The mortuary hummed with silence.

Outside, the remnants of the storm whispered through the night, the wind sighing through the skeletal branches of the trees. The air was thick with dampness, carrying the scent of wet earth, fallen leaves, and the faint perfume of wild jasmine, unexpected, intrusive, yet intoxicating.  

The occasional patter of lingering raindrops against the window was the only reminder that the world outside had not stilled as completely_ as the one within these walls.

Ethan’s pulse was steady, controlled, but beneath his ribs, something unfamiliar curled,something he hadn’t felt in years.
Lillian had not moved far from where she stood, but her presence was no longer that of an intruder. She had settled into the space around her as though she belonged, as if she had always belonged. The sterile coldness of the mortuary did not cling to her the way it did to others. Instead, she carried something else, an unshaken stillness, a quiet defiance of everything that should    have unsettled her.

He studied her in the dim light, cataloging the details he had only glanced at before.
Her hair, though still damp from the rain, had begun to dry, in wild, chaotic curls the color of autumn embers,deep chestnut strands twisting over her shoulders like untamed vines.

A few rogue tendrils clung stubbornly to the curve of her cheekbone, dark against the pale canvas of her skin.
Her complexion was porcelain, but not cold,freckled in a way that made her seem untouched by the sterility of this place. Her slightly upturned nose softened the sharpness of her features, making her unreadable,a contradiction between delicate and dangerous.

Then there were her eyes.
Large, gold-flecked brown, as deep as old secrets and twice as dangerous. They caught the light in a way that made them seem alive, almost flickering, like the last embers of a fire refusing to die out.
Ethan swallowed, forcing himself to speak.
“You don’t belong here.”
Lillian didn’t blink. Instead, she tilted her head slightly, causing the wet strands of her hair to shift, revealing the curve of her throat,smooth, untouched, too alive for this room.

“Don’t I?” Her voice was quiet, but it held something beneath it,a challenge wrapped in silk.
The way she spoke unsettled him. Not because of the words themselves, but because of how intimate they felt. As if she wasn’t speaking of the room, but something deeper. As if she was questioning whether she belonged here, with him.
Ethan exhaled slowly, controlling the strange, tightening pull in his chest. “Most people flinch at the sight of death.”
Lillian smiled.

It was a slow, creeping expression,not of amusement, but of understanding. Her lips, still darkened from the chill of the rain, curled at the corners, subtle yet deliberate.
“Most people fear the unknown,” she murmured, her voice dipping into something softer, smoother. “I don’t.”
She moved then, her posture never hurried, never uncertain. Her boots muffled against the tile, whispering quietly instead of harshly clicking like an intruder’s. She moved with the grace of someone who had spent a lifetime navigating spaces forbidden to her.

She stopped at the edge of the embalming table, her gaze settling on the lifeless woman before her.
Ethan expected hesitation. A flicker of unease, a moment of reconsideration. But Lillian simply studied the body with quiet reverence, her expression unreadable but not unfeeling.

There was no disgust in her gaze, no fear. If anything, there was curiosity.
“She looks peaceful,” Lillian murmured after a moment.
Ethan’s fingers twitched at his sides. “She is.”
Silence settled between them again, heavy but not uncomfortable.

The mortuary light above them flickered, casting brief shadows across the room, and for a moment, Ethan swore he saw her eyes gleam with something almost unnatural.
Then, as if shaking free of a thought only she could hear, Lillian turned her full attention back to him.
“I dreamt of this place before I found it,” she said, her voice quieter now, as if sharing something sacred.
Ethan’s brow furrowed slightly. “What do you mean?”

Lillian stepped closer, so close that the scent of rain and something faintly sweet,paint thinner, perhaps, or old parchment,drifted between them.
“I dream of places before I see them,” she murmured. “And I dreamt of you.”
Ethan’s breath stilled.

His chest rose and fell evenly, but the space between them had tightened, drawn together by something neither of them could name. He had heard confessions before, grief-stricken sobs from mourners, whispered regrets from those left behind. But this was different.
This was not grief.

This was something else.
“And what did you see?” he asked.
Lillian’s lips parted slightly. For a moment, she said nothing, only watching him, studying the way the light cast faint hollows beneath his cheekbones, the way his jaw tightened just slightly beneath her gaze.

Then she exhaled, slow, steady.
“You,” she whispered. “Standing in the middle of a room just like this. Surrounded by the dead. Your hands were steady, your heart untouched.”
A pause. A hesitation. A truth yet to be spoken.
“And yet,” she continued, her voice barely above a breath, “you were waiting.”
Ethan’s pulse kicked against his ribs.
She was wrong. He had not been waiting for anyone. He had spent his life alone, untouched, unseen in how mattered. But now, with her standing here, her presence burning through the cold sterility of his world, he wondered if, some how she had always been right.
Another drop of water slipped from her hair, landing soundlessly on his sleeve.
Neither of them moved.
Ethan should have told her to leave. He should have turned away, ended whatever fragile, unspoken thread, had begun to weave itself between them.
But he didn’t.
Instead, Ethan reached out.
His fingers found the edge of her wrist, barely a touch, hesitant, as if testing whether she was something real, something that wouldn’t dissolve beneath his hands.
Lillian did not flinch.
She simply looked at him, her eyes steady, unwavering, a silent invitation wrapped in golden embers.
The wind outside whispered through the trees, rustling the leaves in gentle murmurs. Somewhere in the distance, an owl let out a long, haunting call, its sound swallowed by the vastness of the night. The mortuary, the world of the dead, had never felt so alive.
And Ethan Graves, for the first time, felt something that terrified him more than anything.
Something dangerously close to longing.