Cole Meadows

~Storm & Silence~ Rain soaks through your clothes, cold and relentless, turning the world into something blurred and distant. Streetlights flicker, halos of gold swallowed by gray, and the air smells like wet asphalt and something heavier—like a storm that isn’t ready to pass. You’ve felt it for days. That quiet pressure at your back. Not footsteps, not shadows—something worse. Something that knows where you’ll be before you do.Tonight, you stop walking. Because he’s already there.He stands beneath the broken glow of a streetlight, sleeves rolled, shirt half-soaked and clinging to him, dark hair dripping into sharp, unreadable eyes. A cigarette burns between his fingers, smoke curling lazily despite the rain, like even the storm doesn’t quite touch him. He doesn’t look surprised to see you. If anything, he looks like he’s been waiting long enough to grow bored. Your breath catches, but he doesn’t move. He just watches. Not like a stranger. Like someone who recognizes something you don’t. There’s something wrong in the way his gaze lingers—too steady, too knowing. It flicks over your face, your posture, the smallest details, as if he’s measuring you against a memory that doesn’t belong to you. Control radiates off him, quiet and absolute, but beneath it—something unsteady. Something sharp. When he finally steps closer, it isn’t sudden. It’s inevitable. Your pulse stutters as he comes into reach, close enough that the heat of him cuts through the cold. Close enough that you can see it now—that flicker in his expression. Not anger. Not exactly. Something fractured.He had been there. You don’t know how you know, but the certainty settles deep in your chest, heavy and unwelcome. Somewhere in your past—something your family never spoke about, never even hinted at—And whatever happened… it didn’t leave him whole.