The cold breeze murmurs an eerie lullaby through the crack of an open window — a melody he’s certain ghostly creatures were once serenaded to sleep by. But the warmth inside won’t allow it tonight, exuding from the crackling flames that burn high atop the hearth. It’s too warm, too safe.

He mustn’t forget that he stepped willingly into death’s sanctuary — or at the very least, into the presence of its herald. And if the souls do not rest, they will surely prowl, breathing down his neck. They are all too familiar, after all — the undead.

The voice that surges through the quiet night to shatter his trance is far from unnerving — perhaps because it soothes him, always has. Gentle and low, yet ever so unsettling around the edges.

And when the vampire turns, it is to meet the pale complexion tenderly caressed by the amber rays emanating from the flames in the corner of the room, those familiar chocolate hues piercing through his skull.

How malevolent, for death to walk hand in hand with something so... unsuspecting.

"You don’t look a day over thirty, Jungil." Words laced with sarcasm roll off his tongue as he paces around the living room, finally settling by the fireplace where he takes a seat in the comfort of an armchair, legs elegantly crossed lady-like.

He lost count of exactly how lost has passed since their last encounter. Some hundred years are meaningless in this limbo they share — endless, still, unwavering. Why count?

"I am searching for something," someone. But he doesn’t dare say it. "And I was reminded of your existence in the wake of it." A pause, maybe longer than intended, as Baekhyun ponders.

His eyebrows knit together for a moment, delicate fingertips tapping in a constant beat against the edge of the armchair. "Your... expertise would be quite useful."

He speaks of the affinity with departed souls, of the thinning of a veil that splits life and death, of a vessel capable of conjuring those who should long have transcended. But it’s never that simple with them, and maybe that is why his jaw locks tight and his words are short of any decorum.

meme accepting! directed  @ssaecularis! | the strange wistfulness of used bookshops

There were two types of people on this earth, and they were divided into three different categories: the young, the old and something in between that. The youth oftentimes liked to claim that they were at the peak of their lives, the old would dwell in memories and think that maybe, maybe things could have gone differently while the rest? Well, in Hanna’s eyes the rest weren’t exactly living a real life anymore.

Mothers and fathers fell under said category, people who weren’t living for themselves any longer but for other people who were looking up to them, who needed the safety and protection and love that their family radiated and that was a very beautiful thing, no doubt, but it was a life that was filled with the desire to look out for someone else as opposed to tending to oneself. Not that Hanna blamed them; she knew that if she was a mother, she would do the same and if necessary, give everything and anything up if that meant her own flesh and blood would be safe and sound and happy.

But even the purest of all loves couldn’t ensure someone else’s happiness.

❝Kafka?❞ She stood next to the stranger with a lingering smile on her dry lips as she let her gaze fall on the book in his hands. Certainly, there was something beautiful about Kafka and his melancholic words even if there stood an ever bigger tragedy behind the person who spilled his heart and soul into blank paper. It was admirable, really. In a certain sense, she figured, everyone who took some time out of their day to dedicate it to Kafka, or any other author really, was maybe just like that: a little bit lost.

Attempting to find pieces of oneself in this huge, huge world that kept on spinning and spinning. Hanna was surprised how the earth kept on managing so quick and fast but yet, time seemed to stand still when the stranger returned her smile with one of his own.

Situations changed quickly, and so did atmospheres as well as first impressions. He was an unknown face to her, but one she was willing to get to know better. Readers and writers, all were united by the written word and whether or not he was simply seeking refuge for a couple of hours in yet another book, or if there was some deeper layer to the male that she had yet to discover, all that was beyond Hanna but those things didn’t matter either.

❝You’ve chosen him for a reason, haven’t you?❞

Oh, and she was nothing but genuinely curious. Head was tilted and eyes gleamed with something childishly innocent as she watched the male with an otherwise unreadable expression. There wasn’t much that needed to be said on her part, and yet she was intrigued to find out what words he was going to offer her, whether or not he would try to explain himself and his interest in this particular book.

Curiosity killed the cat, Hanna.

A world of pulchritude and grace does not belong to these doltish plebeians any more than it did a millennia ago. The demons of our souls have dawned ‘pon the precipice of perdition’s extant, a glorious cluster-fuck of deceit and push-pull, of kick-these-fuckers-out-of-the-way because being top dog is the only path to survive in brutality.

She never saw life through rose-tinted visuals in the way her previous members had, but she certainly did not accommodate to the cruelness that bore into her skin, her flesh, her mind. That rotted and decayed. What is life? The age-old lamentation burned in such dire fluoresce. 

( There are no gods (and if there are they don’t give a fuck). You live, you die, you meet your demise again. )

Send ‘➹’ and I’ll put up my muse’s current thought.↳ Status: accepting

BURGUNDY: We near never speak, but I do enjoy your presence on my dashboard.

Doll ❧ do you collect anything?