You've lost count of how many times you've watched this video. It was Mikhail's last concert, before your cousin killed him, in a jealous rage because you were supposed to belong to Logan alone. And you just couldn't listen.

You know each moment in the video that Mikhail flicks an eyebrow, twitches his mouth, scratches an itch... because you've watched him closely. If someone asked you whether the guitarist was wearing a shirt or not, you wouldn't even know, but if they wanted to know what Mikhail had been wearing for his nipple jewelery, you could identify the color, material, and just the way it shone under the lights occasionally. You can sing along to each song, with just as much intensity as your former lover, and you know what each song means, and why it was writtin.

Except for one.

In the very last song, he was wearing ceremonial dress, as if for a native ritual. This wasn't too strange, but what makes you think is just how the outfit is arranged. Daggers are tied to his wrists and one around his neck, dangling from thin cord, and there is a blindfold over his eyes, made of silk. His hair is tied back, a rare thing for those waist length strands, and feathers hang from them lightly, moving even though there is no wind.

He dances as if it were his own funeral, and in the middle of the song, his body starts twisting, unnaturally. Wet streaks fall down from beneath the blindfold and for just a moment - his voice wavers. it all reminds you of that time, when Mikhail's tribe had done a strange, savage exorcism on the teen to repell whatever demons they'd imagined.

Sometimes, it's as if he's looking directly at you, but you know it's impossible.

Even if he could see through his blindfold, he'd be looking at a camara and not your face. But even so, knowing this, his empty gaze sends a shiver through your spine.

What was he trying to tell you?

You spend at least three nights a week trying to decipher the message. You burn the words into your head until they are all you can think of. He looks at the camara and says "Osiris and the wolf", but what does that mean? You are a modern-day werewolf, while his band is named Osiris, but that doesn't feel right. There's something deeper in that sentence, something about the way his face turns to the camara when he quietly murmurs those words below the chorus. What is he trying to tell you? It's kept you awake for nights on end. You've spent days banging your head against tables, punching walls, in frustration. What did it mean, what did it mean, what did it mean?! You can't figure it out, and even as you sink deeper into bewilderment, you turn on the video again and try to find more clues. You watch how startlingly close the blades come to Mikhail's frail skin, you study the way his back arches inhumanly. You listen to the words, knowing he's murmuring more that you can't quite make out underneath the other vocals.

You've messed with the volume, brightness, contrast, you've fast-fowarded and rewinded and paused, but to no avail. If you do manage to fall asleep at night, you wake up in a cold sweat, having heard his voice right in your ear, "Osiris and the wolf".

Osiris and the wolf.

Something about it is eerily familiar, if only you could persuade your mind, or your heart, to remember. The tears that fall from Mikhail's face, which were not normal tears, haunt you every minute of every day until all you can do is lie in bed. And nothing else. You lie in bed, unable to even watch the video anymore, undisturbed except for an occasional visit from Logan for some attention (which he usually gives up on, since you've become lost in this nightmare), and his son, Loki, wanting to hear about Mikhail.

Eventually, you lose the effort to tell him anything. Eventually, all you can do is sing the song you wrote in your head. For him. You know he'll never hear it, but you can feel that he will, and that inner paradox just makes things worse until you can no longer take it. You take out a smooth pistol, and with one resolute squeeze...

You wake up, 500 years later, panting heavy, trying desperately to seize hold of the dream slipping from your fingertips, but only one thing remains.

Osiris and the fucking wolf.