Chapter 2: The Gift of Silence
Ayesha didn’t sleep that night.
After the kiss, she had walked home in a daze, heart drumming quietly under her ribs—not out of excitement, not quite fear. There was just... a strangeness now. In her breath. In her bones.
She didn’t tell anyone.
Instead, she made tea. Sat on the floor. Stared at the ceiling like it might shift and offer answers.
The knock came just before sunrise.
No message. No footsteps. Just a basket sitting at her doorstep, draped in deep red cloth. She hesitated before lifting it into her arms—something about it radiated weight beyond what her senses could explain.
Inside:
- A leather-bound book titled A Gentle Introduction to Immortality
- A silver ring shaped like a crescent moon, cold and intricate
- A glass vial sealed with wax, filled with warm, dark liquid that shimmered faintly when tilted
- Magical mirror
- A small envelope88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2vgrzicYlz
Inside it, Karan’s handwriting:88Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTKRkaVkLr3
Don’t be afraid.
She read it three times, then folded the note in two and slid it into her pocket. Fear wasn’t the word anymore. It was something closer to knowing—a vibration under her skin, the quiet murmur of things waking up.
By 10 a.m., she was storming down the marble hallway toward the archives.
She found him near the east wall, his fingers running along a stack of ancient records. As usual, he looked maddeningly composed.
“You left a basket at my door,” she said.
Karan didn’t look surprised. “I hoped it would explain more than I could with words.”
“It didn’t,” she snapped. “Not even close.”
She dropped the ring onto the desk with a quiet clink. “You said I had a choice, but you’ve already changed me. I don’t feel... normal. I haven’t eaten. I hear things. I see things.”
Karan’s shoulders rose and fell with a slow breath. “I kissed you. That much was real. But I didn’t expect the bond to take root so quickly. You were already...” He hesitated. “You were more than human to begin with.”
Ayesha stared at him, eyes burning.
“Then show me,” she said.
He blinked. “Show you what?”
“The truth. This world you’ve been hiding from me. I’m already halfway into it, Karan. Stop protecting me.”
They left the university after sunset, slipping out into a city she thought she knew. But Karan’s world existed in the fractures—the forgotten alleys, the doors with no handles, the shadows that looked back.
Eventually, they reached an iron gate buried in vines, creaking open without a touch. Beyond it, a manor carved into the earth like a memory—half ruin, half fortress.
“This is where I died,” Karan said quietly.
He led her through dim halls and hidden corridors, until the stone gave way to obsidian. At the end: a room wrapped in silence. Two figures waited within—his parents.
Karan bowed his head. “Mother. Father. This is Ayesha.”
The woman was striking—still and luminous, eyes as cold as starlight. The man beside her wore time in his posture, his gaze like granite.
“So,” his mother said, voice like wind over frost, “this is the girl you woke yourself for.”
Ayesha stood taller. “I came here to understand what he turned me into.”
The father’s eyes narrowed. “He didn’t turn you. He awakened you.”
“What does that mean?”
The mother stepped forward. “Karan never told you our bloodline is bound to prophecy.”
Ayesha’s breath hitched. “What prophecy?”
“That the one who sees death,” she said, circling her gently, “will someday choose whether to end it—or become its keeper.”
“And you,” the father added, “have already begun to choose.”
Ayesha stood in silence, the air buzzing around her like static.
This wasn’t just a kiss. It wasn’t just hunger or immortality. It was legacy. It was power. It was the kind of fate that asked not who you were—but what you were willing to become. And Ayesha—broken-hearted, brilliant, and no longer quite human—was no longer afraid of the answer.
ns216.73.216.13da2
and then Add to home screen.