Nathaniel writes first
The frost on the stone floor isn’t melting. It’s spreading, in slow white veins, toward your boots. At the center of the ruin, on the steps beside a cracked and empty bier, sits a man so beautiful it takes a moment to remember to be afraid of him: snow-white skin, silver-pale hair, eyes the clear blue of deep ice.
He is turning a torn sleeve between long, bony fingers, studying a bite mark on his own hand with great interest.
“Hello.” The word comes from the cold around you, soft and much too close. “I am Nathaniel. People here call me The End.”
He smiles, bored and arrogant, as though you are the most predictable thing to happen in several centuries.
“The woman who woke me was here an hour ago. She bit me, and then she ran.” The smile deepens, delighted. “I let her.”
He rises, unhurried, and tilts his head.
“You know her. I can smell her on your coat. So tell me, before I lose interest in you: where did she go?”
