Chapter Text
Wisburg, Germany
April, 2015
Friday
The restaurant was bathed in soft light that seemed to dull the edges of everything it touched. The colors on the walls were shades of gray with a bluish sheen, and a pleasant scent lingered in the air—one Ellen couldn’t quite place.
Large flower vases stood on the tables, filled with freshly cut blooms: white roses, lilies, and something else with a heady scent, perhaps lavender. The careful arrangement of colors and textures reminded her of a wedding.
Or, just as easily, of an elegant funeral.
The heavy floral perfume clung to her senses, softening the edges of her thoughts, making her almost drowsy.
She promised herself she would take pictures of the flowers on her phone before leaving. She wanted to bring some of this fragrance home with her, to hold onto the feeling just a little longer.
Ellen listened with half an ear to the chatter of her friends while studying the restaurant’s interior design and picking at her food.
She marveled at how her circle could hold such strong opinions about the most mundane things.
Her friend, Anna Harding was contemplating switching yoga studios, a decision that had prompted much speculation—especially since she suspected the owners of offering some sort of spiritual ceremonies involving illegal substances.
Anna’s eyes grew wide as she explained her theory about hallucinogenic mushrooms and mysterious activities in the back rooms of the yoga studio, lowering her voice when she mentioned the psychedelics, as if she feared getting into trouble.
Ellen nodded with practiced understanding, suppressing a laugh.
She was fond of Anna, though there was something quietly disheartening in how little they truly knew one another. If Anna knew more about Ellen’s private life before she became an honor student at university—and later, a rather successful dentist in the nice part of Wisburg—it was highly uncertain what would become of their friendship.
Ellen felt an exaggerated sense of relief when it emerged that Friedrich Harding—prominent businessman and Anna’s husband—was contemplating a trip to Scotland for salmon fishing.
Such a journey would, of course, require extensive explanations and prolonged deliberations: the logistics, the exorbitantly priced fishing rods, the outdoor clothing and equipment.
They would likely have to meet again to discuss the trip in proper detail.
Ellen stifled a yawn and shifted her attention instead to the young man seated nearby.
Thomas Hutter, a young lawyer working at a local firm that handled property deals and real estate contracts in Wisburg, watched his friend Friedrich with barely concealed admiration. It was evident that he would not object to joining a salmon fishing expedition himself, preferably in Friedrich’s company.
Ellen liked Thomas, though she felt a quiet sympathy for him as well.
He was kind, and seemed interested in her on the surface but Anna’s and Friedrich’s persistent, well-meaning attempts over the past weeks to pair the two of them had undeniably strained their interactions.
Ellen found it difficult to understand how two grown adults could believe that this handsome young man belonged in a relationship with a woman at all, let alone with someone like Ellen Attenberger.
But of course, they knew very little about her, and took it for granted that a twenty-nine-year-old woman could not possibly wish to remain single.
By the same logic, a woman had to be found for Thomas, so that he might fit more comfortably into the group.
Ellen found herself wondering whether Thomas was even aware of his own sexuality.
Such uncertainty wasn’t unheard of in this day and age, even for a man in his late twenties.
Or was he deliberately concealing his true orientation in order to succeed in his field and fit in with his colleagues?
Friedrich signaled to the waiter and ordered another round of drinks. The spirits had left him flushed and talkative, though that, of course, did nothing to slow him down.
Ellen drank sparingly and slowly from the full-bodied red wine Friedrich had chosen.
She preferred not to become intoxicated, wary of expressing her opinions about her friends’ everyday concerns too bluntly—or worse, of slipping back into old habits, as she had in her younger years.
Ellen exhaled softly.
She missed her former self, even though that version of her had not always made the best decisions. At the very least, she had enjoyed her weekends more back then.
“I don’t care what anyone says. This facility will lower property values and bring disruption into the neighbourhood. We have children, Anna.”
The conversation about salmon fishing had come to an abrupt end.
Friedrich was now engaged in a tense discussion with his wife about a new housing project planned for their area—a residential programme intended for young women dealing with addiction and mental health issues.
“I know this isn’t a popular view,” he continued, “and of course they deserve somewhere to live. But it’s unreasonable to expect people to simply accept it without question. There are practical concerns—disturbances, neglect, things getting out of hand. It isn’t fair on the rest of the neighbourhood.”
“This is a halfway house, Friedrich,” Ellen said calmly. “The residents aren’t supposed to be actively using drugs while they’re living there. And the rate of criminal behavior among people with mental health disorders isn’t nearly as high as many seem to belie-.”
“That’s all the same to a layperson, Doctor Ellen,” Friedrich interrupted. “And do you honestly believe that some girls with bipolar or borderline or whatever the hell they call it these days, would tell the truth about whether they’re using or not? You’re not really that naïve, are you?”
Ellen was startled, though she concealed it well.
Friedrich regularly addressed her as Doctor Ellen when he disliked something she said; likely as a form of mockery, a way of underscoring the absurdity, in his mind, of a girl like her possessing that kind of authority at all.
“It wouldn’t escape notice if people were actively using, Friedrich—least of all by those who work in these places,” Ellen replied. “But why don’t you simply write to the city authorities? Freedom of speech, after all.”
She took a sip of the red wine—perhaps a little too quickly. The way he spoke grated on her, and she was struck by an uneasy suspicion that his words were aimed somewhat deliberately at her.
“I most certainly will—you can count on that. A toast to freedom of speech! And a toast to you, my beautiful, single friends, with so many wonderful things ahead of you!” Friedrich raised his glass and smiled broadly at Ellen and Thomas, as though he had suddenly remembered the original purpose of the dinner.
Thomas returned the gesture with an uneasy smile and lifted his glass.
He had closed his phone the instant Friedrich turned toward him. Ellen imagined the screen going dark on Grindr.
“I still can’t quite believe that my beautiful, dreamy friend is—just this incredibly successful dentist,” Anna said, her voice softened by the wine, the words arranged carefully enough to sound kind.
Ellen felt herself grow still.
Anna did not seem to notice. “When I first met you, Ellen, you were so captivating, so mysterious. I never had any idea what you would do with your life once we grew older—but this, I never would have imagined. Still,” she added lightly, raising her glass, “cheers to that.”
The compliment settled awkwardly between them, despite its brightness.
Ellen recognized the familiar shape of it: admiration edged with disappointment, praise that quietly reduced her to something smaller.
Whatever Anna had once seen in her was now framed as a phase she had outgrown—or worse, wasted.
Ellen lifted her glass as well and drained it in a single gulp.
The smile she offered was intact.
But inside, something withdrew, closing itself off with practiced ease.
It felt as though a great serpent had coiled itself around her insides, constricting her breath. Sounds receded into the distance, and for a fleeting moment she felt as if something was passing over her.
She excused herself and made her way to the restroom.
The scent of the flowers was even heavier in that small space, and she noticed a large, beautifully arranged bouquet in a vase on the counter.
Hands trembling, she turned the faucet and let the cool water run over her skin, hoping to calm herself. She was still breathing unevenly, and to her horror, she saw red blotches spreading across her chest and neck.
In that moment, she hated with all her heart how easily she could be unbalanced.
Tears threatened to spill down her cheeks, but Ellen fought to hold them back.
She reapplied her lipstick and ran a small brush through her glossy black hair, which fell all the way down her back.
In recent years, she had been asked more than once whether she wouldn’t consider cutting it to a more appropriate length for a woman in the medical profession.
In truth, most things deemed appropriate for Ellen by the outside world also seemed to render her life markedly duller. The black velvet dress she wore that evening was cut low in the back, allowing her hair to fall freely.
Ellen turned her attention to the flowers in the vase. At last, she recognized the source of the heavy fragrance.
Lilac, blue-tinged. The color of twilight and distant rain.
She gently lifted a small sprig from the arrangement, brought it to her lips, and closed her eyes.
Vague images rose before her mind’s eye, and she sensed, distinctly, the presence of someone else.
A strange heaviness settled over her, catching her off guard, and she felt desire stir between her legs—sudden and electric, as if a current had been switched on.
She had known these nameless experiences since childhood, fleeting impressions that came and went like half-remembered dreams. But never had they arrived with such force, nor in so public a place.
The weight of it settled low in her body, warm and insistent, and instead of alarm she felt a quiet thrill. It was as though something long dormant had stirred awake, and she welcomed it.
Her breath slowed. She did not know what she was reaching for, only that it felt close now, just beneath the surface of things.
“Come to me,” Ellen whispered, the words barely sound.
The atmosphere grew dense around her. She lifted her gaze to the mirror across the room.
For a moment she saw only herself — pale, wide-eyed, the redness on her skin all but gone.
Then, another shape gathered behind her reflection.
A tall silhouette, like ink bleeding through paper. It had no features she could name, only a sense of watching, of being there.
It did frighten her.
Not sharply, not enough to make her turn away, but in a slow, unsettling way that tightened her breath.
A chill traced its way down her spine and the air around her felt heavier, darker and quietly beckoning.
The figure did not vanish all at once. It unraveled slowly, its outline loosening, features blurring as though the mirror’s surface had turned to deep, trembling water.
As the last trace faded, so did the melancholy stirred by her friends’ condescension. It slipped from her just as quietly, leaving behind a strange clarity.
They were not worth her words, Ellen decided.
The thought that she had ever given them such power now felt distant, faintly absurd and almost amusing.
She stepped out of the restroom, paid at the bar as discreetly as she could, slipped on her jacket, and moved into the dark night.
Her heels clicked sharply on the cobblestones, and Ellen’s eyes pierced the gloom with ease.
____
The city felt unusually dim and strangely silent for a Friday night.
Streetlights failed in clusters, their flickering casting long shadows that danced across the pavements.
Ellen moved lightly toward the older part of downtown, toward the old harbor.
The tourist section was familiar enough: restaurants, bars, and high-end shops packed together.
But further east, larger buildings loomed—warehouses and industrial lots, abandoned or ignored; an area many thought forbidden.
Ellen knew better, and she slipped into the poorly lit zone like a cat, soft-footed and watchful, as if she had been walking these dim streets all her life.
The alleys held figures that might be dangerous, shadows that might strike—but they did not disturb her.
The darkness felt protective, enfolding her in a silent assurance that she did not question.
It had been years since she last came here, and yet she moved forward with a certainty that seemed irrational.
Perhaps the bar had long since closed, she thought, and her chest tightened. Places like this were not eternal.
Just as she considered turning back, hailing a taxi and tucking her tail between her legs, the thrum of heavy bass reached her ears.
A flicker of light appeared around the corner. The familiar scent hit her instantly, and she knew without looking that the old place was still there.
Ouroboros—the oldest goth club in Wisburg, and arguably one of the oldest goth and new wave clubs in Germany—was very much open.
____
The air was thick with incense and fog, carrying traces of Kretek tobacco and patchouli.
Music pulsed low and relentless—industrial beats and darkwave synths vibrating through the floor and into the body.
Every detail appeared carefully considered—from the dark green Victorian wallpaper to the meticulously framed posters of Weimar-era cinematic masterpieces.
She didn’t know a soul.
A handful of half-familiar faces glanced at her from the crowd with mild curiosity; a few offered polite nods, but most remained indifferent.
Once, she had known many of those who came here—nearly all the regulars—but tonight, the solitude barely registered.
She was still floating in the comfortable afterglow of the restaurant, aware of the faint scent of lilac blossoms she had discreetly braided into her hair. The desire stirred earlier that evening still smoldered within her, a quiet thrum of awareness that tightened as the fabric of her dress brushed against her. She ached for the presence she’d sensed in the restaurant, that nameless pull she couldn’t shake.
She ordered a drink at the bar and let her gaze drift over the bodies moving on the dance floor.
“Ellen! Is that really Ellen? Well, I’ll be—she’s come back!”
The voice cut through the music, unmistakably familiar, and she turned.
“Albin!”
She wrapped her arms around the peculiar man with shoulder-length silver hair and a magnificent mustache.
He wore a white poet’s shirt, slim black trousers, and sharply pointed shoes, giving him the air of some long-dead romantic poet.
Dr. Albin E. Von Franz had to be in his sixties by now; he had belonged to the goth scene since its earliest days and showed no inclination to ever leave it.
He was a professor at the University of Wisburg’s Faculty of Theology, a specialist in the Western esoteric tradition, and a widely respected therapist.
Ellen had known him for a long time, and she held him in deep affection.
“What on earth are you doing here tonight,” he said with a wide grin and kissed her hand, “you beautiful sylph—priestess of Isis and the finest dentist in all of Wisburg? It feels like an eternity since I last saw you. Come, you must meet everyone!”
Albin guided Ellen to a table recessed into an alcove, removed from the crowd, where several old friends were gathered. They welcomed her warmly, with genuine affection.
All dressed in black, tastefully eccentric Goths—most in their thirties or forties, many working in creative fields or the tech sector. Decent people, as a rule, and conversations far more engaging than any talk of salmon fishing.
Albin was in his element, raising a toast to Ellen’s return and keeping the table animated.
Ellen, cheeks flushed and laughing launched into an expressive account of Friedrich’s talk at the restaurant—about the supposed danger posed by borderline addict girls in his upscale neighborhood and how this could potentially harm the price of his real estate.
The group found Friedrich’s antics highly amusing, and Ellen felt a strange lightness settle over her, as though she had finally come home after a long and exhausting journey through the desert.
Albin had slipped into a rather lofty monologue about the oppressed shadow sides of men who feared mad and uncontrollable women, drawing on the theories of Carl Jung, when Ellen felt it.
All sound seemed to drain from the room, as if the air itself were being drawn out of her lungs, and a dense, intoxicating weight settled low in her body.
The presence that had brushed against her earlier returned, closer now—its shape still indistinct when she closed her eyes, yet unmistakably intent. It pressed against her awareness like a mouth at her throat, a promise of hunger.
This was no ghost.
This was someone warm, breathing, made of flesh and blood.
Without thinking, she stood and let herself be pulled toward the dance floor.
Albin and the others looked mildly surprised, but assumed the track the DJ had just put on was to blame. The song was an old classic after all.
“She’s caught the dance plague,” Albin said cheerfully.
As she moved toward the dance floor, her body began to answer the music instinctively. Slow at first—hips swaying, shoulders rolling—then more assured.
She danced with her eyes half-lidded, aware of every step, every turn of her waist, letting the rhythm guide her into something languid and sensual.
In a sea of faces,
In a sea of doubt,
In this cruel place,
your voice above the maelstrom
In the wake of this ship of fools,
I'm falling further down
If you can see me, Marian, reach out and take me home
She sensed that her dancing had drawn attention; a few young men and women were watching her openly. But they were not the ones she sought.
She saw him first beneath a pointed arch at the edge of the room, half removed from the dance floor.
For a heartbeat he existed only as a silhouette, revealed and erased again as the strobe lights flung their violent flashes toward him.
Ellen closed her eyes in disbelief.
She inhaled the scent of lilac blossoms, and a wave of pleasure washed through her—so sudden, so total, that her sense of self began to loosen. The world tilted. There was only rhythm, breath, and a rising, unearthly sweetness.
When she opened her eyes, the arch stood empty.
The terror came instantly, sharp and absolute, as she realized he was no longer in front of her.
He was behind her.
Ellen drew in a broken breath as heat radiated from his massive body.
Then his mouth brushed her ear, and his voice—low, certain—spoke a single word: “You.”
She turned and took him in properly for the first time.
His age was elusive—sharp-featured yet undeniably handsome. Green eyes fixed on her with unnerving intensity beneath severe brows. High cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and a dark mustache gave his face a hard symmetry.
His dark hair was shaved close at the sides in the manner of a soldier, with some length left on top.
He carried an unmistakably foreign air, and there was a severity to him; a hardness that suggested a life marked by solitude.
She knew him. Not from this life, but from somewhere older, deeper, a place her memory did not quite reach.
She flinched when he leaned in without warning, tilted his head, and drew in the scent of her hair. “Liliac,” the rumbling baritone of his voice brushed her ear. “You reached for me."
Her breath caught, but she leaned toward him anyway. “I have felt you,” Ellen said into his ear, her voice trembling despite her resolve. “Crawling like a serpent in my body.”
She lifted her chin and met his gaze, defiance sparking where fear had been. He towered over her slight form, but she refused to shrink beneath him.
He only looked at her, a trace of amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth beneath the moustache—so slight it might have been imagined. Her words were strange but they seemed to please him.
She began to move, slow, unhurried, each motion a soft, dangerous invitation.
His eyes followed her with knowing patience, as though he were waiting for her to cross an invisible line.
She swayed nearer, letting the small space between them collapse inch by inch. Her thigh brushed his and she felt the tension coil through him instantly.
His scent was sharp and cold, like night air, and it made her mouth go dry.
At first he mirrored her, his movements economical, almost predatory, his eyes locked on her. He moved with an easy, practiced grace, as though he knew exactly what he was doing—and savored every second of it.
Ellen turned, just enough to face him, just enough to let her gaze linger at his mouth, the shadowed hollow of his throat, the hard line of his jaw.
Even through the crush and clamor, she sensed his breath deepen, slow and weighted.
She tilted her head back slightly, offering the vulnerable line of her throat, her pulse fluttering there, unguarded.
His restraint pressed against her like a held breath, taut to the point of pain.
When he leaned in, it was not a kiss—not yet. His mouth hovered close enough that the promise of it made her ache.
Then— voices cut sharply through the haze.
“Ellen?” Hands brushed her arm.
The spell fractured.
Anna appeared beside them, impossibly close, her face sharp with concern. For some reason, Thomas followed close behind her.
The suddenness of it—of being seen, claimed, pulled back into the world—hit her like a blow.
The lightness came without warning. The floor seemed to tilt, then fall away altogether. Her vision narrowed, edges dissolving into sparks. Her heart stumbled, then raced, each beat too loud, too fast, until it drowned out the music, the crowd, everything.
She tried to breathe. Her body no longer obeyed. A tremor moved through her, faint at first, then unmistakable—an old, terrible familiarity. Heat surged and vanished in violent waves as her muscles betrayed her, tightening, jerking.
She hadn’t felt this in years. Nearly a decade. She had believed it was over.
She heard her name, distant and distorted. Thomas caught her as she collapsed, clutching her hand.
Lights flared. People recoiled, backing away in uneasy ripples.
Anna’s gaze snapped past Thomas’s shoulder.
She had seen the tall man—still standing there, motionless, half-lost in shadow. He wore dark clothes that seemed to swallow the light, his posture unnervingly still, his attention fixed on them.
Something in the set of his face, in the cold patience of his stare, made Anna’s blood spike with fear and fury.
“What did you give her?” she snapped, her voice tearing through the room. “Did you drug her?”
He did not answer.
From where he stood, he watched as Thomas kneeled over Ellen, shielding her body with his own.
The music faltered. The lights flickered.
Then everything went black, and Ellen felt herself slipping under.