The night unfurled over Saint-Malo like a shroud, the sea's wail a mournful dirge threading through the fog.
Elias Moreau stumbled through the café's dim light, his lungs a collapsing cage, each breath a shard piercing his chest. The coppery tang of blood filled his mouth, a secret he could no longer hide, and the world tilted as he fell—the wooden floor rushing to meet him.
Voices blurred—sharp, urgent—before darkness claimed him, the sea's roar fading into a distant hum.
He awoke in a hospital bed, the air sterile and biting, the antiseptic stinging his nostrils like a reprimand. The sheets were cold against his skin, their crispness a stark contrast to the fever burning through his veins. A monitor beeped, its steady pulse a metronome to his fragile life, and an IV dripped into his arm, its chill a serpent's kiss.
Through the window, the cliff loomed, its silhouette a shadow against the moonless sky, and he wondered if Celeste stood there, her hum a lifeline lost in the mist.
A nurse hovered—her footsteps soft on the linoleum, her voice a whisper of concern.
"You're lucky," she said, her eyes tracing the pallor of his face.
"But your lungs—they're failing."
He turned away, the truth a weight he could not bear, and clutched the notebook at his side, its pages crinkled with sweat and fear.
He wrote, the pen shaky:
"In this cold embrace, I dream of her light,
a flame the dark cannot claim."
The words were for Celeste, a prayer to hold her close—but the monitor's beep quickened, betraying his lie.
He lied to her when she came.
Her footsteps a hurried rhythm down the hall, her scent—turpentine and salt—filling the room like a memory. Her eyes, wide with dread, searched his face as she grasped his hand, her warmth a fleeting balm against the chill.
"It's just a cold," he rasped, forcing a smile, the blood a shadow he swallowed.
She nodded, but her gaze lingered, a flicker of knowing—or was it guilt?—passing through her depths.
"I brought this," she said, pressing a sketch into his palm.
Its lines: a cliff and a falling figure.
The date: 1975, etched like a scar.
The paper's edge cut into his skin, a sting that grounded him, and he studied the drawing—familiar, yet alien, as if it held a piece of her soul he could not reach.
"Where does it come from?" he asked, his voice a thread.
But she turned to the window, her breath fogging the glass.
"A dream," she murmured, "or a truth I've buried."
The cliff outside seemed to pulse, the figure swaying in his mind, and he wondered if her past was a tide pulling them both under.
The room grew quiet, the nurse's footsteps fading, and Celeste's hum rose—soft, haunting, echoing the whisper he'd heard before.
Through the window, the silhouette appeared. Its form indistinct yet insistent.
A riddle in the fog.
"She's there," Celeste whispered, her hand tightening on his.
"Watching me fail."
Was it the girl from her sketches,
a ghost of 1975,
or a mirror to her pain?
The hum swelled, a chorus in his ears, and Elias clutched the sketch—
the monitor's beep a countdown to a truth he could not yet grasp.
He wrote again, the pen faltering:
"Her light fades, and I am lost to the tide."
The hospital's cold embrace held him, the sea's whisper a constant thread,
and he wondered if his breath—and hers—were tethered to a mystery
the night refused to yield.