The hospital smelled of antiseptic and disease. Machines hummed like half-awake insects. Drey sat by the bed, hands folded, watching Elena breathe through the mask. Her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of a dying metronome. Cancer had stolen everything but her smile, and even that flickered now like a candle in a draft.
He had spent his life believing that empathy was a genuinely wasteful emotion. Feel, and you waste time. Care, and someone abuses and weaponizes it. Yet here he was, counting each rasp of her lungs, refusing to blink in case he missed one. Rationality failed under fluorescent light.
"Stop watching me like that," she whispered through the mask. "You look like you're staring at the end."
"I am." His voice cracked from disuse. He hadn't left this chair for forty-three hours.
Her laugh rattled softly. "You'll forget the good parts if you stare only at the ending."
He didn't answer. The monitor beeped, marking the space between heartbeats.
Elena's hand moved, trembling, until it found his. "Promise me something, Duran."
"Anything."
"When I'm gone… try not to go back to sleep. It took me what felt like a lifetime to find the man I knew you could be. Let him shine once in a while."
He wanted to tell her that internal self-defence was not emotional apathy or what she liked to call sleep, that indifference had kept him alive through every failure of humanity he'd witnessed. But her pupils were already glazing with morphine, and argument felt obscene. So he nodded.
"I promise."
Her breathing got shallower. "Good. Then keep going. Don't give up on yourself."
He squeezed her hand. "You've always been the stronger one."
"I just reminded you that you're human too," she said, and the last word dissolved in the hiss of the respirator.
The monitor flatlined. The room held its breath.
Drey didn't cry, unfortunately, due to a rare condition. Yet still he sat for an hour, listening to the silence congeal. Grief, he found, was not pain but absence, the sudden removal of gravity. When the nurse came to disconnect the machines, he signed the papers and walked out into the cold.
Rain fell in threads, thin and merciless. He wandered the city until night bled into dawn. By the time he reached the overpass, fatigue had erased thought. Cars howled beneath him like iron beasts.
He leaned against the rail and looked down at the stream of headlights. The world moved. He didn't. Elena's voice echoed somewhere deep: Don't go back to sleep inside yourself.
He almost laughed. "You ask the impossible."
A horn blared. White light filled his vision. Impact never came.
Instead, there was nothing, no sound, no body, only awareness suspended in a vast grey. Words, or something akin to them, coiled through the void: not speech but recognition. A pulse of meaning pressed into him like brands.
Essence of the Night. Hierarchy incarnate, strength, speed, and regeneration beyond mortal limits, bending death and life itself to said will.
Then silence again. A question formed unspoken: Why me?No answer. Only the faint echo of Elena's laughter, light and mortal.
Light cracked the gray. Warmth flooded his skin. Air rushed into lungs too small. He gasped, choking on milk-sweet breath.
A woman's voice cried out, "Push, my queen! One more!"
Screams. Blood. The world stank of iron and birth.
He opened eyes that weren't his. Ceiling beams loomed above, a chamber of stone hung with crimson banners.
A man's booming laugh shook the air. "Two sons! Gods be good, Cersei, two strong boys!"
The name hit him like cold water. Cersei.
For a heartbeat, his body obeyed instinct. His essence granted him a better constitution, so his sight even as a newborn, and his eyes fluttered open. And to say the least, he was stunned, taking in the faces, the voices, the room. Tiny muscles trembling, mind already racing. The possible inclinations… how the hell did I end up here? Did I ? Or… That Fucking Truck
Hands lifted him. The voice and face belonged to one Robert Baratheon, reeking of wine and triumph. Duran's infant body squirmed slightly.
Cersei's gaze darted between the two newborns. Her smile was brittle, more like porcelain. She looked at Duran's head of black hair and faltered.
Robert roared, oblivious. "True Baratheon blood at last!" "Look at him, strong lungs, black hair. A fighter already." He laughed, clapping a hand on the midwife's shoulder hard enough to make her flinch. "He'll need a name fit for a storm. You'll be Duran, boy. Duran Baratheon!"
Cersei's fingers clenched on the sheets. The midwife hesitated, sensing danger.
Drey well, Duran felt the first spark of survival ignite. A viper's nest. Excellent.
Don't go back to sleep. That thought gnawed at him
An already impossible request, he'd accepted to give her relief in her final moments, it felt almost comical, given the current situation, perhaps he was doomed to become what he once was, because honestly, what was he without her presence? It has been so long since he knew who he was alone.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Hey, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter, what worked well/hit for you and what didn't. Whether it's the pacing, the immersion, or how the third-person limited POV flowed, I'm always looking to level up the story and my writing skills. I take constructive criticism seriously and genuinely appreciate thoughtful feedback. Just keep it real, no baseless hate. Thanks for reading and sticking around; every bit of input helps shape where this goes next.