Prologue
For nearly two thousand years a dark energy has roamed the Earth. Feeding on the innocent and possessing the weak. A wise, old crone, long ago, sealed this creature away for many decades. Sadly a few years ago it broke free. It was ruthless, and wanted revenge on human kind, so the attack on our city was brutal.The bloodshed, chaos, and destruction driving us into our homes, locked away, like it’s an apocalypse from one of those horrible zombie movies. Though, zombies would be much easier to kill. This thing is an immortal, bloodthirsty monster ready to kill at any given moment. A plague worse than any we could have ever predicted, with It choosing our fate. We either die or turn into a bloodsucker.
The screams of the dead still haunt the street, keeping the living awake at night. The city is no longer a home; it’s a graveyard of concrete and broken glass. The streets clogged with abandoned cars, many left with their doors hanging open as if their owners had vanished mid-scream. Survival is now a game of silence and scarcity. Every window is boarded shut from the inside, turning once-busy neighborhoods into rows of blind bunkers. A heavy, dark gloom hangs over the sky, never quite letting the sun break through. By day, the brave and the desperate emerge – always on foot, always alone – clutching rusted firearms and empty rucksacks. They pick through the skeletal remains of grocery stores, hunting the aisles for cans of soup or boxes of dry gain, taking only what they can carry and never more than they need. Though the most important thing of all is to be back before nightfall, because staying out past curfew is like digging your own grave.
The only thing keeping the survivors safe is a thin line of ancient logic. These monsters cannot cross a threshold unless they are invited in, and the protection only holds as long as a living human owns the residence. It turns every house into a fortress, but a fragile one. If a homeowner dies or the property is abandoned, the seal vanishes, leaving the rooms open to the dark energy. Because of this, the living stay huddled in the shadows of their own hallways, terrified of a knock at the door or a familiar voice pleading from the other side of the boards.
The only hope the people have is of an old prophecy. A prophecy that came from the old crone herself. They say that after she sealed the monster away, she was weak and used her last breaths telling another village folk to write this down and share it with the world:
“When darkness hath drunk its fill of mortal tears, and the sun
is but a ghost behind the veil, there shall rise a maid of twice-ten
summers. Born of no crown, yet wielding the silver light of the old ways,
she alone shall walk the red-stained streets unbidden. To her, the Beast
shall bow; by her hand, the insatiable thirst shall be quenched. She is the
tether and the blade—the one who shall tame the shadow or drown the world
in its ending. Look to the daughter of silence, for in her veins flows the
banishing fire.”
But prophecies do not fill empty stomachs, and silver light does not mend broken boards. To the people huddled in the cold, the crone’s words are nothing more than a ghost story told to keep the despair at bay. As the dark gloom thickens over the skyline and the first prowling shadows begin to whisper at the door, the city doesn’t look for a savior. It only listens to the ticking of the clock, praying the wood holds, praying the owner breathes another day, and waiting for the sun that never truly shines.
