The House That Fed Shadows”

The screen—woven from lacquered paper, stitched in black thread and bloodroot ink—shuddered once.

Then it began to speak.

No sound. Just motion.

A mansion. Decaying. Ornate iron gates yawning open like a beast's jaw. Beneath a violet sky, a procession of chained humans shuffled forward—some limping, others dragged. No screams. No names. Just wide eyes and broken silence.

Inside, they were thrown—hurled—into vast pits carved into the floor. Pits that writhed. Pits where bones shifted like teeth waiting for marrow.

One woman tried to run.

Her legs were broken.

Another fell to her knees, clutching a charm to her chest.

Her mouth was stitched shut.

They bled. And something beneath the floor drank.

The footage twisted—grain distorting like an eye trying not to blink. And then it shifted.

---

A new scene.

A clearing of ancient stone, lit by lightning that never touched ground. Ten jagged pillars surrounded a glyph etched into the mossy earth. Symbols danced—some in chalk, some in blood, some in something that shimmered like regret given form.

At the glyph's center knelt a girl. No older than sixteen. Marked with sigils that pulsed—not with light, but with presence. Her breath was ragged. Her eyes were gone.

A voice emerged—not from the screen, but from beneath it. From under the stone. A woman's voice, cracked and breaking, sharp as splintered bone.

> "Do you know what the Hingchas are?"

> "Not monsters. Not gods. Byproducts."

"Things born when the human soul is hollowed out and fed to the dark between worlds."

"And our family—the Williams—perfected the ritual that gave them birth."

Then came the figure.

She stepped into the frame from smoke. Her robes were ash-grey, torn at the sleeves. Blood caked her fingers, her cheek, her throat. Yet her spine was straight, her gaze unwavering.

> Her voice cracked like old porcelain—rage pressed tight behind brittle civility.

> "They called it legacy. They called it honor."

"But it was hunger. And they fed it with children."

Her eyes rose. Locked with the camera. Or with whoever dared watch.

> "Can you ever forgive a William?" she asked.

---

The screen trembled—glitched—then crumbled to ash.

And behind it, hidden until now, was the truth.

Seven ritual circles, burnt into the stone walls of the chamber like scars that never healed. Each one a perfect ring of blackened earth, ringed in runes that pulsed faintly even now. At their centers—names.

Althea. Noorn. Revka. Silien. Miira. Thes.

And at the very end, carved deeper than the rest:

Ivansia Williams.

A painting hung above it.

A teenage girl. Her golden eyes gleamed faintly, her lips drawn in a careful, elegant smile. And yet—something was off.

> Her smile… wasn't the same as it had been. It had grown, just enough to notice. Too perfect. Too wide.

> And the glass covering the portrait—was fogged from the inside.

---

Atiya's breath caught.

Her hand hovered over the hilt of her blade—not in readiness, but in instinctive recoil. Her shoulders shook once, a shiver not of fear, but of rage she hadn't yet named.

Zelaine stood beside her, arms locked at his sides. His pupils were dilated. Sweat glistened down his temple despite the room's unnatural chill.

> "What… what are they calling?" he whispered.

There was no answer. But they both felt it.

Something in the ritual circle still listened. Something remembered.

> "We can't stop what's been done," Atiya muttered, voice like stone scraped against steel.

"But we can damn well make sure it ends here."

She stepped forward. Torchlight kissed her skin, casting her face in gold and shadow. Zelaine followed—but slower. As if the air thickened with each step toward the altar.

And then, they saw her.

A figure standing in the center of the chamber, beside the largest ritual circle. Blood dripped from her chin. Her eyes were rimmed with violet exhaustion. But she stood tall. The ritual knife still warm in her hand.

She turned to them—not startled. Not ashamed.

Just done.

> "Look at what I've done," she said.

"Look closely."

She raised her hands—palms open, fingers slick with crimson.

> "The blood of my kin stains these hands, and I wear it like a badge of honor."

"For generations, the House of Williams bowed to shadows. To things they didn't understand. They called it divine. They were fools."

> "I watched. Since childhood. As they dragged innocents into that circle. As they chanted names that made the air shiver. As they fed flesh to the spaces between. And they expected me to continue it."

Her eyes gleamed now—madness threading through the fire.

> "Tonight, I ended them."

> "My father was the last. He smiled as I approached—thinking I had finally joined them. That I had embraced the blood."

"I used their sacred blade. The same one they spilled generations with. I cut his throat with it. And the shadows—they pulled back."

She laughed once. Dry. Hollow.

> "Call me murderer if you must."

"But some family trees… deserve to be cut down at the root."

Her voice faded.

The portrait behind her—Ivansia's golden gaze—shimmered. Her smile twitched. Just a flicker. But enough.

Zelaine flinched.

> "Did you see that?" he breathed.

Atiya didn't answer.

She was already reaching for her blade.

---

The portrait behind her—Ivansia Williams—shimmered again.

Not from the torchlight.

Something beneath the paint moved.

The golden eyes blinked once.

Then a voice echoed—not from the canvas, but from the walls, the floor, the stones themselves.

> "Can you ever forgive a William?"

It wasn't pleading.

It wasn't hopeful.

It was old. Tired. As if this question had been asked too many times, and the answer never mattered.

Atiya stepped forward.

His boots scraped ash from the floor. The air tightened around him, charged—like the sky before a storm.

He looked up at the portrait. And spoke like he was speaking to history.

> "Forgive?"

His voice was low, iron-lined. Calm in the way a blade is calm before it splits bone.

> "Forgiveness is a luxury for those who deserve it."

He let the words settle—like thunder rumbling from the horizon.

> "The Williams fed their own people to the dark. Hollowed children into vessels. Built thrones out of suffering. You think killing your own erases that?"

He took another step. Torchlight caught the angular lines of his face—sharp, shadowed, unreadable.

> "No. That's not redemption. That's maintenance."

He stared at the portrait—Ivansia's too-wide smile, the glass fogged from the inside, the eyes that almost knew him.

> "I don't forgive monsters."

"I don't forgive those who chose shadows over blood."

> "But—"

A pause. Thin. Cold. Measured.

> "I respect the strength it takes to break the cycle."

His voice dropped, like the last word before a storm tears the world open.

> "If you want forgiveness… earn it. Be more than the blood you come from. Be more than the blade you hold."

> "Until then, don't ask if a William can be forgiven."

He tilted his head slightly. No hatred in his eyes—just truth.

> "Ask if the world can afford to forgive what your family unleashed."

And the smile in the portrait—just for a second—twitched wider.

Almost as if it was listening.

Or waiting.

---

For a moment, Zelaine just stared.

Mouth slightly open. Eyes blank. Horror forgotten.

He looked at Atiya like he was seeing him for the first time.

> That… that was cool. Too damn cool.

All the blood, the ritual scars, the eldritch portrait whispering through reality — and what stuck in her mind was him, standing beneath that cursed painting, firelit and furious, speaking like a storm with a sword tucked behind his tongue.

> He saved me from the ANSEP implosion.

He dragged me here—through smoke, through screams, through that twisted fucking teleport.

And now this? That dialogue? Did he rehearse that in the mirror?

Zelaine blinked once.

> No way. This has to be an illusion. Another trick from the Hingcha. There's no way Atiya's that composed. That heroic. That... ugh.

She looked down, lips pressing tight.

> I've been flailing like a panic-stricken squirrel this entire time, and he's walking around like a storm god on a schedule.

And then—

The room pulsed once. The torches dimmed.

A voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. It was neither male nor female, and it didn't echo like sound — it nested inside their heads.

> "You have passed the first trial."

The ritual circles faded to ash.

Ivansia's portrait cracked — not broken, but exhaled.

And just like that, the chamber began to change.