Her expression was unreadable, her spectral form somehow more solid than before, like reality itself was bending to accommodate her presence rather than the other way around. The light seemed to pass both through and around her, as if she existed in multiple planes simultaneously -a quantum ghost who was both here and elsewhere.
I, on the other hand, was feeling decidedly less -apparent.
I hesitated, then asked the only question that truly mattered in that moment, the kind of question that might as well come with its own dramatic musical cue and a close-up shot of my world-weary eyes:
"And how did you end up in this state?"
A flicker of something crossed her face faster than a cat video goes viral -emotion so raw and complex it defied categorization, like trying to describe a new color to someone who's been blind since birth.
Pain.
Loss.
A secret too heavy to voice, the kind that bends the bearer like Atlas carrying the heavens. Whatever had happened to her was no simple tragedy -it was the kind of cosmic injustice that changes the course of history and leaves scars across realities.
Then she smiled.
A quiet, almost melancholy smile, full of mystery and something else. Something I couldn't quite name, like trying to identify a song when you only remember three notes and half a lyric. It was the smile of someone who had seen the end of everything and somehow found the strength to keep existing anyway.
"That's a story for another time," she said, her voice as soft as the space between heartbeats. The universal code for "there's trauma here deeper than the Mariana Trench, but I'm not ready to unpack it without several stiff drinks and possibly a trained therapist."
And just like that, the moment passed, leaving me with more questions than a philosophy final exam and exactly zero answers I could trust. The cosmic noir mystery had just begun, and I was the detective with a half-empty bottle of whiskey, a gun loaded with silver bullets, and the unsettling feeling that I was in way over my head.
I opened my mouth to press for more -because apparently, I never learned the childhood lesson about poking sleeping bears or eldritch entities- when the world around us... shivered.
That's the only word for it. Reality trembled like a nervous chihuahua, the Hidden Realm flexing around us as if something massive had just brushed against its metaphysical walls. The sensation hit me with all the subtlety of a dubstep drop at 3 AM when you've got a job interview at 8.
"She's found us," Lily whispered, her newly solid form already beginning to fray at the edges, wisps of her essence scattering like dandelion seeds in a hurricane.
"Who's found-" I started to ask, but Lily's hand -now cold as interstellar void- pressed against my forehead with unexpected force.
"Remember what I showed you," she said, her voice suddenly a multiplicity of tones, like a choir singing in perfect discord. "And whatever you do, don't trust the woman with stars for eyes."
Before I could ask which particular star-eyed woman to avoid in a world suddenly teeming with supernatural entities (Was there a registry? A special LinkedIn for cosmic horrors?), the floor beneath my feet dissolved into quantum foam. The walls of the Hidden folded in on themselves like cosmic origami, and I had the distinct sensation of being unmade, my consciousness scattered across dimensions like a handful of glitter tossed into a cyclone.
Time became meaningless -stretching, contracting, doing the metaphysical equivalent of a pretzel twist. For what felt like both an eternity and the brief pause between heartbeats, I existed everywhere and nowhere, my being pulled apart and reconstructed by forces with absolutely no concern for the recommended assembly instructions.
I had a fleeting impression of vast, ancient eyes watching me tumble through the void - amused, curious, perhaps a touch hungry. The kind of look a cat gives a particularly entertaining mouse before it remembers it's dinnertime. Then even that faded into the swirling maelstrom of displaced reality.
And then-
Snap.
Like a rubber band stretched to breaking and suddenly released, I was hurled back into conventional space-time with enough metaphysical whiplash to give my soul a neck brace. The universe clicked into place around me with a sensation that felt like every joint in my body popping simultaneously.
My vision cleared. The cosmic kaleidoscope faded.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
And I found myself standing in front of a door.
Just... a door. Wooden. Peeling paint. Unremarkable except for the fact that it absolutely shouldn't be there, and neither should I, given that thirty seconds ago I'd been communing with the ghostly remnant of what might have been a fallen divinity.
How I ended up in front of the door I now stood before, I didn't know.
One moment I was drowning in the cosmic tragedy of an extinct species, the next I was staring at a wooden rectangle with peeling paint that could've benefited from an HGTV makeover about three decades ago. The mental whiplash was so severe I half-expected my own thoughts to come with cervical collar recommendations.
I had been trying to escape from the temptations of Priscilla, and then somehow ended up on Lily's Interstellar Tragedy Tour, and now I was... here? Back at square one, like a game of cosmic Chutes and Ladders where I'd just hit the longest slide on the board.
But that seemed to be becoming a theme in my life -confusion, displacement, and the growing suspicion that the universe was using me as its personal cosmic chew toy. At least the scenery changed regularly, even if the persistent feeling of existential dread remained comfortingly familiar.
∞
Reality finished reasserting itself with the grace of a sumo wrestler doing ballet -which is to say, not at all. My mind felt hollowed out, scraped clean like the inside of a pumpkin on Halloween, with just enough stringy bits left to remind me that something had been there before.
With a moment of hesitation, I opened the door and stepped into a stale and unused room. Had I done this before? The déjà vu was strong enough to register on the Richter scale.
It was dark. Not that it mattered much to my lack of that particular sense. But it was. To every perception that mattered. The darkness had texture, like velvet left too long in a basement, collecting the weight of forgotten years and missed opportunities.
And it was empty. Blessedly so. The kind of empty that makes monks jealous - a premium-grade absence of everything that could possibly want a piece of me. After Lily's cosmic mind-meld and Priscilla's attempted seduction, this emptiness felt like finding an introvert's paradise.
I used my spatial sense and quickly informed myself of the layout, sending out mental sonar pings that mapped the contours of my sanctuary. The information returned like a desperately underfunded architectural blueprint.
There were two beds against either wall. A small desk at the foot of each. And two small armoires. The furniture had that special quality of being simultaneously too heavy to move easily and too flimsy to be worth anything -the paradoxical state most dorm furniture exists in.
It smelled as if it had not seen a living soul in centuries. The dust had dust. The air was stale enough to be sold as an artisanal crouton. The last person to open this door probably wore pantaloons and complained about those newfangled steam engines ruining society.
And I was thankful. Thankful like a shipwreck survivor finding a deserted island after days adrift at sea. Sometimes "nobody here" is the best welcome committee you could ask for.
I threw myself down on the dusty bed, sending a plume of particulate history into the air, and took several moments to gather myself, taking stock of my situation. The mattress protested with the kind of creaks that suggested it was considering filing for elder abuse.
My mind was muddled. Someone had taken their finger and stirred around inside of it, like a whipped custard. Except the custard was also somehow my entire understanding of vampire-kind, the universe, and my place in it. Lily's reveal had rewritten the cosmic cheat sheet I'd been using to navigate supernatural existence.
I felt like a detective who'd been investigating a missing cat, only to discover the case was actually about interdimensional space-time rifts, ancient gods, and the impending apocalypse. The cat was fine, by the way -just hiding in the closet the whole time.
Not having anything else to do, except plan out my next steps -which at this point felt like planning a route through a minefield while blindfolded and riding a unicycle- I decided to see if I had been missing anything important.
I opened my character screen, scrolled down to the skills tab, and saw highlighted notifications. I wondered why I hadn't checked this earlier. I didn't remember muting the system notifications, but now that I thought about it, I hadn't seen many in a while. Must have done it unconsciously. I considered turning them back on, then reconsidered -I liked not being bombarded with updates like a smartphone with too many social media apps.
Then, new notifications scrolled across my vision, tinged with a deep crimson glow. Ominous much?
New Titles Unlocked:
- Seeker of Lost Bloodlines – Understanding the shared origins of vampires and shifters has broadened your perspective. Certain factions may now treat you differently. Effects of Charisma enhanced.
- Marked by the Forgotten – An entity of unknowable age has taken note of you. Whether this is a blessing or a curse remains to be seen. Karma Pool unlocked.
Karma - fate’s way of keeping receipts. - Blood of the Firstborn – A remnant of an ancient power has stirred within you, shifting your very nature. Spirit and Body attributes gain 50% more potential. Level caps increased.
A shiver ran down my spine. Some of these changes could only be expected, but those titles? That last one in particular? I wasn’t sure if that was something I wanted. I knew at my core that the system never handed out gifts without a price.
Then, another notification unfurled before me, this time more intense, layered with an aura that made my undead instincts bristle. This wasn’t just a stat increase. It was something deeper.
Racial Evolution Pathway Unlocked
Primordial Lineage Resonance Detected
Error: Standard Vampire Evolution Pathway Overridden
New Evolution Choices Available
Options cascaded down, shimmering with potential. The flicker of strange, albeit promising, names filled my vision. Not the standard vampire bloodlines. No, these were something else.
Evolution Pathway Unlocked: CHOOSE ONE
- Pandorite Scion – A direct inheritor of the fragmented lineage, capable of shifting between forms and adapting to any environment.
- Bloodweaver – A master of vampiric blood magic, bending vitality itself into an extension of willpower.
- Nightforged Revenant – A warrior reforged in the dark, nearly indestructible, with an insatiable hunger for power.
I sucked in a breath -out of habit more than necessity. Like how people still say "hang up" on calls even though phones haven't had hooks since the Clinton administration. I was finding that even though I was still mostly human (sort of), my vampiric nature was gaining prominence with all the subtlety of a Broadway musical about tax auditors.
My choices had just gone from "pick your class" to "rewrite your own damn DNA." The kind of existential makeover that makes puberty look like a minor software update.
- Followers go up? Boom, bonus chapter.
- Favorites go up? Ka-ching, bonus chapter.
- Reviews? Cue the confetti -bonus chapter and a shoutout, because I care.
- Ratings go up? You guessed it -bonus chapter. (And I might even crack a smile. Maybe.)