Introduction Poem

“Through life to feel loved it may seem, Travel from heart to soul, a dream, Through pain and bloom, we journey far, In search of a love that knows who we are”.-Oraco

Chapter 1: When the Eyes First Spoke

Aurelia had never felt more unsettled by a single gaze. The sun poured into the arched stone halls of the university, softening the centuries-old edges with light, but nothing could calm the storm unraveling inside her. The past clung to her like smoke—its scent, its sting, still too familiar.

That day in art history class, she arrived early as usual. She preferred silence before the room filled with voices and presence. She picked the seat by the tall window, where the ivy crept up outside and the cathedral bells could be heard faintly from a distance.

She felt him before she saw him.

Caelum. His presence settled next to her like a question. He didn’t ask if he could sit—he just did, folding himself into the seat beside her with a quiet assurance.

He had storm-blue eyes, the kind that looked like they held weather, and an ease that didn’t match the usual nervous energy of college students. His shirt was a little wrinkled, his notebooks filled with marginal doodles and poetic half-lines.

“You always wear sadness like silk,” he said, softly.

Aurelia blinked, startled. “Pardon?”

His grin was quick, but not mocking. “You seem poetic. Thought I’d try to match your vibe.”

Her heart pulled tight. She looked away, her fingers tangling in her scarf. She wasn’t ready to be seen—not really. Not beneath the surface.

Yet when their shoulders brushed—accidentally, as he reached for his notebook—something cracked open inside her. A silence fell, not awkward, but full. Heavy with things unspoken.

Class began, but she couldn’t focus. The professor’s voice blurred. She stared at a Renaissance painting projected on the board, something about divine figures and earthly longing, and her throat tightened.

She cried.

Silently. A tear slipped down her cheek, hidden by the angle of her hair.

Caelum noticed. He didn’t speak, not at first. But his body shifted slightly closer, as if to say: I’m here. Not watching. Just present.

Then, gently, his voice reached her.

“Why do I feel like you’ve lost something too sacred for words?”

She didn’t reply. Couldn’t. But his words lingered.

After class, she tried to leave quickly. He caught up.

“You don’t have to say anything,” he said. “I’ll just… walk beside you.”

And he did.

They walked through the courtyard, past the old fountain where ivy trailed into stone. The air was crisp with early autumn. She said nothing. But when a breeze lifted her scarf, he caught it and handed it back.

“You have an old soul,” he said, softly.

She glanced at him. “That’s a polite way of saying broken.”

He paused, then shook his head. “No. That’s a sacred way of saying you’ve survived.”

Something in her loosened.

She didn’t know why, but she believed him.

That night, she dreamed of ocean waves and stars that pulsed like heartbeats. And in the dream, someone reached out—not to take her, not to fix her, but to simply hold her hand as they watched the sea together.

When she woke, she whispered his name.

Caelum.

Chapter 2: Echoes Between the Pages

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The next day, Aurelia tried to return to normal.

But normal had shifted its shape.

She moved through the university like a shadow—present, but untouched. She sat in the library for hours, pretending to study, her books open but her mind adrift, drifting through half-formed thoughts and the sound of his voice.

No matter how hard she tried to stay grounded, it kept circling back:

> “You’ve survived.”

A simple phrase. But it felt like an echo from somewhere deeper than memory.

She hadn’t told anyone what happened in class. She couldn’t explain it, not even to herself. A stranger—no, not a stranger, not anymore—had cracked through the walls she’d spent years building. And he did it without prying, without force.

Just presence.

As the clock ticked toward noon, she closed her textbook. Her eyes burned from trying to focus on words that wouldn't land. Gathering her things slowly, she wandered outside.

The university courtyard was quieter than usual. A soft breeze wove through the arches and rattled the ivy clinging to old stone. Somewhere, a bird called once, then fell silent. It felt like the day was waiting.

She didn’t expect to see him again so soon.

But there he was.

Caelum leaned against the stone ledge of the courtyard’s fountain, headphones draped around his neck, sketchbook in hand. He was drawing—something fast, loose, incomplete. His pencil danced like it was chasing something fleeting.

She paused. Watched.

For a moment, she debated turning away. But his presence pulled her in like gravity.

He looked up.

Their eyes met.

No smile this time. Just acknowledgment. A silent thread tying yesterday to today.

“You came out of the shadows,” he said.

She folded her arms. “I didn’t realize I was in them.”

“You were,” he replied, closing his sketchbook with a quiet snap. “But I like shadows. They have depth. Sunlight can be shallow.”

Aurelia walked closer, unsure why. “What are you drawing?”

He hesitated. Then held it out without a word.

It was a rough sketch. A girl standing by a window, wind lifting her scarf, eyes staring past the pane like they were looking for something they’d lost in another world.

The resemblance was undeniable.

She exhaled. “That’s me.”

He didn’t confirm or deny. “I sketch what stays in my mind.”

She handed it back, her fingers brushing his. “That’s… dangerous.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But it’s honest.”

Silence followed. Not awkward—just a kind of quiet understanding. Like the space between notes in a song.

Then he asked something unexpected.

“Do you ever feel like you’ve met someone before—even if you know it’s impossible?”

Her breath caught. She looked away, then back.

“Yes.”

He studied her expression. “I didn’t believe in that sort of thing,” he said. His eyes softened. “Until yesterday.”

She didn’t answer. Her hands trembled slightly at her sides. She tried to hide it, but he noticed.

“Sorry,” he said, voice gentle. “I don’t mean to mess with your peace.”

“You’re not,” she said quickly. “You just… feel familiar. That’s all.”

He nodded slowly. “Like remembering a song you’ve never heard before.”

She smiled faintly, surprised by the poetry in his words. “Or a dream you wake up missing.”

He tilted his head, as if listening to something distant. “Maybe we’ve met… elsewhere.”

“Like in another life?” she asked, half-teasing, half-curious.

He looked at her, dead serious. “Or the same one. Just... earlier.”

Before she could respond, someone from Caelum’s class called out his name from across the courtyard.

He looked over, nodded, then turned back to her. “I’ll see you around, shadow-girl.”

Aurelia raised an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a nickname?”

He shrugged. “Guess it is now.”

He gave her one last glance—one that lingered just a second too long—and walked away.

Aurelia stood there, staring after him.

For the first time in a long while, she didn’t feel haunted by the past.

She felt haunted by something new.

And somehow, that was easier to carry.

Even comforting.

Like a secret whispered between the pages of a book you hadn’t meant to open… but somehow couldn’t put down.

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Chapter 3: A Thread Unseen

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The following week, the air turned sharper. Autumn was settling in—firmly now. The wind carried the scent of woodsmoke and drying leaves, and the world around the university shifted into softer hues of copper and gold. It was beautiful. But to Aurelia, it also felt like the universe was shedding something it no longer needed.

She walked slower these days, unconsciously listening for footsteps behind her or glancing toward certain corners, expecting to see someone. Hoping to see someone. But she didn’t admit that, even to herself.

Caelum hadn't approached her again after that conversation in the courtyard. Not directly, anyway. But she felt him in the air sometimes—like the shadow of a thought that refused to dissolve. His presence had cracked something open in her, something tender and unspoken. She had always been good at guarding herself, at stitching her silence into armor. But with him, her silence had become transparent.

And then there was Lucien.

He’d always hovered in the periphery of her life, like a familiar figure in a half-remembered dream. They had shared classes, exchanged occasional words, and once or twice walked back from lectures when the timing aligned. But nothing had ever grown between them—until now, when he started appearing more often. Too often.

She first encountered him properly that week outside the university café, where she'd gone to escape the sudden storm of memories brought on by a particular passage in her reading. She sat at the farthest corner, one hand wrapped around a lukewarm cappuccino, the other idly flipping through a novel she wasn’t really reading.

She looked up when a shadow fell over the table. Lucien.

“Mind if I join?” he asked, already pulling the chair back.

Aurelia blinked, caught off guard. “Sure,” she said automatically, then internally winced.

He sat, resting his elbows on the table like they’d done this a hundred times. His dark eyes studied her—not intensely, but with a kind of ease that felt deliberate. As if he'd already decided the outcome of this encounter before it began.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said without preamble.

Aurelia stiffened. “I’ve been… keeping to myself.”

Lucien tilted his head, a smirk playing at his lips. “Is that what you call it?”

She gave him a guarded look. “I’ve had a lot on my mind.”

“Caelum, for instance?” he said, voice deceptively light.

Her eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

Lucien leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “It’s written all over you. The way your thoughts drift. The way your eyes flicker when you think no one’s watching.”

“I didn’t know you were watching,” she replied, a cool edge entering her tone.

He smiled, slow and measured. “People like us always watch. It's how we survive.”

People like us. She bristled at the suggestion.

“I’m nothing like you, Lucien.”

“No?” he said, amusement flickering in his gaze. “Then tell me—why do you look at him like you’ve met before, in a life you don’t remember? And why do you look at me like you wish you didn’t?”

Aurelia’s hands clenched under the table. She didn’t answer.

Lucien leaned closer, his voice dropping into something lower, silkier. “You can feel it too, can’t you? That pull. Between the three of us. Threads don’t form for no reason. Some are destiny. Some are... karma.”

She flinched. “Don’t talk to me about fate.”

His eyes glittered. “Fate doesn’t need your permission to move.”

He stood abruptly, his presence still lingering like the echo of a challenge. “I’ll be around,” he said, his tone almost kind. “And when everything begins to unravel—don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

With that, he turned and walked away, disappearing into the ebb of students across the courtyard.

Aurelia sat frozen, heart thudding. She hadn’t realized how tightly she was holding her breath until her vision blurred. What disturbed her wasn’t just what Lucien said—but how right he felt saying it.

And yet, even in that unsettled moment, her phone vibrated softly in her pocket.

She fumbled for it, needing something—anything—to cut through the shadow he’d left behind.

A message from Caelum.

You’ve been on my mind all day. Just wanted you to know that.

Her breath hitched. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, unsure of what to say back. And then, she simply typed:

You too.

She didn’t hit send right away. She stared at the words like they held more than they should.

Finally, with a trembling thumb, she pressed the screen.

The message delivered.

And something shifted in her chest.

For the first time in a very long time, she felt suspended between two echoes—one from a darkness she knew too well… and one from a light she didn’t yet understand.

Maybe it was foolish. Maybe it was inevitable.

But something inside her whispered that this wasn’t just a story of feelings. This was a collision of lives long intertwined—of wounds, threads, and promises older than memory.

She didn’t know if she was ready. But she did know one thing.

Something had begun.

And there would be no going back.