CAPTIVATION • AARON WARNER

Prologue

———

THE WORLD MAY have been a broken mess, but I was happy.

Kind of.

At least, I think I was.

But I was the most happy I'd ever been in my life.

Actually, no.

That's a lie.

Nothing could've compared to the happiness I had experienced all those months ago.

Sure, now I've got a solid group of friends, a safe place to live, people to help me strengthen my powers, and clothes on my back.

Back then, I had nothing.

Nothing to give, nothing to take.

Up until then, this cruel world had given me nothing to live for.

I had met no fate. I had simply been a lost soul, wandering the forgotten forests, the abandoned towns.

Until I stumbled upon something.

Something that changed my life.

Someone.

Someone who would hold me close and make me feel truly loved and cared for: a feeling I hadn't experienced in years.

I was mesmerized by him.

He was so inexplicably beautiful, so different from anyone else I had ever met.

Yet, he told me almost nothing about himself.

He was a mystery to he solved. And I loved this particular mystery.

I had only known him a few weeks, but he was so charming. He was so sweet, so painfully sweet that it almost killed me.

So I thought I could trust him.

He held me when I cried, he made me all my favorite foods, he gave me shelter and kept me warm. He kept me safe.

With him, I was safe.

At least I thought I was.

I should've known. I should've seen past him, kept my guard up, and shut him out.

Maybe I was just so desperate for the attention that I had never received, maybe it was all an illusion.

He was the first human being I had ever interacted with that wasn't a lab-rat. Maybe eighteen-year-old me was so lonely that after a quick look at him, I had decided he was the one for me.

Maybe my love for him—our love, was all an illusion.

Maybe it was my fault... my fault he abandoned me.

One day, he never came back.

He got so mad.

He broke the table.

He was unrecognizable that day.

I waited. Hoping, wishing upon the stars, that he would return.

I waited for days.

And each day, I missed him desperately. Every hour I missed him more.

I missed him so desperately that at some point, I stopped being mad at him.

I was ready to forget everything wrong that had gone on between us if it meant getting him back.

But he left me.

...the last day I saw him, it was raining.

We'd had an argument. A loud one.

The front door was ajar, and I could hear the roar of the wind, but it wasn't loud enough to cover the sound of his shouts.

I had tried to leave, but he wouldn't let me.

He had always told me that the world was deadly. That it was too dangerous, and that I didn't understand it.

That I was safer where I was.

And still, he left that same night.

Left me for the same world he had claimed so deadly and dangerous.

And so I told myself that in this life, in this shattered world, there was no place for love.

Love makes you weak, and it makes you blind.

Blind to even the most simplest of lies.

I would never fall in love again.

Instead, I would survive.

I still dream about him.

I still dream about that day. That week.

That last week, a mix of the silent treatment followed by arguments, filled with expletives and insults and tears and slamming doors.

I dream about what I could've said or done to make him stay. What I should've done.

I dream of his eyes, his smile, his dimples.

I dream of his touch against my skin, and the sound of his heartbeat as I rested my head on his shoulder.

I dream of everything.

Everything we did together.

And I hate myself for it.

Because I want to forget him.

I need to forget him.

I could never allow myself to think about him, because I know that if I did, I'd never stop.

But out of all the things I had dreamed of, I had never dreamt that I'd see him again.

I had never thought that I'd be staring into his beautiful, beautiful, green eyes again so soon.

Yet, here I was.

"Hello, love."

———

A/N: sorry if the writing here seems a little rushed lmao😭😭 it's intentional bc i want it to seem like all of luciana's thoughts are mushing together and that she's thinking too fast bc she's shocked and surprised and also in awe during this narrative.