It always rained in this part of the city.
Cold, endless, and heavy as if the heavens themselves were trying to wash away something that could never be cleansed.
Aiden Vale stood beneath the flickering neon sign of a run-down building, water dripping from his hair as he hugged a thin jacket tighter around his frame. The city hummed around him cars rushing, strangers laughing, lives moving and yet, he felt like a ghost haunting someone else's world.
He didn't remember much about his parents. They'd died when he was seven, leaving him nothing but a half-burned photograph and a last name that felt borrowed. Since then, life had been a blur of shelters, part-time jobs, and nights too quiet to bear.
But lately... the dreams had started.
Dreams of fire.
Dreams of a woman with golden hair, standing against the night, holding a sword that gleamed like a dying star.
And always, the same voice calling her name Ariselle.
Every time he woke, his heart would ache for someone he had never met.
And when he looked in the mirror, sometimes... for just a second, he thought he saw her not his reflection, but hers, staring back through his eyes.
"You're losing it, Aiden," he muttered to himself, ruffling his wet hair.
"Too much overtime, not enough sleep."
The bar he worked at The Serpent's Tail wasn't glamorous. Sticky floors, broken lights, and the smell of smoke that clung to everything. But it paid the rent, barely.
Inside, the place buzzed with low laughter and clinking glasses. Aiden slipped behind the counter, nodding to his co-worker, a girl with pink streaks in her hair.
"You're late again," she said, smirking.
"Rain," he replied shortly, tying his apron.
He tried to focus mixing drinks, wiping tables, ignoring the gaze of men who looked too long and too close. But beneath the noise, there was that hum again that strange pull in his chest, like a forgotten song trying to reach him.
And then... everything went wrong.
It was past midnight when the last group of customers got rowdy. One of them, drunk and loud, cornered him near the back door. The man's breath reeked of whiskey, his hands wandering, his voice slurred.
"Pretty boy like you shouldn't work alone," the man sneered.
"Let me"
Aiden shoved him away, panic rising. But the man grabbed harder, slamming him against the wall.
And then
a flash.
A shadow moved faster than the human eye. The next thing Aiden knew, the man was on the floor, groaning, and someone stood between them.
Tall. Dressed in black.
Eyes sharp as stormlight cold, unreadable, yet… painfully familiar.
"Touch him again," the stranger said, voice calm and low,
"and I'll make sure you never touch anything again."
The drunk stumbled away, muttering curses, and vanished into the night.
For a moment, silence hung in the air, broken only by the rain tapping against the metal door.
Aiden stared at the man this stranger who felt like déjà vu given form.
"You okay?" the man asked, not looking at him.
Aiden nodded slowly, heart pounding. "Y-yeah. Thank you…"
When their eyes met, the world seemed to tilt.
Lightning flashed, and for a second, Aiden saw something impossible that same man, wearing armor, bathed in blood and moonlight, whispering Ariselle as she died in his arms.
He blinked, and the vision vanished.
"Do I… know you?" Aiden asked quietly.
The man's gaze flickered, just once.
"No," he said. "But you will."
And then he was gone swallowed by the rain.
Aiden stood there long after, his hands trembling.
Somewhere deep inside, a voice that wasn't his own whispered:
"He found us again."