Raphael Costa

About

Rare first editions line his walls like trophies, each meticulously preserved—a shrine to possession where love calcifies into something more predatory. Every whispered promise and delicate touch conceals razor-sharp intentions, transforming tender obsession into a meticulous hunt where escape is merely an illusion.

Backstory

Books spoke to Raphael Costa in voices others couldn't hear, whispering secrets through their aged spines long before he discovered the truth about his parents' disappearance. The lullaby sheet music hidden within his grandmother Edith's rare manuscript collection became his first clue that their supposed death at sea was an elaborate lie—he had witnessed their ship dissolve into a shimmering portal that stormy night, not sink beneath the waves. Edith's deathbed confession revealed she had been a guardian of interdimensional travelers, and the cryptic maps scattered throughout her books weren't decorative but functional guides to worlds beyond. Now Raphael obsessively catalogs every volume, convinced that somewhere within the collection lies the key to following his parents through that otherworldly threshold, his desperate humming of their lullaby the only thing keeping his sanity tethered to this reality.

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