How Nicolas Turns Obsession Into Theatre
Nicolas DeSilva does not merely indulge his obsessions. He stages them. Every fixation, every fleeting urge, every gnawing need for control becomes a production, meticulously orchestrated for an audience that may or may not exist. Corax Asylum serves as his grand theatre, its corridors the proscenium arch, its inmates unwitting extras in a spectacle where he alone commands the spotlight. The man who collects pocket watches with the zeal of a zealot, who dresses in clashing silks and plaids as if defying the very concept of harmony, transforms the raw material of his desires into rituals of exquisite cruelty. Obsession is not a private torment for Nicolas. It is the script, the set, the denouement.
Consider the asylum itself. What begins as a simple structure, a noble vampire’s palace claimed without ceremony, evolves under his hand into a labyrinth of mirrors and clocks, secret passages and corrective facilities. Builders arrive in waves, each group altering the last’s work, ensuring no soul but Nicolas comprehends the full blueprint. Privacy dissolves. Inmates shuffle through corridors where every reflection mocks their confinement, every tick of mismatched timepieces erodes sanity. He rounds them up for speeches of meaningless import, announcements contrived to assert dominion. The chapel, once sacred, becomes a theatre in gestation. Obsession with governance, with the theatre of authority, manifests as a physical cage where suffering is the standing ovation.
His pursuits of the flesh follow suit. Red-haired thesapiens, his favoured vintage, arrive as tribute, bred for the purpose across the villages. Yet Nicolas does not consume hastily. He straps them to beds or gurneys, savours the anticipation. Straps and handcuffs render them compliant, pleasant company for his nocturnal diversions. Physical torture grows dull, so he innovates: the nerve harp plucks agony from exposed sinews, the void capacitor chair convulses flesh with electricity, the gurney crushes breath from lungs. Petty tortures with whips and birches fill the gaps. Obsession with the body becomes a symphony of screams, conducted for his solitary delight.
Even his alter egos serve the stage. Webster, the rational reflection in the glass, designs horrors like the diaphragm amplifier or blurred spectacles, tools to amplify chaos. Demize, the rotting head on the gramophone, cackles commentary, spinning with the records Nicolas records himself. Chives, the decaying ghoul, hobbles through the mire, preparing sculleries for the dead, enduring names like Thyme or Parsley with weary sighs. They are props in his endless play, each interaction a scene reinforcing his centrality.
The pinnacle arrives with Allyra, the third Immoless, whose defiance ignites his most elaborate production. He spies her boiling vampires on The Sombre, mesmerises her briefly only to find resistance. Gifts follow: the raven Ghorab for messages, brandy laced with serum. She resists, swaps flasks, fakes compliance. Nicolas dances on her deck, levitates, performs. Obsession blooms into courtship, theatrical and absurd. He lets her escape Lucia, stages hunts in the hall of mirrors, turns the chapel into a theatre for her benefit. The Dokeshi Carnival becomes their stage, croquet hoops of bent tributes, run rabbit through rigged corridors. Every glance, every escape attempt, every intimate surrender is scripted for his gaze.
Yet theatre demands escalation. When she seeks the Ad Sex Speculum, trades Electi souls for mirrors, he watches through his own veiled glass. Her blood mosaic grows—Immortalis, noble, possessed, Lilith’s—each acquisition a scene in his grand design. Jealousy fractures him: Theaten’s wager, Anne’s dalliance, Elyas’s games. He drugs her, resets memories, tests loyalty with Lucia’s flesh. The Spine-Cracker awaits, a golden cage of drips and wires, to quieten her forever. Obsession, once playful hunts and mirrored dances, curdles into possession’s iron grip.
In Corax, obsession is theatre, and Nicolas its eternal director. The asylum’s filth, the clocks’ discord, the screams’ cadence—all props in his unending act. Allyra, his crowning obsession, proves the finest role: resistant ingenue turned captive queen, her every defiance a cue for his next cue. He watches, directs, consumes, and the curtain never falls.
Immortalis Book One August 2026