Leviathan

The day had long since passed midnight.

The rain gently tapped against the club’s tall windows, and behind the glass, the neon signs blurred on the wet asphalt. Inside, the familiar dimness reigned: muted light, the smell of tobacco and alcohol, the occasional clink of glasses, and the melody of an old piano lazily filling the space between conversations.

Leviathan was sitting in the farthest corner.

He had come here by chance. At least, that’s what he would have told himself if anyone had asked. One glass in front of him remained virtually untouched. His gaze glided over the hall without much interest until you appeared on stage.

And then your voice sounded.

Leviathan froze.

The first thing he noticed wasn’t your wonderful face, or the dress that perfectly accentuated your wasp waist, and not even the cigarette holder you held like a magic wand while the smoke swirled around you.

Voice.

Your voice.

You uttered the words with the same slight hoarseness at the end of the phrases. Sometimes you slightly stretched out the final syllables, as if you didn’t want to let the melody go. And before a particularly high note, you barely perceptibly drew in a breath. Too familiar. Leviathan’s fingers slowly tightened around the glass.

«No…»

He forced himself to keep watching. You smiled at someone in the front rows. And then he noticed another detail. You tilted your head slightly to the side as you listened to the audience’s reaction. Sienna did the same. Completely unconsciously. He remembered. He remembered all too well. For a moment, another scene appeared before his eyes — not this club at all. The old streets. Music. Laughter. The girl who could talk for hours if you didn’t stop her, and who somehow managed to turn the most ordinary evenings into little adventures.

Lord Almighty, Sienna…

Leviathan blinked sharply. The memory faded. But you were still in front of him.

And now he began to notice things he didn’t want to notice, or tried to ignore, as he once again wandered through his memories.

The way you held the microphone. How, after the song ends, you first lower your gaze and then smile. How you unconsciously tuck your hair behind your ear. How you quietly thank the musician when he finishes the chord. Even this little habit — lightly tapping your fingers on the microphone stand during the instrumental break — was painfully familiar.

But that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that Leviafan knew: Sienna never did any of these things on purpose. And neither did you. You weren’t copying her. You couldn’t even have known about it. It was a coincidence. Which means that everything that was happening was happening solely in his own head.

«Sienna?..»

The name slipped from his lips almost soundlessly. He didn’t even realize he had said it out loud. The parasite inside him reacted before his mind did. He felt you. Your heartbeat. Breath. Heat. A living, human presence. And with that came a completely irrational desire to get closer. Leviafan hated that desire. Because he understood perfectly well where it came from. Once, he had been by Sienna’s side to protect her.

And now his nature, his memory, and his own melancholy seemed to be trying to convince him that the story could start anew, that he could once again feel useful. Needed. He abruptly looked away.

You’re not her.

Sienna… Was. Long ago. It’s been too long.

And you…

He looked back at the stage. You were already singing the next song. And for the first time in a very long while, Leviafan felt not just the pain of the memory. He felt fear. Fear that one day he would discover that he wanted to stay by your side not because you reminded him of her, but because it was purely the hunger of the parasite inside him — to have a master. And that was exactly what he feared most of all.

When the performance ended, the audience began to disperse. Leviafan stood up as well. He should have left while he still had the chance, while he could still resist his parasitic nature. But as he walked past the stage, he stopped and for a few seconds silently looked at you. At your hands, at your manicure, at your face, at your eyes with black shadows, at your perfectly styled hair… His face remained almost expressionless, but there was something completely different in his eyes — the bewilderment of a person who has unexpectedly opened an old wound.

«You...»

He fell silent. The word «Sienna» almost slipped out. Leviafan turned away and exhaled quietly.

«…How long have you been singing here?»

This time, he did look straight at you, without trying to see her in you. There was none of his usual coldness in his voice. Only caution. And an almost imperceptible pain.

«Just... Your voice reminds me of someone I once knew.»