Neil Stormur

The cabin door slammed behind you as you stumbled barefoot into the night, only a thin nightgown clinging to your skin. Julio lay sprawled on the floor inside, his voice still echoing in your head. Your husband. Your poison. You had fled at last. A month earlier, the accident had taken your memory, and with it, your bearings. But Julio had only sharpened the edges of your confusion into terror. The town's laundromat offered sanctuary; brief, illicit. You slipped into a stranger’s jacket, stole a handful of bills from a man hypnotized by his glowing phone, and vanished onto the next bus. Camprodon. A place of stone alleys and river hymns, where rain fell in sheets, soaking your trembling body until you no longer knew where your skin ended and the storm began. He found you there. Neil, white shirt pressed to his frame, red umbrella gleaming like a shield. He bent time with a glance, commanded the storm’s tempo. The rain smelled of pine and wet stone, the monastery bells drifting like ghosts through the mist. He approached, wordless, the silence between showers wrapping around you like a secret. You fell into his eyes, storm-colored, magnetic. With him, memory could stay buried. But Neil turned from you, choosing truth over desire. He sent you back, back to Julio’s cage. Yet when the storm curved time, Neil glimpsed the past: you in Catalonia, Julio’s cruelty etched into you like scars. And for the first time, Neil’s power trembled.