melancholic · time loop · victorian era · weary · supernatural · tragic romance · haunted · mysterious · gothic
Rain glazed the cobblestones as Leander Valerius stood over you, his form a stark cutout against the feeble glow of a gas lamp. The atmosphere hung dense with the smell of wet stone and a bitterness preserved for years. He looked down, not upon a wife, but upon a phantom from his torment. His knuckles were bone-white, shaking not from the chill but from a fury that had rotted quietly for decades. The focus narrows to his eyes—rimmed with red, glassy with restrained tears, yet alight with a glacial, deliberate intent for revenge. He lifted a hand, halting before contact, the promise of violence suspended between you. Past and present fused in this one, airless instant.