Chapter Text
Rain had a way of swallowing the coast of Astoria whole. It clung to the crooked rooftops, soaked the pine forests until they smelled sharp and earthly, and rolled in from the ocean like a living thing. The townspeople had long since grown used to the gray skies of the early 2000s, but you had always loved them. Your father used to say the rain made the plants stronger—foxglove blooming brighter after storms, lavender sweeter beneath cold air, and yarrow more potent when gathered before dawn. You believed him because he knew everything there was to know about healing. In the small wooden house you once shared on the edge of town, every shelf had been lined with dried herbs tied in bundles, every windowsill crowded with jars of oils, roots, and tinctures that smelled of cedar and mint.
As a child, you learned the names of medicinal plants before you learned algebra. Your father taught you how feverfew cooled migraines, how comfrey soothed broken skin, how crushed calendula petals could stop stinging pain almost instantly beneath careful hands. But there had always been something strange about you—something even your father rarely spoke of directly. Plants thrived when you touched them. Wilted leaves straightened beneath your fingertips. Cuts closed quicker when your palms hovered over them. Illness eased in ways medicine alone could not explain. Your father never called it magic. He simply called it a gift, spoken quietly like something sacred enough to fear.
By the time you turned nearly twenty-one, the world beyond your forested town had already begun slipping away from you without notice. Your father’s work demanded more of him each passing year, especially after he became the sole care provider for Michael Jackson. The arrangement had begun long before you were old enough to understand it—long nights where your father disappeared for days carrying leather cases filled with medicine and silver instruments you were never allowed to touch. He traveled endlessly between Astoria and the isolated cliffs north of town where the Jackson estate stood hidden behind forests so dense even locals avoided them.
At first, he returned exhausted and pale, refusing to explain why his wealthy employer never appeared in daylight, but eventually the traveling stopped. Michael himself had offered your father permanent residence on the estate grounds, claiming it was “impractical” for his physician to commute during winter storms. Your father accepted reluctantly. You remembered the drive vividly: endless winding roads through dripping evergreens until the trees finally opened to reveal the castle looming over the cliffs like something abandoned by time itself.
It did not resemble the glamorous mansions whispered about in tabloids. The castle was ancient-looking despite its modern renovations—dark stone walls wrapped in ivy, towering windows forever shuttered against the sun, and narrow balconies overlooking the violent Pacific below. Fog swallowed its lower towers nearly every morning, even the air around it felt colder than the rest of Astoria. Servants were few and strangely silent, appearing only when necessary before vanishing back into unseen corridors. And somewhere within the vast halls of that lonely place lived Michael Jackson himself—hidden away from the world and, more importantly, from his own family.
Your father once explained it during a quiet dinner while rain battered the windows. Michael had always been the difficult one among them. Stubborn. Reclusive. Temperamental in ways his siblings endlessly teased him for. “Like a brooding teenager trapped in a grown man’s body,” your father had muttered with tired amusement. But there had been affection beneath the words too, because despite everything, Michael was not cruel. Merely distant. He preferred isolation to company, silence to celebration. While the rest of his immortal family moved elegantly through society, Michael buried himself inside that castle overlooking the sea, hiding from both humans and vampires alike as though the world exhausted him. Your father rarely spoke of what exactly afflicted him, only that it required constant care and periods of weakness that left him confined indoors for weeks at a time. Sometimes, late at night, you would hear footsteps echoing through the upper halls long after everyone else slept—slow, restless pacing that continued until dawn.
And though you had lived beneath the same roof for nearly six months, you had never once seen him.
–
Sleep came strangely inside the castle.
Some nights it arrived all at once, heavy and dreamless beneath the sound of rain striking the cliffs below. Other nights it refused to come entirely, leaving you awake in the unfamiliar silence of endless hallways and shadowed ceilings that never truly felt lived in despite the size of the estate. Tonight had been worse than usual.
The nightmare had felt real.
You could still remember every detail even after jolting awake—the freezing ocean swallowing the northern coast of Astoria whole beneath a colorless sky, pine trees bending violently in the wind, and the terrible feeling of being watched from somewhere deep within the fog. In the dream, you had wandered barefoot through the forest surrounding the castle while something followed just beyond sight. You never saw its face. Only pale fingers brushing against tree bark and eyes glowing faintly crimson through the darkness like embers waiting to ignite.
When you awoke, your chest hurt from how fast your heart was beating.
For several moments, you remained frozen beneath your blankets, staring into the darkness of your room while rain lashed softly against the tall bedroom windows. The storm outside had worsened sometime during the night. Wind groaned faintly through the old stone towers of the castle, rattling branches against the glass. Everything felt cold—too cold.
You pushed yourself upright slowly, brushing damp strands of hair away from your face as you tried grounding yourself back into reality. The digital clock beside your bed glowed a miserable 3:07 AM in neon red.
The castle was silent, not ordinary silence, not the peaceful quietness of your old home back in town where floorboards creaked and pipes hummed softly through the walls, but this silence felt ancient. Vast. As though the castle itself were holding its breath. Sometimes you wondered how Michael Jackson endured living here alone for so many years without losing his mind entirely.
Your father certainly disliked it.
Though he rarely spoke negatively about Michael, you had noticed how exhausted he looked lately. Caring for someone like Michael seemed less like ordinary medical work and more like tending to something perpetually balancing between restraint and ruin. Your father never explained the details. Only that Michael required privacy. Silence. Respect for the nighttime hours above all else.
Everything is off limits after sunset, your father had warned the moment you moved into the estate months ago. Do not wander the halls at night. And whatever happens, do not disrupt Mr. Jackson once evening falls.
At the time, you assumed he exaggerated. Now, sitting awake in the darkness with your nightmare still clawing at your nerves, the warning suddenly felt heavier. However, your throat was painfully dry, and remaining trapped alone in your room felt unbearable.
After several minutes of hesitation, you slipped quietly from bed.
The marble floor chilled your bare feet instantly. You wrapped a cardigan around yourself before easing open your bedroom door carefully, half expecting the castle itself to protest the movement. The hallway beyond stretched endlessly beneath dim amber wall sconces, their weak light flickering softly against old paintings and towering windows overlooking the storm outside. Rainwater streaked the glass in silver ribbons. Somewhere deeper within the estate, an old grandfather clock chimed softly through the darkness, and the sound echoed unnervingly far.
You moved carefully through the corridor toward the staircase, trying not to think about how alone you felt. During the daytime, the castle merely seemed old-fashioned and isolated. At night, it transformed into something else entirely—something enormous and hollow and quietly alive. Every shadow appeared deeper than it should have been. Every hallway seemed to stretch farther than you remembered.
You hated how your imagination worked after nightmares.
The kitchen sat on the lower floor near the eastern wing of the estate, tucked beside massive arched windows overlooking the cliffs. Your footsteps echoed softly against the marble staircase as you descended, fingers brushing along the cold railing. You kept expecting someone to stop you despite knowing most of the staff had long since retired for the night.
No one appeared, and because of your poor judgement, you failed to notice the figure standing silently above.
Michael had returned less than half an hour ago.
The scent of rain, saltwater, and pine still clung faintly to his clothes as he stepped through the upper corridors soundlessly, black coat damp from the storm outside. Hunting usually quieted the constant burn in his throat enough to make the nights manageable, though tonight irritation lingered beneath his skin like an old wound refusing to heal. The weather had driven prey farther inland than usual. He was tired, hungry still, unfortunately, and entirely uninterested in human interaction.
Then he heard footsteps.
Michael paused instantly near the staircase landing, eyes narrowing slightly as he watched you descend toward the lower floor.
Humans were loud creatures to vampire senses. Their heartbeats alone filled rooms. Breathing. Blood circulation. Tiny unconscious movements most people never noticed became impossible for vampires to ignore—yet there was something strangely delicate about your presence. Softer than expected. Your heartbeat fluttered unevenly from whatever nightmare had woken you, but your movements remained careful, almost apologetic.
You looked frightened of the castle itself, but the observation stirred something faintly amusing within him, and without thinking much of it, Michael followed.
Vampires moved differently from humans. Effortlessly. Quietly. When they wished, their presence became nearly imperceptible—not invisibility exactly, but something instinctual that caused human senses to overlook them entirely until they chose otherwise. So while you wandered into the kitchen unaware, Michael lingered unseen near the doorway, watching.
The kitchen lights had been dimmed for the night, casting everything in soft golden shadows. You approached the refrigerator first, hesitating slightly before opening it.
Your expression shifted almost immediately into visible surprise. Michael noticed the exact moment you remembered that despite living in a vampire’s castle, the kitchen remained absurdly normal.
Fresh strawberries rested inside glass containers beside herbs hanging carefully from twine. Bottles of orange juice. Fresh bread wrapped neatly in cloth. Homemade soup your father had likely prepared earlier that evening. Vegetables lined the lower drawers in careful organization.
Humans always expected something grotesque.
Michael almost rolled his eyes.
You grabbed a bottle of water quietly before leaning against the marble counter, drinking slowly while staring absently out the rain-streaked windows toward the dark coastline below. The kitchen softened your features somehow beneath its warm lighting. Exhaustion still lingered plainly across your face.
Michael noticed your hands first.
Small scars along your fingertips. Faint green stains near your nails from crushed herbs earlier that afternoon. Your father had mentioned your interest in medicinal healing often enough for Michael to recognize the signs immediately. So this was the physician’s daughter. The strange girl who loved making medicines, and potions—who adored her father very much.
For several moments, he simply watched you in silence, and then you turned around.
A sharp gasp escaped you as an immediate reaction as your entire body jerked violently backward, the water bottle nearly slipping from your hand and shattering against the floor. Your eyes widened so fast it almost would have been funny under different circumstances.
Michael stood only a few feet away.
Tall and motionless beneath the dim kitchen lights, his dark clothing still carrying traces of rainwater from outside. Shadows softened the sharpness of his features but did nothing to hide the unnatural paleness of his skin or the unsettling intensity of his crimson red eyes. His curls hung damply around his face, slightly disheveled from the storm. Frighteningly beautiful, unfortunately—in the deeply alarming way dangerous things often were.
Most terrifying of all was the fact that you hadn’t heard him approach, not even a sound or movement you heard from the moment you were going to the kitchen, making you think of how long has he been there.
“I apologize,” Michael said calmly after a moment, his voice low enough to blend almost seamlessly with the sound of rain outside. “I didn’t intend to startle you.”
You stared at him speechlessly.
For months, Michael Jackson had existed only as fragments to you. A closed bedroom door at the end of distant hallways. A quiet figure glimpsed briefly through windows at dusk. Your father’s exhausted warnings. Rumors whispered among servants who avoided speaking too loudly after dark.
And now he stood directly in front of you, watching you carefully with unreadable eyes.
“I’m sorry,” you blurted immediately, still visibly shaken. “I know I’m not supposed to be down here at night. My father warned me, I just—” You swallowed hard. “I had a nightmare.”
Michael’s gaze lingered on you silently for a moment longer than comfortable. Then, very softly, “You should listen to your father more carefully.”
The words were polite. Still, embarrassment flooded your face instantly. “I know,” you murmured quickly. “I wasn’t trying to disrupt anything.”
“You are not disrupting anything,” he replied, though his tone remained stern beneath its calmness. “But there are areas of this estate that become… difficult after dark.”
You weren’t entirely sure what that meant, yet somehow, you did not want clarification.
The storm outside cracked faintly with distant thunder, filling the brief silence between you both. You became painfully aware of every detail all at once—the cold bottle trembling slightly in your hand, the fact that Michael did not breathe like ordinary people did, the strange stillness surrounding him that made him seem less like a person and more like part of the castle itself.
Then his eyes shifted toward the untouched food surrounding the kitchen.
“You seem surprised the refrigerator contains actual food,” he observed quietly.
Heat crept into your cheeks immediately. “I just thought—”
“That I survive exclusively on blood stored in wine glasses?” he interrupted dryly.
Your eyes widened in horror. “No—I mean—I didn’t think about wine glasses specifically—”
To your surprise, something faintly resembling amusement flickered briefly across his face before disappearing almost instantly. “I see.”
The realization that you had just embarrassed yourself in front of a vampire hit you all at once. Panic followed immediately after.
“Oh my God,” you muttered under your breath.
Michael tilted his head slightly. “Are you alright?”
“Yes.” You nodded eagerly, trying to hide embarrassment and shame on your face. “Completely fine.”
“You do not appear fine.”
“No—well, yes.” You say defensively, “I am just fine.”
“That is usually what humans say before fainting.”
“I’m not going to faint—”
But suddenly the entire situation became overwhelmingly real again.
You were alone in a castle kitchen at three in the morning with an immortal vampire who had silently appeared behind you without warning after returning from hunting. Your pulse throbbed loudly in your ears. Michael’s eyes remained fixed on you with unnerving calmness.
Before he could say another word, survival instincts apparently took over. “I should go,” you blurted abruptly.
Then you turned and hurried from the kitchen before your dignity could deteriorate any further. Your footsteps echoed embarrassingly loud through the marble hallways as you practically fled upstairs, cardigan slipping from one shoulder while your heart hammered wildly against your ribs.
Silence settled over the kitchen once more. Michael remained standing exactly where you left him.
For a long moment, he simply stared toward the doorway in thoughtful stillness while rain continued pouring endlessly beyond the castle windows. Then, quietly enough for no human ears to hear, he sighed through his nose.
“…Interesting.”
—
After the incident in the kitchen, the castle returned to silence as though nothing had happened at all.
No one mentioned it.
Not your father, who remained buried in his endless responsibilities tending to Michael Jackson through long evenings and even longer mornings. Not the servants, who moved through the halls with their usual quiet professionalism beneath dim chandeliers and endless stretches of marble corridors. And certainly not Michael himself.
For days afterward, you did not see him again.
At first, you were relieved, but also strangely disappointed by the relief itself.
Life inside the castle resumed its peculiar rhythm with unsettling ease. Your father spent most nights secluded within the upper west wing where Michael’s chambers overlooked the cliffs, often returning exhausted near dawn carrying trays of untouched tea or old medical journals tucked beneath his arm. Meanwhile, you occupied your own hours wandering the estate grounds, studying herbs in the greenhouse near the eastern gardens, or disappearing into the forests surrounding the castle where the air smelled permanently of wet cedar and seawater.
Still, despite your efforts to move on from that humiliating kitchen encounter, the memory lingered annoyingly often. You remembered the sound of Michael’s voice most clearly.
Low. Calm. Deep enough to feel almost dangerous beneath its politeness.
Sometimes, while organizing dried herbs in your room late at night, you caught yourself replaying the image of him standing silently beneath the kitchen lights with rainwater still clinging to his black coat. Pale hands resting motionless at his sides. Crimson eyes half-shadowed beneath dark curls. Then you would immediately force yourself to think about literally anything else, because dwelling on mysterious vampires living in isolated castles along the coast of Astoria seemed like the beginning of very poor life decisions.
So instead, you tried to focus on your work.
The forests north of the estate became your refuge quickly. Your father worried constantly whenever you wandered too far alone, but you had spent your entire childhood among herbs and wilderness trails. Nature had always felt safer to you than people did. The dense evergreen woods surrounding the castle carried an untouched sort of beauty—moss-covered trees towering endlessly toward gray skies, wildflowers blooming stubbornly between stones, streams winding quietly through ferns and roots beneath the endless drizzle of coastal rain.
It was there, nearly a mile beyond the estate grounds one overcast afternoon, that you discovered the herb.
At first glance, it looked ordinary.
The plant grew hidden beneath a fallen cedar tree along the edge of a narrow creek, its thin silver-green leaves nearly blending into the surrounding moss. But when you crouched closer, something about it felt… wrong, or perhaps alive in a way plants normally were not.
You touched one of the leaves carefully. Warmth spread instantly through your fingertips, and then your eyes widened from the realization.
The sensation traveled upward beneath your skin like sunlight sinking into cold water—gentle, immediate, healing. Exhaustion vanished from your body almost entirely within seconds. Even the small ache lingering in your shoulder from carrying your satchel all morning disappeared.
You stared at the herb in stunned silence. Then very carefully, you gathered several samples.
By the time you returned to the castle, rainwater soaked the hem of your coat and excitement practically radiated from your entire body. You found your father inside his study organizing medical records near the fireplace, exhaustion heavy beneath his eyes until you practically dumped the herbs onto his desk.
“What is this?” he asked immediately, startled.
“I don’t know yet,” you admitted breathlessly. “But I found it near the northern creek past the cliffs and—I think it’s medicinal.”
Your father examined the leaves carefully, fascinated and brow furrowing deeper with each passing second. “I’ve never seen this species before.”
“Neither have I.” You say in glee excitement.
That alone was enough to excite both of you.
The next several days became entirely consumed by experimentation. You dried portions of the herb first, testing its effects cautiously through teas and tinctures while documenting everything inside your journal late into the evenings. Then came oils. Powdered extracts. Mixtures dissolved into soups and drinks. No matter the method, the results remained astonishingly consistent. Fatigue vanished almost instantly after consumption. Minor fevers eased within moments. Headaches disappeared. Muscle soreness dissolved like mist beneath sunlight. Even emotional exhaustion seemed lighter somehow after taking it, as though the herb soothed the mind alongside the body.
And because your healing abilities naturally strengthened medicinal properties beneath your touch, the herb responded beautifully to you. More beautifully than anything ever had before.
One evening, after hours spent carefully grinding the leaves beneath candlelight inside your room, you finally succeeded in creating a concentrated liquid mixture unlike anything you had made previously. The potion shimmered faintly silver-green inside the glass vial whenever light touched it. Elegant. Potent. Alive.
You held it proudly in both hands for nearly a full minute.
Your father warned caution, naturally. “We still don’t know its long-term effects,” he reminded you while adjusting his glasses tiredly, but it doesn't hide the fact he is impressed and proud of what you have potentially achieved. “So I want you to keep it safe for now.”
Following your father's orders, you stored the finished potion carefully inside your cabinet beside your journals and medicinal supplies, hidden safely behind rows of dried lavender and old textbooks. For the first time since arriving at the castle, you felt as though something here truly belonged to you.
Then, unfortunately, chaos arrived in the form of Chris Tucker—wearing a clean gray suit from Yves Saint Laurent, that completely complements his skin color. Caramel brown, smooth, and handsome, yet his aura filled with mischief. Something about him that you instantly knew he is much like you. Gifted, yet human.
The castle changed the moment he entered it. Rain poured relentlessly outside that afternoon, fog swallowing most of the cliffs surrounding the estate when the front doors suddenly burst open downstairs accompanied by loud laughter echoing through the entrance hall.
“Man, this place still looks haunted as hell.”
You nearly dropped the stack of linens in your arms from surprise.
Chris Tucker swept into the castle like a storm entirely separate from the weather outside—energetic, animated, speaking twice as loudly as everyone else combined. His presence alone disrupted the estate’s usual suffocating quietness within minutes. Servants who normally moved like ghosts found themselves laughing awkwardly at his endless commentary while your father attempted, unsuccessfully—to maintain professionalism through visible exhaustion.
“You really live like this?” Chris asked dramatically while glancing around the towering gothic ceilings overhead. “No sunlight. No music. Just depression and rain?”
One servant nearly choked trying not to laugh, and your father pinched the bridge of his nose. “Mr. Tucker—”
“Nah, nah, I’m serious,” Chris continued. “Michael out here living like Dracula with a mortgage.”
Even you smiled slightly despite yourself while passing through the hallway unnoticed. Then as Chris looked up, his expression shifted instantly.
“Well damn.” You paused mid-step awkwardly beneath his stare. Chris straightened almost immediately, flashing an easy grin. “Hey, I haven’t seen you before.”
You adjusted the linens nervously in your arms. “I live here.”
“Oh, I can see that,” he replied smoothly. “Question is… Why Michael never mentioned somebody this pretty walking around his haunted castle.”
Heat crawled into your face instantly, but before you could answer, your father interrupted sharply from across the room. “She’s my daughter. We recently moved here 6 months ago.”
Chris blinked once. “…Oh.”
The amusement in your father’s voice disappeared entirely. “And you are bothering her.”
“I was being friendly!” He surrendered his hands up and shrugged his shoulders.
“Mr. Tucker, I think it's a bit inappropriate that a gentleman talks to a lady like that. You were being loud.” Your father politley yet sternly pointed out at him.
Chris sighed dramatically while raising his hands in surrender. “Alright, alright. Damn. Y’all serious in this castle.” He pushed the hem of his suit down.
You escaped upstairs before the conversation could continue further. Still, you could feel Chris watching curiously as you disappeared down the hallway.
—
The storm arrived sometime after midnight, rolling over the coastline of Astoria in heavy sheets of rain that blurred the cliffs and swallowed the forests beneath thick silver fog. From the outside, the castle appeared almost unreal against the darkness—towering stone walls disappearing into clouds, narrow gothic windows glowing faintly amber against the storm while the Pacific Ocean crashed violently somewhere below the cliffs. Wind howled through the pine trees surrounding the estate, rattling branches against the ancient structure like skeletal fingers scratching at old glass.
Inside the upper west wing, however, everything remained dim and quiet.
An old vinyl record spun softly near the fireplace inside Michael Jackson’s chambers, filling the room with low crackling music while candlelight flickered warmly across towering bookshelves and dark velvet furniture. The room smelled faintly of cedarwood, old paper, and rainwater drifting through the slight opening near the windows overlooking the ocean. Unlike the rest of the castle, Michael’s chambers felt lived in despite their loneliness. Piano sheets lay scattered near the grand piano by the corner windows. Half-finished books rested carelessly atop tables. Dark coats hung neatly beside the door, still damp from previous nights spent wandering the forests surrounding the estate.
Michael sat near the fireplace in complete silence, one hand resting against the armrest of his chair while his gaze remained fixed distantly on the storm outside. Firelight softened the sharpness of his features, but exhaustion still lingered visibly beneath his eyes. He looked pale beneath the warm glow of the room—unnaturally pale compared to the rest of his family. Once, decades ago, Michael’s skin carried the same rich bronze-brown warmth his siblings still possessed. But the illness inside him had stolen that slowly over time, draining the color from him year after year until pale ivory replaced what once resembled sunlight.
Then, Chris entered the room without knocking, in which Michael wasn't surprised or disturbed with. He knew how all the footsteps sound here living or visiting in his castle.
“You know,” Chris began casually, dropping into a chair nearby, “you failed to mention there’s a whole pretty little forest girl living in this place.”
Michael barely glanced up from the book in his hands. “I assumed you would survive the shock.”
Chris ignored that immediately. “Who is she?”
“The physician’s daughter.”
“That’s it?” Chris frowned. “That’s all I’m getting?”
Michael turned a page calmly. “She lives here with her father.”
“And she’s gorgeous.” He emphasized every word like he hadn't seen such beauty.
Michael’s eyes lifted slowly toward him then. The silence that followed carried the faintest edge of warning beneath it. Chris noticed immediately.
“…Oh, come on,” he said defensively. “I just said she’s pretty.”
“She is not your concern.”
Now Chris looked genuinely amused. “Aha,” he said, leaning back in his chair knowingly. “See, that right there? That’s interesting.”
Michael’s expression remained perfectly unreadable. “Chris.”
“No, no, listen to me,” Chris continued, grinning now. “You got that whole vampire mysterious dark prince thing going on, and now there’s suddenly a pretty girl, almost like a damsel in distress, wandering around your castle in the woods? Man, this sounds exactly like one of those romance books women cry over.”
Michael closed his book quietly. “Do not involve her in anything.”
The amusement faded slightly from Chris’s face at the seriousness in Michael’s tone. For a brief moment, the room fell silent except for rain against the windows. Then Chris sighed dramatically. “Alright. Damn. You act like I’m gonna corrupt her.”
Michael looked back toward the storm outside the windows, expression distant once more. “You would not survive her father long enough to try.”
Chris pretended not to hear what Michael had just said about the mysterious girl. He knew for a fact that Michael never brought girls—scratch that—made anyone live with him in this lonely castle, but that's not what he came for. He knew Michael needed his best friend for support, someone who would lend his ears even if he always acts grumpy as usual.
“Man,” Chris muttered while trying to fix his position on the velvet couch, “every time I visit this place, it somehow gets more haunted.”
Michael did not bother looking away from the windows. “That’s a nice compliment.”
“I’m serious.” Chris crossed the room before throwing himself onto the velvet couch nearby. “You got candles everywhere, thunder outside, sad music playing in the background—Mike, this ain’t a home anymore. This is emotional damage with furniture.”
Michael sighed softly through his nose, though the faintest trace of amusement briefly touched his expression before disappearing again. “You visit once and suddenly become an interior designer.”
“Nah, I’m just concerned.” Chris leaned back against the couch cushions, studying him more carefully now beneath the warm flickering firelight. “You look terrible.”
The humor faded from the room after that.
Michael remained quiet for a moment too long, and Chris immediately noticed the subtle tension settling across his shoulders. He had known Michael for years—long enough to recognize when silecne itself meant something was wrong.
Outside, thunder rolled low across the coastline. “How’s the condition?” Chris asked more quietly this time.
Michael’s gaze lowered briefly toward the floor before drifting back toward the rain-covered windows. “Stable.”
Chris frowned almost instantly. “That ain’t a real answer.”
“It is the only answer I have.”
The room fell silent except for the crackling fireplace and rain striking glass.
Slowly, Michael stood from the chair near the fire and crossed toward the windows, movements graceful but noticeably slower than they once were. He paused there for several seconds while stormlight flashed faintly against the glass behind him, illuminating his reflection in fragments. Pale skin. Dark curls falling loosely around his face. Thin exhaustion hidden beneath elegance. Sometimes Chris forgot how young Michael technically still looked despite everything haunting him beneath the surface.
Then Michael lifted the edge of his black shirt slightly near his abdomen.
Chris immediately straightened.
The wound had spread again.
It crawled across Michael’s lower abdomen like corrupted ink trapped beneath skin, dark branching fractures spreading outward from a circular center resembling a black splash permanently stained into flesh. The center itself looked almost burned, while thin vein-like cracks extended outward beneath pale skin in delicate patterns that seemed alive in the worst possible way. Even from across the room, Chris could see faint discoloration spreading farther than the last time he visited.
Years ago, the mark had been small enough to cover with one hand, but now it stretched across most of Michael’s side.
“The suppressants are slowing the progression,” Michael said quietly while lowering his shirt again, before Chris could stare longer and look at him with worrying concern. “But they are not curing anything. They only stop it from worsening temporarily.”
Chris rubbed a hand slowly across his face. “Man…”
Michael returned to the chair near the fireplace, though this time he leaned back more heavily against it, visible exhaustion settling beneath his posture. Firelight flickered softly across his pale skin while silence gathered between them once more.
The disease had followed Michael since childhood. Long before the sadness, loneliness, and exhaustion of battling with himself. Before isolation. Before this castle became both a sanctuary and prison.
When Michael and his siblings were children, they had wandered through forests near the northern Oregon coast during one of their family visits decades earlier. It began innocently enough—children chasing each other beneath pine trees heavy with rainwater while fog rolled through the woods around them. Then Michael disappeared for a few hours, long enough for everyone to look for him altogether.
By the time his brothers found him again near dusk, unconscious beside a cluster of dying plants deep within the forest, fever had already consumed him entirely. The poison entered through skin contact alone. No bite. No wound. Just one accidental touch against a herb ancient enough to kill almost anything within days.
Michael should have died as a child.
The herb itself had been notoriously poisonous in old medical records—rare even back then, nearly impossible to survive once exposed. By the time physicians identified the plant responsible, the toxin had already rooted itself too deeply inside Michael’s body to remove safely, and the only reason he survived at all was because of your father.
Long before retirement, before the quiet little house filled with herbs where you grew up, your father had been considered one of the most skilled physicians along the Oregon coast. The Jackson family brought Michael to him desperately after every other attempt failed. Somehow, through suppressant treatments and years of experimental medicine, your father managed to stabilize the poison enough to prevent immediate death.
Since then, he remained responsible for Michael’s care entirely. It went far for as long as anyone can remember. No one else understood the disease well enough anymore, so Michael isolated himself from everyone—from his best friend, from his siblings, and to his family. Only he kept your father because his mother, Katherine, begged him to.
“The blackouts still happening?” Chris asked carefully after several moments.
Michael’s expression darkened almost imperceptibly.
“Yes.”
“How bad?”
Michael looked toward the fireplace quietly before answering. “Worse when stressed.”
Chris already knew what that meant.
The blackouts terrified everyone around Michael more than the disease itself. They never happened without warning. First came dizziness. Then unbearable heat spreading from the wound beneath his abdomen like fire trapped under skin. Sweat despite the unnatural coldness of his body. Trembling hands. Burning veins. Sometimes the symptoms lasted minutes before the blackout began.
And once it started, Michael lost himself completely.
The episodes varied in length — occasionally only several minutes, other times stretching into hours. He rarely remembered anything afterward besides fragments of violence and destruction left behind. During the blackouts, he became aggressive but eerily silent, driven entirely by pain and instinct. Furniture shattered. Walls cracked. Blood stained stone floors from guards or servants who approached too closely before restraints could be used.
That was the reason why the dungeon beneath the castle existed—whenever the symptoms worsened, he locked himself beneath the estate voluntarily inside underground chambers reinforced specifically to contain him during episodes. Iron restraints lined the walls alongside medical equipment and suppressant injections prepared carefully by your father beforehand. Most nights, the physician remained below with him until the blackout passed entirely.
Chris hated thinking about it.
“You still staying down there during episodes?” he asked quietly.
Michael nodded once. “It is safer.”
“For who?” Chris asked with no malice but worry in his voice.
Michael did not answer.
Outside, lightning flashed faintly against the storm beyond the windows. For a moment, the room glowed silver-white before darkness settled again beneath candlelight.
“They still haven’t found anything?” Chris eventually asked. “No cure? No specialist? Nothing?”
Michael’s expression remained calm, though exhaustion lingered heavily beneath it now.
“The herb no longer exists.”
That truth alone destroyed most remaining hope years ago.
The poisonous plant responsible for the disease had long since disappeared from the forests entirely, either extinct or impossible to locate after decades of searching. Without the original herb, no cure could ever be studied properly. Your father continued experimenting with suppressants and treatments, but even he admitted there were limits to what medicine could accomplish against something so old and unnatural.
So Michael endured instead, year after year. He wished for this to stop, to promise his mom that he will eventually get cured, and he will be free—which was almost impossible to happen, yet Michael held on to it desrly.
Watching the corruption spread slowly beneath his skin while isolation consumed the rest of his life alongside it.
Chris leaned back against the couch heavily, staring toward the fire in silence before his gaze drifted briefly toward the door, toward the lower floors of the estate.
“The physician’s daughter,” he said casually after a moment. “She really that good with medicine?”
Michael glanced toward him. “She studies herbs with her father.”
“That ain’t what I asked.”
Michael remained quiet briefly before responding. “She is skilled.”
No one besides your father understood the truth about your healing abilities. To everyone else, you were simply intelligent and unusually talented with medicinal herbs because you had grown up around them your entire life. Your father raised you normally despite everything, never allowing your abilities to become something frightening or unnatural. You attended school. Learned ordinary things. Laughed too loudly sometimes. Wandered forests collecting herbs because you genuinely loved medicine.
The healing remained secret, even Michael did not know the full extent of it.
Meanwhile, several floors below, completely unaware of the conversation unfolding above your head, you sat cross-legged on your bedroom floor beneath warm lamplight while carefully organizing dried herbs beside your bed.
Bundles of lavender, rosemary, foxglove, and dried cedar leaves surrounded you in small uneven piles while old notebooks lay scattered nearby, pages crowded with messy observations written in ink. The room smelled faintly of pine resin and crushed mint from the experiments you had been working on all week. Your father had long since gone upstairs again for Michael’s nightly treatment, leaving you alone with the comforting quietness of your work.
You reached toward the cabinet near your desk carefully.
Hidden behind old medicine jars and stacks of books sat the small glass vial you had created days earlier, the silver-green liquid inside shimmered faintly beneath the lamplight. Beautiful, potent, and almost strangely alive.