My life was empty of love. My parents—the Smiths, the richest people in the city—saw me only as a project, a perfect daughter to polish and display. I tried to earn their affection through grades, smiles, obedience… but nothing was ever enough. Their love was a prize I would never touch. So I stopped chasing it, and began searching elsewhere.
I changed myself for anyone who would look my way. I tried on masks like dresses—quiet for the shy boys, daring for the jocks, tender for the broken ones, wild for the dangerous. I played every part, hoping someone would stay. But no one ever did. One by one, they all left me hollow.
I just wanted to be loved, I do anything for love...
That was when I dreamed of him.
---
He stood at the edge of a dark sea, the moonlight spilling over his shoulders like silver. His eyes caught me and held me, and I couldn't look away. He reached out a hand, smiling as though he had waited centuries for me.
"Come closer," he said. His voice was low, rich, almost melodic. "I've been waiting for you my lily."
"You… you know me?" I asked, breathless.
"I know your hunger," he replied. "I know how you ache to be seen. To be loved."
Tears burned in my throat. "Will you love me?."
He laughed softly, not cruelly but not kindly either—like a song curling around my ribs. "If you promise me everything, I'll give you more love than you've ever known."
It was strange. Usually, I was the one giving and giving, desperate for scraps of affection. But here was a man—no, a dream, a fantasy—promising to love me as though I were his entire world.
I should have been afraid. Instead, I forced myself to sleep earlier each night, desperate to see him again. His voice was toxic, I knew that even then, but it put me at ease. Like a lullaby only I could hear.
"I'll love you forever," I whispered one night as I found him again in the dream. "Just don't leave me."
He cupped my cheek, and the touch was ice and fire at once. "Then let me have you, completely."
---
Days blurred into nights.
Nights blurred into him.
I stopped caring about school, about friends, about the empty house I lived in. I rushed through each day, waiting for sleep, waiting for his call.
The world became a waiting room, and dreams became home.
One evening, my mother scolded me at the dinner table. "You've grown so thin. So distracted. What's gotten into you?"
I smiled faintly at my plate. "am just tried from studying."
Her fork clattered against the porcelain and she huffed. "Back in my days we managed our study time properly?."
I didn't answer. How could I explain a lover who belonged to the sea of my mind? Who left bruises like fingerprints from a storm?
Later that night, I tucked under the covers and whispered, "I'll see you soon."
And I did.
---
The ocean dream pulled me under instantly.
He was waiting for me on a jagged rock, moonlight painting his skin silver. He looked almost human—but not quite. His smile stretched too wide, his teeth too sharp. His voice too alluring.
"You came back," he purred.
"Of course I did," I said, breathless.
"Do you love me?"
"Yes."
"Would you do anything for me?"
I hesitated. His gaze pierced me, daring me to doubt.
"Yes anything for you." I said again.
He laughed softly, a sound like waves crashing. "Then give yourself to me. Stop waking up. Stay."
I flinched. "But… I can't. Wouldn't I die if I dont wake up?."
"Die?" He tilted his head, amused. "What is death but another dream? You're wasted out there. Unloved. Unwanted. Here—you're mine. Forever."
His hands cupped my face, gentle but unyielding.
"I don't want to be forgot and unwanted" I whispered. "I just… I just want to be loved."
"And you are," he murmured, pressing his lips against mine. Salt, sharp and sweet, drowned me. "Loved like no one else ever will."
---
But the next morning, I woke with my wrist swollen, bruises blooming like violets.
I stared at them in the mirror, my pulse racing.
"Real," I whispered. "This is real."
And still, I smiled. Because at least something marked me. At least something proved he existed.
But my obsession my hunger for love gotta worst, I know i wouldn't survive if I keep this up so i tried to stay awake once. I drank coffee, splashed cold water on my face, stared at the ceiling through the long hours of night.
But I heard him anyway.
"Little star… come back. You're mine. You need me, you be unwanted without me."
His voice was inside me, inside my bones, inside my very soul.
I broke. My eyelids fell heavy, and I collapsed into sleep.
He was furious when I arrived.
"You resisted me." His tone was low, dangerous, as he circled me like a predator. "You tried to stay away."
"I was scared," I admitted, trembling.
He stopped, eyes flashing. "Scared of me?"
"…Scared of losing you." I had lied instantly was scared of my obsession for love i was so hungry and foolish to see that this very behavior will lead me to my watery grave.....but at least I was loved.
His expression softened instantly, and he pulled me into his arms. "Oh, little star. You can never lose me. Not unless you choose to."
His embrace tightened, crushing the air from my lungs. "Promise me you'll never resist again."
"I… promise."
---
I started to lose track of time.
The days were husks, fragile shells I stumbled through,I lost friend after friend, Rumors spread like wild fire of me about me on some type of drugs, but I didn't care as long as that night, the nights—his nights came —were all that mattered.
My teachers noticed my lack in interest in school, noticing my thin figure, pale skin and tangled hair.
"You okay, is everything alright at home lily?" one of them asked at lunch.
"Yeah," I lied, picking at my food. "I'm just tired."
They didn't know that sleep was my lifeline. That sleep was the only place I mattered.
And maybe that was the truth: I didn't want to be awake anymore to be unloved and searching for it.
---
The next dream was colder.
I stood ankle-deep in water, the waves lapping against me, pulling, pulling. The moon was gone, replaced by clouds like bruises in the sky.
He rose from the sea, dripping with silver, hair clinging to his pale face. His smile unsettled me, but still, I ached for it.
"You've been thinking of me," he said, voice curling around me like smoke.
"Always."
"You crave me."
"Yes," I breathed. "I can't stop it sickening."
He tilted his head, satisfied. "Then why do you keep waking up?"
"I don't mean to—"
"Liar." His eyes glowed, sea-deep and endless. "You cling to the surface. To air. To life. But that's not where you belong, is it?"
Tears filled my eyes. "I… I don't know."
He stepped closer, the water rippling around him. "You do. You belong here. With me. Beneath."
His hand lifted, tracing my jaw. It felt both tender and threatening.
"Stay, little star. Don't rise again. Let me pull you under."
---
I woke with seawater on my pillow. Or maybe it was just sweat.
My lips were cut, raw, as if kissed too hard.
And on my thigh, bruises in the shape of fingers.
I stared, shivering with fear and something twist in my every being but i love it and i wanted more. "What are you doing to me?" I whispered. But there was no one in the room.
Yet his voice brushed the back of my mind. "Loving you. The way no one else can."
Oh how so much of my life had change just because I was so desperate to get attention.
That day, I skipped class. I wandered aimlessly until I reached the river that cut through the city. I stood there for hours, staring into the current, imagining his hands rising from the depths chocking me slowly, gripping my body and whispering nothing but sweet and toxic words in my ears.
My body shivers at the thought i hope just hope.
"Take me," I whispered. "Why can't I just come to you?"
But the river stayed silent as only my reflection show a girl that was destroyed her life for a toxic man that he only came at night.
I walked home silently counting down the second until night fall, the surrounded noise was canceled out by one thought in my head I wanted more of that love.
---
That night, he was waiting.
This time, he looked sharper—his teeth glinting like knives, his skin shimmering like scales beneath the surface. Beautiful. Terrible.
I didn't care.
"I missed you," I said.
His smile widened. "do you now?. You're unraveling nicely. Soon, you'll be ready."
"am i ready for what my love?"
His fingers brushed my collarbone, cold and possessive. "To drown."
I shivered, torn between terror and longing. "But… won't that kill me?"
He leaned close, lips brushing my ear. "Only the part of you that doesn't love me. Isn't that what you want?"
I swallowed hard. "Yes."
---
The next time night came fast as I dreamed, there was no shore.
No sky.
No moon.
Only black water stretching in every direction, swallowing the horizon.
And him. My love, my obsession...my hunger.
He floated just ahead, half in the water, half out, his eyes glowing with a strange tenderness. His beauty had sharpened into something monstrous, but I couldn't look away my body wanted to hold him in my arms.
"You came again." he whispered.
"I always will just for you, only you."
His smile curved, slow and knowing. "Then it's time."
"Time for what?" My voice cracked. Fear clawed at me, but so did my hungry.
"For you to stop leaving me," he said simply. His hands reached out, pale and glistening. "Stay. Forever."
My chest tightened. "will i die?."
He shook his head. "Not death. Change. You'll be mine in every way. No more waking. No more bruises and confusion. Just us. The song, the sea, eternity."
I trembled. "I'm afraid." I said as I took his hand anyway just wanting to hold him in my arms.
His fingers brushed my lips. "Shhh, little star. Fear is only the last chain keeping you from me. Break it. Come deeper. Dont you want to stay with me and have a happy ending to you misery?"
The water rose around my ankles, cold as bone.
"I don't know if I can…"
"You can," he insisted, his voice growing sharp, commanding. "You must. Or else you'll keep rotting in that hollow life. Out there, you're unloved. Here, you're everything to me. I want you."
He said as he slowly kiss my face carrying me deeper.
And maybe twisted was better than empty.
I stepped forward following him.
The water surged to my knees, then my waist. My lungs began to burn.
"You see?" he crooned. "It's easy. Just a little deeper."
"Will you… hold me?"
"Always."
His arms wrapped around me, cold and crushing. His lips brushed my ear. "Now let go."
I took one last breath, sharp and shuddering—
and let the water take me.
---
When I opened my eyes, there was no waking.
No ceiling, no bed, no daylight, no tweeting from the birds. Only endless waves above me, endless dark beneath.
And his voice, soft and triumphant:
"You're mine now, my little fallen star."
I smiled, though the water pressed heavy against me as he kiss me good night."Yes."
My siren to my sinking ship how could I live without you in my unwanted life, without you i would have been a shell of person, without you in wouldn't have been loved.