He had his mother's eyes. Deep, dark, far too mature for his age. But it was from his father that he inherited that something—the thing that kept him awake at night. That inner tension. As if something inside him smoldered, refusing to let him be an ordinary boy.
Jeremy wasn't normal. And he knew it.
For as long as he could remember, the world around him had felt... different. He heard sounds more sharply. Shadows seemed to move, as if something lived within them. People were too loud.Their emotions stabbed into him like needles. He could feel their envy, their fears, sometimes even their desire. And hatred. That was the strongest of all.
But the worst was the loneliness. The daily silence no one could break. Even though he had everything—a house, school, friends who supposedly liked him—on the inside, he was empty. Like a crucial piece of the puzzle had always been missing.
His mother left before he even learned to say "mom." His father... Occasionally, he appeared in dreams. Tall, cold, dangerous. And even though Jeremy hadn't seen him in years, something inside whispered that he was very close.
Jeremy often woke up in the middle of the night with the feeling that someone was sitting by his bed. Sporadically, he caught a familiar scent of fire. Occasionally, he heard a soft whisper of his name.
But no one was ever there.
He wondered how much longer he could take it. How much longer he could pretend he belonged in this place, among these people, in this body. Because with each passing day, he felt less and less human.
Until she came along.
Julie was like a collision with another world. Her presence shattered something inside him—a wall that had been building for years. When she laughed, he wanted to close his eyes and just listen.
She didn't know his story. She had no idea who he was or what he was capable of. And that's precisely why, with her, he could forget—just for a moment. But Jeremy already knew that peace was just an illusion.
He could feel her. Rosalie.Always, whenever he got too close to Julie, something would happen—Lights dimmed, doors slammed without reason, and in his head echoed one menacing word:
"Mine."
Jeremy knew the darkness was returning. And that nothing would ever be the same again.