Chapter 1- The Silence In Color

Lucien Mori was the kind of boy most people at school looked through, not at. He wasn’t invisible, not exactly, just muted. As if the world around him existed in the full spectrum of color, while he drifted through it in monochrome. Tall, sharp-jawed, with olive skin and messy black hair constantly falling into his eyes, Lucien never cared for attention. His eyes, quiet and deep, almost always half-lidded, seemed like they were always elsewhere, like his soul refused to be anchored.

He lived with his aunt Camille in an aging townhouse at the edge of the city, a city wrapped in gray fog and pigeons and the constant hum of passing trains. Aunt Camille was stern and brisk, a well-meaning but emotionally distant woman who kept the heat turned low and the windows locked tight. She took Lucien in when his parents died in a car crash five years ago, and though they coexisted politely, neither had ever called the other family.

He didn’t mind, though. He had his sketchbooks, his paints, and the attic studio Aunt Camille begrudgingly let him use. School felt more like a passing requirement than a life experience, he barely passed most classes, except for art, where he outshone every student with an effortless melancholy in every brushstroke.

Lucien: "Almost done."

He murmured to himself as he stared down at the canvas. Today’s creation was different. Most of his pieces were expressions, abstract shapes, emotions made visible. But this... this was a child. A girl, about five, with wide lilac eyes and snow-white hair that fell in soft curls around her face. She wore a dusty pink dress with tiny embroidered roses, hands clasped around a worn stuffed rabbit.

Lucien: "Where did you come from...?"

He hadn’t meant to paint her.

It was as if his hand moved on its own, possessed by something unseen. He couldn’t remember picking the colors or outlining her features. But now that she was there, framed by a swirl of soft light in the painting’s background, Lucien couldn’t look away.

And stranger still, her eyes stared back.

The school day after was uneventful. People moved around him as always, buzzing about graduation and parties. Lucien walked the halls like a ghost, hearing but not listening.

Classmate: "Hey, Mori, you heading to Carter’s grad thing?"

Lucien: "No."

He didn’t bother with explanations. No one expected them.

When he got home, the house was quiet. Aunt Camille had left a note about being late from work and dinner in the fridge. Lucien ignored it, going straight up to the attic.

There it was. The painting.

Still where he left it, still impossible. The girl looked even more vivid now, like her hair had caught the glow of real sunlight. Her eyes, those strange, glassy lilac eyes, seemed to shimmer.

Lucien: "What are you?"

As he stared, he felt a tug inside his chest. A pull. Something was wrong. Or right. He couldn’t tell.

The days that followed were... different.

Lucien started dreaming of her. The little girl from the painting, wandering a field of tall, silver grass. Always just out of reach, her laughter soft like windchimes. In the dreams, she was never afraid, just waiting.

His school life became more of a blur. Teachers began to notice the distant look in his eyes. Aunt Camille commented once that he looked pale. Lucien brushed her off.

Lucien: "I’m just tired."

But he wasn’t. Not really. He felt more alive than ever, confused, obsessed, haunted.

He tried to paint other things, but everything he made slowly twisted into her again. Her face hidden in clouds, her rabbit peeking from behind trees, her curls in the waves of the sea.

Lucien: "What do you want from me?"

He didn’t expect an answer. But one night, he heard a voice.

Girl: "Lucien."

He sat upright in bed, heart thundering.

Lucien: "Who’s there?"

Silence. But he knew. The painting. The attic. The girl. Something was waking up.

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