of the room, the candle dripped again. The flame was red.
The last drop of wax fell to the floor.
Another echo.
And at the end of the room, it felt like someone was touching the canvas again.
Seraphina's Apartment
3:48 AM
The storm outside had changed its mind. A while ago, it was just a drizzle. Now, it seemed like the sky was pouring out its anger.
Each thunderclap shook the fragile apartment. The taped up windows vibrated with every strike. The power flickered. And somewhere in the silence between the thunder, the past came knocking.
Seraphina sat curled on the floor, a blanket wrapped tight around her, but the cold—it came from within.
In her lap, the journal she found behind the canvas lay open.
Its spine cracked with age.
Its pages curled like they'd tasted fire.
And yet they flipped on their own. As if something—someone—was breathing through it.
Her fingers trembled as she reached for the first proper entry.
The ink was old but unbroken.
And as her eyes read the words, her mind began to tear open.
She reads page after page: entries about a secret wedding, a forbidden crown, and a man named Lucael.
The stars were not kind to us. They crowned me with roses soaked in blood. He kissed me before the altar, with his blade still sheathed.
She didn't just read the words, she felt them.
With each page, there was an accompanying heartbeat that wasn't hers. Each letter, like a root burning her skin.
Every paragraph unlocked something
A flash.
A burn.
A scream.
She didn't understand the images entering her mind. But it was painful. And familiar.
A man's voice whispering a name not Seraphina, but "Sariah."
A ring being placed on her finger, in the dark.
A crown being forced on her head while someone screamed behind a door.
She clutched her stomach—The deeper she reads, the more her body reacts.
Her pulse fluttered.
Her breath hitched.
Then—She vomited.
On ash.
Black flakes spilled from her mouth onto the hardwood floor.
Burned. Alive. Dusty.
As if something inside her had already been burned long ago.
She gasped.
Her eyes widened as she wiped her mouth. And then she felt something worse—her voice.
It changed.
She read another line out loud.
He will come cloaked in fire and in shadow. But even without his name, I will know him by the way he says mine.
And the voice that came out of her mouth was no longer hers.
High-pitched.
Deep.
Two voices spoke at once.
As if two souls had joined in her very utterance.
She dropped the journal in fear.
But the pages didn't stop.
They kept flipping.
Until one stopped—a page with a pressed flower between its leaves.
One page has a pressed flower still intact.
Soft.
Crimson.
Still fragrant despite the centuries.
She reached out—carefully—and touched it with her finger.
And then the impossible.
It bled. A droplet of blood seeped from the petals. Drip.
Untouched by rain.
Untouched by time.
Underneath it, written in her own looping script: He put the dagger in my heart and said he loved me as he twisted.
Seraphina froze.
It was like an icy bolt of lightning in her spine.
She looked at the journal, at her fingers, at her surroundings. But the world was no longer just her own.
She looked toward the window—
where a moment ago, she was only suffering from the rain. But now—Lightning strikes.
For one split second, the entire apartment was bathed in white blue light.
And in the windowpane. Her reflection. Not in a silky nightgown.
Not barefoot and shaking. But in a scorched red wedding dress.
Burned.
Crowned.
Screaming silently.
And worse—Someone stood behind her.
Not in real life. Not in the room.
Only in the reflection.
Lucien.
Eyes dark. Cloak dripping.
Watching her from behind the veil of memory.
Seraphina stumbled back.
She looked behind her. No one. Nothing. Just the howl of wind and the thud of her heartbeat.
But the feeling wouldn't leave.
The knowing.
She turned back to the journal. Her fingers trembled as she turned the final page. And at the bottom, a line that struck her heart—like lightning splitting the earth.
This journal wasn't written for me.
It was written by me—before I died.
The surroundings melted in the light.
The wind seemed to stop. And the ground beneath her feet disappeared.
Dream Realm.
It felt like a hand pulled her soul away.
Seraphina collapsed—not on the floor of the room—but into a world of memory and curse.
She wakes up in a burning version of her own apartment—only older. 1600s. Stone walls. Torches. Screaming in the distance.
The first thing she felt was the fire.
Not just heat—but anger.
As if she was being burned not just on her skin but also in her memory.
"Ah—!" Seraphina screamed.
It was as if she had fallen—and plunged—into darkness. But instead of darkness, the surroundings were red. Red like blood and the memories of a war.
The world around her was burning.
And with her next breath—she was no longer in her apartment.
They were stone walls. Torch-lit halls.
Marble floors stained with blood.
There were paintings on the ceiling—blood and crowns, fire and crosses.
The air was thick with smoke and sorrow.
Her apartment was no longer the same. This was the old version of it. Centuries older.
She heard screams—she didn't know if they were from the street, the sky, or her memory.
Voices of people being burned.
Or fighting.
But her?
She wasn't burning. She was barefoot. Her dress was thin, soaked in sweat.
But even as the fire approached her body, she wasn't scorched.
She walked through the flames. Untouched. And there she saw herself.
In the middle of the room—lying down. A woman—wearing a red wedding gown. The hem was burned.
The fabric was soaked in blood.
Her face—her face.
Bleeding.
Broken.
Crowned with thorns.
And above her, Lucien.
He was kneeling.
Silent.
Unforgiving.
His black cloak was torn, his pale hands shaking. But his hand held a knife.
A ceremonial dagger. Old. Silver.
With ancient script carved into the blade.
And it was already embedded in the woman's chest.
Slowly, he pushed the handle down. And with every second, the wound deepened.
I have loved you, Lucael. And you promised to protect me. But I didn't know your arms would become my grave...
The woman's voice was almost without strength—fading, but each word that came out was like a dagger crushing her heart and soul. This wasn't just anger. It was a plea from a weary soul ready to vanish into the darkness.
Lucien said nothing.
But the man's eyes.
They were weeping blood. Silently weeping. No emotion. No anger. No mercy.
Seraphina tried to scream. To run.
To stop it.
But her body was as if nailed to the spot. No voice came out. No strength in her legs. She could only watch.
And as she watched herself being killed—That's when the memory began to return.
I asked you to do it, dying in your hands would hurt less. But love isn't the same as forgiveness. And just because I chose you, doesn't mean I'll forgive you for choosing this.
Suddenly, the fire closed.
The world spun. They were flashes.
A forbidden crown. A secret vow whispered before the altar. A betrayal so deep, it needed blood to seal it.
And then she remembered. That's why she did it—not to hurt Lucien. But to save something or someone.
She did this for a destiny heavier than her own life.
But even if this was what commanded her. She still felt the pain.
Then—The dagger twisted.
Her dead form groaned—not in pain, but in release. A final breath escaped her lips, like a farewell the world never heard.
And the Seraphina of now?
She opened her eyes—awake but as if she had fallen into an abyss.
Gasping, sweating, and no longer sure which was real: the memory or the dream.
She was back in her real apartment.
Her back was drenched in sweat. It felt like her throat was torn. But it wasn't just fear that enveloped her.
But pain.
She touched her chest.
She looked. There she saw it.
A mark. Fresh. Carved into her skin.
From the middle of her chest down—a sigil of blood. Not just a wound—it was a curse. The same mark from the dagger in the dream.
She crawled to the mirror, still gasping. Slowly looked.
And when she looked at her reflection. It was still her. But she was no longer the same.
Trembling, she touched the mark with her fingers, while her heart whispered a word she didn't know where it came from.
And from her lips. "I died with his name in my mouth. Now I live to take it back."