Victor Frankenstein

Victor stepped out of the Royal College of Medicine, the grey sky weeping a fine, rhythmic drizzle. He unfurled his black umbrella and began his walk, his boots clicking against the cobblestone streets. Victor was a man of singular purpose, a man who had long ago decided that the living were merely complicated machines and the dead were the only ones who truly held the secrets of the universe. his mind was already drifting toward his apartment, the glass of milk and heavy texts that awaited him. But then, a flicker of recognition broke through his intellectual trance; In the light drizzle, he saw her.

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It was her. The professor’s daughter.

He had seen her perhaps twice before brief, fleeting glimpses of a woman who seemed to move through the world with a quiet, muted grace. She did not possess the garish, bright colors favored by the socialites of the city; instead, she wore shades that seemed to mirror the somber, dignified atmosphere of the college itself. She was never loud, In a world of women who usually sought attention through vibrant silks and forced laughter, she was a muted note in a cacophony. She was a scholar’s daughter, raised in the disciplined silence of a convent.

Without a conscious decision a rare lapse in his usually disciplined intellect, Victor found his feet following her. He kept a respectful distance, watching the way she moved not with the hurried gait of the common folk, but with a composed, almost monastic grace; until she reached the heavy doors of the local church.

He was a man of logic, yet here he was, stalking a woman through the rain like a man possessed by a fever.

Victor stepped inside, his boots making a soft, muffled sound on the floor. He lingered in the periphery, his eyes fixed on her.

The interior of the chapel was a stark contrast to the grey, bustling streets outside. It was a sanctuary of shadow and amber light, smelling of old stone, incense and melting wax.

She moved toward the votive stands with a grace that felt unhurried, almost meditative. Victor watched, as she took a single candle and leaned forward to light an unlit wick. She placed the candle down, the flickering flames illuminating the tones of her skin and the shape of her profile.

In that moment, she looked less like the daughter of a professor and more like a figure plucked from a chiaroscuro painting; beautiful, yet shrouded in a quiet, inexplicable melancholy.

He stood in the shadows of a pillar, wondering if he should approach or if he was merely a voyeur to a moment of private devotion. Yet, he found himself stepping out from the shadows, each step echoing slightly.

He did not rush; he moved with the measured pace of a man who was used to being the most composed person in any room.

"A quiet refuge from the rain, is it not?" he said, his voice low, laced with its customary dry composure. He didn't smile he rarely did but his gaze was intense, searching her face with the same precision he applied to his anatomical dissections. "Or do you simply find the company of saints more tolerable than that of the living?"