"Authur!!"
Arielle shouted as she stared at Arthur with bloodshot eyes, her hands trembling and covered in blood. The metallic scent clung to her nostrils, sharp and unrelenting, making her stomach churn. Her chest heaved as she tried to catch her breath, but each inhale seemed heavier than the last, as if the air itself had thickened around her. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead, tracing cold paths along the curves of her face. The dark room pressed in on her from all sides. Shadows pooled in the corners, silent witnesses to her panic, and the faint flicker of a dying lamp barely cut through the gloom. Arielle had always feared blood, ever since she was a child. The sight of so much of it, so close, sent her mind spiralling, her heart hammering in her chest as if it wanted to escape.
She blinked rapidly, trying to steady herself, but the room refused to become familiar. Every shadow seemed alive, every stain on the floor a threat. She felt fragile, small, exposed in a way that made her tremble even harder. Yet beneath the fear, a deeper, more familiar ache stirred. Arthur. Always Arthur. Even as a child, she had longed for his attention, for his care, for the faintest hint that he felt anything for her. She had followed him with wide-eyed determination, laughed at his jokes, sat quietly beside him, hoping he might glance her way and see more than a friend. Her heart had learned early that Arthur's attention was rare and fleeting, yet she cherished it nonetheless.
Arielle's family had never demanded she love him, only that she pursue him. The Winters were the tenth most successful family in China, and alliances mattered more than affection. They had explained, over polished dinners and careful conversations, that marrying Arthur would secure wealth, status, and influence for generations to come. Five generations, they said. Five generations. It sounded immense, permanent, like destiny itself. Yet, Arielle had not needed to be persuaded entirely. She truly loved him. She wanted to build a family with him, to wake up beside him, to share in whatever life offered. She had dreamed of their life together in quiet, golden moments, imagining laughter spilling over breakfast tables, soft touches in hallways, whispered secrets in the dark.
When Arthur proposed, her chest had swelled with triumph and terror. She knew he did not love her. He had never loved her. His eyes, usually cool and unreadable, had lacked any warmth when he asked. She had learned over the years that Arthur was never hers to claim, only a prize she could approach, never possess. He had been supposed to marry Nerissa, the youngest daughter of the Lee family, a family perched nearly at the peak of wealth and influence in China, and his father's closest ally. But Nerissa was gone. A car accident had stolen her life, her body never recovered, leaving a hollow place in Arthur's soul that Arielle had never been able to fill.
Arthur had always been distant toward Arielle, but after that night, his coldness hardened into something sharper, more unbearable. Hatred, yes, but also grief, longing, a consuming void. Arielle had felt it like a blade pressed to her chest, slicing her pride and her heart in equal measure. She had wanted to speak, to comfort, to be near him, but she could do nothing. Fate and circumstance had denied her, twisted her into a witness to his suffering rather than a participant in his life. The night of Nerissa's death, Arielle had been driving, carrying Nerissa home after a heated argument with Arthur, who had ordered her to ensure Nerissa reached her family safely. The argument had been sharp, voices raised, hearts pounding with unspoken truths. Then her car was hijacked, and everything became a blur. She had been knocked unconscious. When she woke, Nerissa was gone, vanished into the night as if swallowed by the city itself.
The scent of blood woke Arielle now, but it was not her own. It was Nerissa's, lingering in the air like a memory that refused to fade. The reality of the loss struck her anew, fierce and unrelenting.
Searches through cities, posters, pleas to anyone who might have seen her, all had yielded nothing. Nerissa was dead or gone beyond reach, and the world had moved on while Arthur's heart remained tethered to a shadow. Arielle had become married to him in a ceremony that had felt hollow, a formality of family and obligation. Even in the golden halls of their wedding, he had been a ghost beside her, eyes distant, hands polite but unmoved. Five years had passed since Nerissa's death, yet Arthur's heart still belonged elsewhere, and every day Arielle bore the weight of that truth silently, painfully.
Tonight was different. The darkness pressed on her in a way that was almost physical. Arthur's men had kept her here, in this room with no windows, no warmth, only a hard bed and the shadowed corners. Three days had passed without food, without light, without human comfort. Her body ached, her stomach knotted with hunger and thirst, her mind oscillating between fear and a brittle sort of despair. Every sound was amplified—the creak of the floorboards, the faint scuff of shoes outside, the distant hum of a city that no longer included her.
Arielle's hands shook as she struggled to sit up, to reach the small lamp in the corner. Her breath came in ragged gasps, uneven and desperate. She clutched at the rough fabric of her nightgown as her mind raced, memories colliding with the present. She thought of Nerissa, of the accident, of the long nights spent hoping for a change in Arthur's gaze, and the emptiness that remained. Then, a sound, almost imperceptible, made her freeze. Footsteps? The soft whisper of movement? Her ears strained. Her heart thudded against her ribs, a relentless drum.
"Is that you… Arthur?" Arielle's voice trembled, barely above a whisper, a fragile thread stretched across the darkness. Her pulse raced as her eyes strained toward the shadows. Every muscle in her body tensed, every nerve alive, trembling with the possibility, the hope, the fear. Her world had contracted to this single moment, to the question that hovered between them, fragile as a candle flame in the storm of her life.
"Arthur, is that you?"