Prologue
Nicola glanced over her shoulder as she ran through the dark streets, her lungs burning so much it felt as if her throat was being scraped by broken glass. Panic pushed her forward even when her body begged her to stop. Her legs shook from exhaustion, her chest burned painfully and her heart pounded so hard that she could hear it.
Behind her, in the darkness, two red eyes gleamed. The creature was getting closer.
“I’m not going to make it.” She thought, tears slipping down her face as she forced herself to keep moving.
Only a few hours earlier, her parents had thrown her out of the house.
She still couldn’t understand. The same people who promised to protect her now looked at her in terror, as if she was someone dangerous. Now she was hunted by a nightmare monster.
She screamed for help as she ran, but her voice barely came out.
The streets were empty and silent. It felt as if the entire city had abandoned her.
Suddenly, her legs failed beneath her, and she crashed against the cold pavement. Pain exploded through her knees and palms. She tried to stand again, but her muscles no longer obeyed hThe creature stepped closer. Under the weak orange glow of the streetlights, she finally saw it clearly; its skin was black and wrinkled like burnt flesh. Saliva dripped between sharp yellow teeth. Long claws scraped against the asphalt with a metallic sound that made her stomach twist.
Nicola froze, and the monster struck her as if she weighed nothing. Her body slammed against a nearby wall, and a scream tore itself from her throat as something inside her leg snapped. When she looked down, a piece of white bone protruded through the flesh.
For a moment, she could only stare, but then instinct took over.
She dragged herself across the ground as the creature approached. The roughness burned her skin; she ignored it. In the distance, voices blurred. Maybe she was hallucinating; maybe this was dying. She closed her eyes and prayed to something, somewhere.
“Please don’t let this be real… Please make it disappear. Someone save me. Please…” However, something inside shifted. There was no saviour. When she opened her eyes again, the fear was still there, but now there was anger and a deep, suffocating rage.
Her parents had thrown her away on her sixteenth birthday without even explaining why. She had lost everything, and now this thing wanted to kill her, too?
Slowly, trembling violently, she forced herself back up, careful not to put weight on her broken leg.
To her surprise, the creature stopped moving and looked as if it were waiting.
The rage intensified.
“What are you waiting for?” she shouted, her voice cracking. “Come on then. Finish it!”
The creature lashed out again, throwing her back onto the ground, and all of her emotions exploded and rushed through her veins like fire.
“Go back to where you came from.”
The voice that escaped her lips did not sound entirely like her own.
Black mist rose from the pavement around the creature, twisting and curling through the air like living smoke. The monster let out an inhuman scream as the darkness swallowed it whole and disappeared.
The strange strength drained from her body instantly, and Nicola collapsed unconscious on the ground.
