Prologue
*Fleur*
I’m Fleur Verbeke — twenty-five, living in a small town in Belgium, and currently stuck in a sales job at what my bosses like to call a prestigious men’s clothing store. Dewulf and Sons. Their words, not mine.
If I’m honest, I’ve been done with this place for a while. It’s outdated, stuffy, and mostly attracts older men with money and zero charm — the kind who measure a suit by its price tag, not the person wearing it.
I’m the only young face here, surrounded by gray suits, polished shoes, and the stubborn scent of decades-old cologne. Dark wood panels line the walls, fluorescent lights hum overhead, and the cash register clatters in a way that feels stuck in another century. Every time it rings, I’m reminded that nothing — not the shop, not the clients, not even me — has moved forward in decades.
Sometimes I think some clients are just wrong. They look at me like they know something I don’t. One guy — gray suit, wrinkleless, scentless — watched me like I was something he’d lost centuries ago. I haven’t slept properly since. I keep seeing him in my dreams, walking through the shop in slow motion, silent, impossibly composed, like a shadow that doesn’t belong in daylight.
And then there’s the boss — a grumpy relic who gets his kicks needling me until I want to scream. Every day feels like a slow, professional death. He paces behind the counter, muttering about “standards” and “presentation,” and I nod politely, but inside, I’m plotting my escape. I daydream about booting up my old desktop at home, the one with the dial-up modem and the clunky beige monitor, and listening to the new Moby CD instead of folding shirts.
I live with Amber in a small two-bedroom flat above a bakery that smells like fresh bread every morning — one of the few perks of our little neighbourhood. We’ve been best friends since secondary school, the kind of bond that holds through everything. Ben and Noor round out our little circle — the four of us have stayed close long after most friendships fade, laughing, arguing, sharing secrets, and carrying each other through life’s smaller catastrophes.
Amber and Ben have had this slow-burn thing going on for years now. They orbit each other like moths to a flame — and if you ask me, it’s time they stopped circling and just let themselves catch fire. They’d be perfect together, if only they’d admit it out loud.
Noor and I? Still single. She’s always chasing after love, though I wish she’d raise her standards — most of the guys she dates are walking red flags wrapped in charm. As for me, I’m not really looking. After a five-year relationship that crashed and burned, I’ve spent the last year learning to breathe again, rediscovering who I am when no one else is shaping my world.
Solitude suits me — most of the time. But every now and then, the silence stretches too long. It gnaws at me, whispering that I could vanish into it entirely if I let myself. That’s when I fantasize about other worlds, other possibilities, other lives that don’t feel as muted and predictable as my own.
Please trust me, I don’t believe in ghosts, vampires, or magic. Not really. Yet… sometimes I secretly hope that it all exists. That there is something beyond the ordinary, something that escapes us, something that could break the routine and shake me awake in a way nothing else has.
This weekend, we’re heading to a newly reopened club in the city centre. I’m not a club girl — never was — but I need to get out of my head, away from fluorescent lights and the monotony of folding shirts. I need to be around people. To feel something. Anything. The club will be blasting everything from Fatboy Slim to the latest Spice Girls single, and I’ll be wearing my favourite baggy jeans and a cropped top — my own little rebellion against the drab of everyday life.
And somewhere in the crowd, I know he’s out there — watching, waiting, like he’s always belonged here, like he’s been waiting for this exact night.
