Prologue

Marisol wandered aimlessly near the edge of the forest, her steps dragging as if the ground itself resisted her passage. Her torn clothes hung loose on her frame, stained with mud and blood, while her eyes—once bright with curiosity—were now hollow, haunted by the weight of what she had done.

When the authorities found her, she didn't resist. She stood silently as they cuffed her wrists, their voices cold and clinical as they cataloged her state.

"A disturbed girl," they called her.

"A killer cloaked in mysteries," another muttered.

She wanted to scream, to tell them everything—the Core, the seeds, the monstrous power that had consumed her. But their eyes held no understanding, only fear. To them, she was delusional, a danger to the fragile balance of their normal lives.

They locked her away in an institution, a place meant to bury the unwanted pieces of society.

Her room was a suffocating box of sterility. The white walls were stark and unyielding, their brightness oppressive. Every shadow that crept across them felt out of place, a reminder of something she had lost. The connection to the shadows—the power that had both protected and cursed her—was severed.

And with it, Eri was gone.

Marisol sat on the edge of her cot, her fingers tracing faint scars etched across her palms. Without Eri, she felt hollow, as if someone had reached inside her chest and torn out the parts that mattered most. Her days passed in silence, her thoughts spiraling through endless voids of "what ifs."

Sometimes, she caught the whispers of the staff as they passed her door. Their voices were low, but they carried.

"She's not just a girl," one said. "The things she did… no normal person could do that."

"Maybe she's not entirely human," came another voice, softer, uncertain.

Marisol closed her eyes, the words cutting deeper than she would ever admit. A monster. Not human.

Perhaps they were right.

The night of her eighteenth birthday was quiet, the kind of quiet that made her chest feel tight. She leaned back against the cold wall, her head tilted toward the ceiling. Her breaths came slow and measured, the sound of her own heartbeat loud in the stillness.

For hours, she stayed like that, staring at nothing, feeling the nothingness press back against her. Then, as the clock ticked past midnight, the air shifted.

It started with a faint hum, low and resonant, that seemed to seep into her bones. The room grew colder, the chill sinking through her thin clothes and prickling her skin. Marisol sat up, her eyes darting toward the corners of her cell, where the darkness seemed to deepen unnaturally.

The hum grew louder.

From the edges of the room, tendrils of shadow began to unfurl, their movements deliberate and serpentine. Marisol's breath hitched as they spread along the walls and floor, twisting together until they formed a shimmering rift, pulsating with an eerie crimson and black light.

The room trembled.

A voice echoed from the rift, low and commanding, like the rumble of a distant storm.

"It's time."

Marisol stood, her legs shaky beneath her, but she couldn't look away from the rift. Her reflection caught her eye in the cracked surface of the window—except it wasn't her reflection.

The girl staring back at her had sharp, glowing eyes and hair as dark as midnight. Her clothes twisted and reformed, morphing into a Gothic Lolita dress edged with lace and subtle crimson embroidery. It was a look both alien and unnervingly familiar, as if it had always been waiting beneath the surface.

The shadows coiled tighter around her, rising like living armor, and with them came a voice—not the one from the rift, but one from deep inside her.

"You're incomplete," it whispered, a mix of temptation and certainty. "But you could be more."

Her breath quickened, her heart pounding as the shadows whispered again, louder this time.

"Let me show you what you're meant to be."

She clenched her fists, the scars on her palms burning faintly as the shadows surged. The name she had whispered in fear so many times now felt like a declaration.

"I'm not Marisol," she said, her voice steady despite the tremor in her hands. She met her reflection's gaze and smirked faintly. "I'm Eri. And I'm done running."

The rift pulsed, its light casting strange, jagged shadows across the walls. As Eri stepped forward, the voice from the rift spoke again.

"You've always been more than this world could handle. Come. Let's rewrite fate together."

Eri didn't hesitate. She walked into the rift, the shadows wrapping around her like an embrace.

As the light dimmed, the rift began to close, its edges crackling with raw energy. The room grew quiet once more, the oppressive white walls untouched by the events that had just transpired.

The girl who had been Marisol was gone. In her place was a force born of power, doubt, and ambition—Eri, the shadow's heir.

The story was far from over. It had only just begun.