A moment later, Killian's red eyes glazed over into a trance-like state.
He stood perfectly still, blankly staring at the far wall of his room, his gaze locked onto the large, familiar painting of the two swans.
"Severine," he uttered, his voice dropping into a soft, shattered cadence that made Severine's phantom chest feel entirely hollow.
I am here, right by your side, my love.
The once-proud, immaculate young master was completely reduced to a ghost of his former self.
Over the months that followed, he began taking heavy, numbing medications just to quiet the violent voices in his mind.
Sometimes he would call out to the silk curtains by her name; sometimes he would sit in the center of the floor holding a fragile glass vase, cradling it against his chest as if it were a priceless treasure.
And whenever the agonizing hallucination inevitably broke, exposing the reality, he would violently smash the vase against the floor.
