— The Final Letter —
The next morning.
Sunlight poured over the Vale estate without restraint. From a distance, the manor appeared almost sanctified—its pale walls and spires gleaming beneath a flawless sky.
The wedding venue bloomed in calculated excess. Layers of white and pale gold flowers covered the grounds, arranged with near-mathematical precision, their fragrance dense enough to settle at the back of the throat. Long ceremonial carpets stretched from the main gate toward the platform, their intricate patterns directing movement forward, permitting no pause, no deviation.
Every corner radiated celebration that had been finalized long before anyone arrived.
Near the ceremonial platform stood an altar.
Its presence required no explanation, yet unsettled all the same—a ritual necessity embedded within the brightness like a flaw beneath polished stone. Eyes slid over it, then moved on, as if attention itself had been instructed where not to linger.
"The bride and groom approach!"
The announcement cut cleanly through the murmurs. Music rose at once, precise and overwhelming. Flower petals descended from above, catching the light as they fell, drifting slowly enough to invite admiration before surrendering to gravity.
Damien and Seraphine stepped forward together, their hands already clasped.
Damien Vale moved with practiced ease, tall and composed, his expression calm and assured. He looked exactly as the Vale family needed him to look—measured, dignified, unassailable. Every gesture reinforced the image of an heir stepping naturally into his ordained place.
Seraphine walked beside him, veiled in pearl and silk. The tiara at her brow caught the sunlight with each step, scattering soft reflections across her face. Her long train followed behind like a quiet tide, carried forward by attendants who adjusted it with reverent care.
She was beautiful in a way that drew the eye without effort, her features refined to the point of unreality, as though she had been arranged rather than adorned.
Soft murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"A match made in heaven..."
"What fortune the Vale family has..."
Heads nodded. Smiles deepened. No one questioned the perfection placed before them.
No one noticed that Clara was not among the guests.
---
At that same moment, far from the ceremony, Clara sat alone in her room.
The celebration reached her only as a distant vibration, dulled by thick walls and closed doors. Sunlight filtered through the curtains, falling in a narrow band across the floor, stopping precisely at the edge of the bed where Clara sat.
The envelope rested in her hands.
Seraphine's letter.
Its weight felt disproportionate, as though the thin paper carried more than words. Clara's fingers tightened unconsciously around it, her chest drawing inward as her gaze lingered on the unbroken seal.
After noon.
The phrase returned to her again, uninvited.
Why had Seraphine insisted on such precision? Not "later." Not "tomorrow." A specific hour, chosen and repeated as if it mattered more than the contents of the letter itself.
---
The previous night.
Moonlight spilled through the window, pale and diluted, washing Seraphine's face in silver. In that light, the color seemed drained from her skin, leaving her features sharp and distant, as if she were already half removed from the room.
She held Clara's hand, her grip light but intentional, as though anchoring herself through contact rather than comfort.
"Clara," she said quietly, her voice barely disturbing the stillness, "you're my closest friend. I wanted you beside me tomorrow. I truly did."
Her gaze drifted toward the window, lingering on the moonlit garden below, before returning. "But marrying Damien... it was never my choice."
She drew a slow breath, steadying herself, then placed a sealed letter into Clara's palm. Her fingers remained there a moment longer than necessary.
"Tomorrow, please don't come to the wedding," she said. "I want you to marry for love one day. I don't want this to be what you remember."
Clara frowned, instinctively curling her fingers around the envelope. "You're making it sound far too serious. Can't you just tell me now?"
Seraphine shook her head. A faint smile appeared, hesitant and fleeting, like a reflection disturbed by water. "Promise me first. Don't open it until after noon tomorrow."
Clara hesitated, then let out a small laugh, trying to lift the weight settling between them. "You worry too much. Plenty of people would envy you. At least you'll never have to struggle again."
"That's true," Seraphine replied.
Her smile lingered, delicate and distant, held in place with visible effort. "Just remember," she said gently, "after twelve."
---
Now. 11:30 AM.
Clara sat motionless, the letter resting against her knees.
A chill crept upward along her spine, slow and deliberate.
It was not panic that came first, but a quiet sense of misalignment, as though something in the world had shifted without warning. Seraphine's tone from the night before returned with unsettling clarity. The careful phrasing. The way she had insisted, not emotionally, but methodically.
Time.
Clara's breathing grew shallow, each inhale catching slightly before completing.
She did not consciously decide to break her promise.
Her hands moved on their own, tearing the envelope open.
A bank card slid free and landed softly on the floor, its sound barely audible. Clara did not look at it. Her attention was fixed entirely on the folded pages now trembling between her fingers.
By the third line, warmth drained from her hands.
If you are reading this, I am already gone.
I have chosen to die at my own wedding.
The words were steady. There was no trace of hesitation, no appeal hidden between the lines.
As Clara read on, her thoughts slowed, each sentence settling heavily, pressing down until the room itself felt smaller. This was not desperation. It was resolution, shaped carefully and left behind with intent.
When the letter spoke of Eren, Clara's vision blurred. By the time the ink broke off mid-sentence, her hands were shaking so violently the paper crackled beneath her grip.
The promise she had made the night before no longer existed.
She lifted her phone, took a photo of the letter, and sent it.
Then she called.
---
— The Desperate Sprint —
Eren heard nothing at first.
Clara's voice reached him as vibration rather than meaning—sound without structure, syllables sliding past each other as if his mind had quietly rejected the premise of understanding.
When comprehension finally arrived, it did so all at once.
Not gradually.
Not mercifully.
The world shifted on its axis.
So that was it.
The cruelty.
The calculated distance.
The way every explanation had always stopped just short of truth.
They did not contradict each other.
They completed each other.
Eren lifted his hand and struck his own face.
The sound was sharp, deliberate—less an act of anger than an attempt at correction, as if force might realign a reality that had gone catastrophically wrong.
It didn't.
The letter burned in his vision.
I love him...He must never know...
The words did not blur.
They sharpened.
His breath hitched, then collapsed altogether. Blood surged up his throat, metallic and hot, spilling onto the floor as his knees gave way beneath him.
He did not scream immediately.
His body seemed to wait—processing damage, cataloging loss—before the sound finally tore free. When it came, it was stripped of language, a raw discharge of pain that no longer required meaning.
By the time Selene stepped out of the bathroom, the apartment was already empty.
Eren did not wait for a vehicle.
He did not calculate routes or distance.
He released restraint instead.
Power flooded through him—not as control, but as expenditure. The city fractured around his passage, streets blurring into broken vectors as air ruptured under the pressure of his acceleration. Windows screamed. Concrete split. Every boundary he had once respected dissolved under the simple logic of not enough time.
11:42 AM.
Less than twenty minutes.
Numbers flickered through his thoughts unbidden—distance, energy loss, structural resistance—each calculation discarded almost as soon as it formed. Precision had become irrelevant. Only arrival mattered.
Seraphine's face filled his mind.
Not as she was now.
As she had been.
Quiet, standing half a step behind the others.
Refusing help she clearly needed.
Smiling—not with joy, but with the careful restraint of someone who believed pain was safer when kept private.
There had been moments—too many of them—when she had looked at him as if weighing a question she never asked.
Eren had mistaken that look for patience.
His body screamed in protest. Muscle tore. Nerves flared white-hot. His vision pulsed at the edges.
He ignored it.
The sun climbed higher, indifferent and precise, measuring time without sympathy.
And somewhere ahead, beneath carefully arranged lights and immaculate rituals, a wedding advanced toward its most flawless moment—
unaware that something was already tearing toward it, fast enough to break the meaning of too late.