The world didn't end with fire.
It ended with a memory.
Anaya clutched the silver locket around her neck as the wind howled through the silent courtyard of Ellington University. Trees whispered secrets she couldn't understand. The shadows of the old clock tower stretched longer than they should've in the evening sun, and a strange pressure filled the air—like time itself was holding its breath.
She didn't know why she came here every evening.
She just... had to.
As if someone, or something, was waiting.
Anaya brushed her dark hair back and sat on the cold stone bench. The same bench where, each evening for the past week, she felt eyes watching her.
Not cruel. Not kind.
Just... constant.
Her fingers traced the locket—always warm against her chest, though she'd never opened it. It had no clasp, no seam, no way to pry it open. Her mother had given it to her before she died with only one whispered warning:
"Never take it off before your twenty-first birthday."
She turned twenty-one in six days.
The air shifted.
Anaya looked up—and froze.
At the far end of the courtyard stood a man she'd never seen before.
Tall. Dressed in a long black coat, the collar turned up against the wind. His presence wasn't loud, yet everything else—the leaves, the sound, even her breath—seemed to quiet around him.
He stood perfectly still, just watching her.
Anaya's breath caught.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Didn't blink.
And somehow, she didn't feel fear. Only something far worse.
Recognition.
Like she had known those eyes in another life.
A slow blink, and—
He was gone.
Vanished like smoke.
She stumbled to her feet, heart racing. No footsteps. No fading silhouette. Just the echo of silence where he had been.
Later That Night
The dream returned.
It always did—same place, same feeling, same death.
She stood in a palace of shattered mirrors. A thousand versions of herself stared back. Some wept. Some bled. One smiled—and then turned to ash.
A voice whispered from the shadows:
"You always die before you remember."
She turned. He stood behind her. The man in black.
His silver eyes glowed like moonlight in a storm.
"But this time," he said, "I will not let you go."
She reached for him—
And woke up gasping.
The Next Morning
"You're in for a treat," said Mia, her best friend, nudging her with a grin as they entered the lecture hall. "New professor. Super mysterious. Just arrived. British accent. Gothic energy. Basically, your Pinterest board."
Anaya rolled her eyes but smiled. "What's he teaching?"
"Romantic Literature. But like, the dark kind."
Anaya's stomach flipped.
The hall buzzed with noise until a hush swept through like a spell. Every head turned.
Footsteps.
And then—
He entered.
Same black coat. Same stillness. Same eyes.
The man from the courtyard. The man from her dreams.
Her body went cold.
He walked to the front, gaze calm and unreadable. Then, slowly, he turned and looked directly at her.
Not around her.
Not through her.
At her.
For a moment, time cracked.
Anaya couldn't breathe.
He knows me.
He opened the leather notebook on his desk.
"Welcome," he said, his voice low and smooth, like velvet laced with storm.
"My name is Professor Caelum."
He paused.
"And today, we begin with a question."
He looked at the class—but his eyes never left her.
"What if love doesn't end when we die?"