The Sweetest Hunger

She hadn't moved. Not until now.

Her body jolted—as if electricity had seized her bones. Her knees gave. She staggered. No words came. Panic gripped her.

Then, she turned.

Deliberate.

Not running. Not fleeing. Just… turning.

She walked into the crowd.

And something was wrong.

She didn't part people. She didn't leave footprints. She passed through bodies like fog. Her form thinned—shoulders, arms, spine—until there was nothing.

No dust.

No shadow.

No scent.

The crowd blinked. Confused. They filled the space she'd vanished from, unaware it had ever been occupied.

But he knew.

He had seen.

And so had Eva's brother.

Frozen. Eyes wide. Voice barely a breath:

"Eva… you came?"

His voice cracked—fragile, stunned, aching. Years of silence buckled under the weight of her name.

He stepped forward. Arms lifting—then stopping.

Because of them.

The crowd.

Watching. Measuring. Their eyes like blades. Cold steel. They didn't need to speak. Their presence said enough.

He was a man torn in two.

Truth on one side.

Reputation on the other.

From the doorway, Joan watched. Composed. Still. Her presence undeniable—like the moon bleeding into a battlefield.

She didn't need words. Her silence carried weight. A queen not of this world—but above it.

And in that moment, Eva's brother stood between two gravitational pulls.

One: blood and memory.

The other: image and control.

And the air split again—

Because she arrived.

Not Eva.

Her.

The woman who had walked beside them. The one who moved like prophecy.

Her beauty was beyond description—but it wasn't beauty alone that turned heads. Her presence bent the world. The ground bowed. The air obeyed. She whispered—not to them, but to something else. Something unseen.

And it listened.

Each step reshaped the silence.

Hair tucked itself behind her ear, caught not by wind but by the air's desire to please her. Pebbles shifted gently beneath her soles. The light curled around her, not reflecting, but worshipping.

She approached.

And the world changed.

Then it rose—the thing inside her.

Uninvited. Unforgiving. Unstoppable.

It wasn't like the trance that had gripped the crowd when Eva stepped forward. This was older. Wilder. Not something inherited—something awakened.

She pressed her palm hard against her chest, right above her heart. The gesture was sharp, almost violent, as if she was forcing something ancient into herself—or wrenching it loose. The sound it made was soft, but it landed with the weight of thunder muffled in flesh.

The crowd gasped.

And then, inexplicably, they smiled.

Not politely. Not nervously. They rejoiced.

The same people who moments before spat venom in Eva's direction now broke into gleaming expressions—some crying, some laughing, all overcome by something they didn't understand. It felt like a deliverance. A curse lifted. And she—this woman with the same haunted grace as Eva—had become their beacon.

They didn't know what they were celebrating.

They only knew they needed to.

And amid that chaotic joy, Eva stood still. Watching. Questioning.

Joan's voice cracked the moment like glass against stone.

"Why is this good-for-nothing brat here—at our sacred ceremony?"

Her tone struck like a blade, the words serrated with hatred. "And the man who dragged you out—does he even know who you are?"

She lunged without warning, her hand knotting in Eva's clothes with brutal force. The air around them sparked with her rage—raw, electric, dangerous.

But the moment her eyes met his—Eva's boss—the fury faltered.

It died instantly.

She froze. Her hand still clenched, her body locked in place. Recognition bled into her features—slow, creeping, unmistakable. A memory stirred. One she had no control over.

Her grip slackened. Her fingers uncurled from Eva's shirt.

He had done nothing. Not a word. Not a movement. Just… watched her.

With eyes that saw too much.

And in that gaze, everything shifted.

Joan staggered mentally, trapped in a spiral of unspoken thoughts.

'Do I… know him?'

'Why does he look at me like I've already confessed something I don't remember?'

Her voice cracked as she spoke, trying to steady herself with confrontation.

"Desmond…" She turned on Eva's brother now, spitting the name like it had betrayed her. "Why were you dragged out like that? Do you owe him something? Or..." her voice dropped, eyes narrowing, "...did you take something from him?"

But the question was hollow. A distraction. A mask for her shaken pride.

She let Eva go.

Yet she couldn't walk away clean. She had to leave her mark.

She spat on Eva's foot. Subtle. Quick. Ugly.

Then came the heel.

A sharp stomp that hit like fire—pain blooming instantly through Eva's body, stealing her breath, curling her toes in her shoes.

Eva didn't cry out.

She didn't move.

But her hands balled into fists.

She burned—not with shame, but with fury. With restraint. With the sacred promise she once made beside her brother in the dark. Her body trembled from the force of holding herself still.

Joan walked away. Smirking.

Convinced she'd won.

But some victories rot before they bloom.

The stone—still glowing faintly like the last breath of a dying star—shifted in her boss's hand. Slowly. With purpose.

It pointed to Eva.

Not by his will.

By its own.

Gasps rippled through the crowd like wind through brittle leaves.

Disbelief. Horror. Awe.

Not her.

Not the outcast.

Not the one they had just tried to erase.

"She's not one of us…" someone whispered.

"It chose her…"

The whispers twisted into a storm of doubt.

Eva's hand lifted slowly, almost reluctantly. As though her body moved ahead of her fear. Her fingers found the stone.

And when she touched it—truly touched it—silence collapsed over them like a dome.

She bowed her head.

Not in defeat. Not in apology.

In reverence.

And the crowd felt the shift.

A girl they tried to deny now stood where legends were born.

Even Joan stopped breathing.

The stone burned soft light into her widened eyes.

Joan wanted it.

Not Desmond. Not even Eva's humiliation.

She wanted the stone.

She wanted the place she thought fate had stolen from her.

Her gaze sharpened like a dagger honed by envy.

Eva spoke, voice fragile as frost.

"Desmond… I came with my boss to make this day something worth remembering. I'm sorry—for the chaos… for everything."

She looked at him—not as the man he had become, but the boy she once knew. The bond they'd shared hadn't been broken by time, only buried beneath it.

"I know if it weren't for them—for what happened to our parents—we would've remained inseparable."

Her words trembled with the weight of all she had never said.

And still… the crowd murmured, coiled in judgment. Smoke with no flame.

"I know my presence cost you more than I can repay. But to honor what we once were—what we still are…"

She lifted the stone—not to claim it, but to offer it.

Her arms trembled under its weight. Not because it was heavy. Because what it meant was.

The crowd held their breath.

And before Desmond could even move, Joan stepped forward.

She inserted herself between them with flawless timing, her posture claiming everything without touching anything. Her hands reached out with a practiced grace, a rehearsed entitlement.

Eva hesitated.

But this was his partner now… wasn't she?

And so—she let go.

The stone fell into Joan's hands.

It was beautiful. It was tragic.

It was cold.

It pulsed once. Weakly. Then dimmed.

The light did not welcome her. It did not warm her.