The path curved into a clearing—a small glade, circular, perfectly quiet.
Too quiet. The air shifted, like exhaling after a held breath.
Emma hesitated.
The fog didn't reach the center. Sunlight, pale and dappled, filtered through the trees. Flowers grew along the edge—vivid purples and whites. Birds chirped above. Time is something that she can't control on, neither she knows how many hours exactly its been since she enter the ground.
It was… beautiful. Wrongly beautiful. Emma took a cautious step in.
And that's when she heard it: "Emma."
She turned—heart freezing in her chest.
Sebastian.
Bloody. Shirt torn at the collar. Gashes along his arms. He limped toward her, eyes wild, chest heaving like he'd run for miles.
"What—how are you here?" she breathed.
His voice cracked. "You were right."
Emma stumbled forward, emotions crashing all at once.
"You were right about me," he said. "I tried to fight it. The bond. You. Everything. But it's killing me."
Her heart twisted. "Sebastian…"
He reached for her hand. "Come back with me. Before it's too late."
And for a second—for a heartbeat—she wanted to. She is still that innocent little girl deep somewhere who wants to be loved.
So, She took one step forward. And then another.
Their fingers touched. His skin was cold. Too cold.
Her eyes flicked to his chest—no heartbeat. No rise. No breath.
No scent.
Her instincts screamed too late. She pulled the ceremonial blade from her belt in one fluid motion and— Drove it into his chest. He didn't flinch.
He smiled.
The illusion shattered. There was no Sebastian.
No clearing. No flowers.
No sunlight. Only Emma.
Kneeling in the mud.
And a blade buried in the chest of a bleeding, ghost-white version of herself.
Eyes wide. Mouth gasping.
It was her—the version who never fought back, who believed she was unworthy of love. The girl who would've followed an illusion into ruin.
Emma stumbled back, tears flooding her eyes.
"No…" she whispered. "No, I didn't mean to—"
But the figure faded, melting into fog.
The forest whispered again, this time quieter.
Not cruel.
Curious.
"You kill what you cling to."
Emma stood, breath ragged.
"No," she said. "I kill what kills me."
She gripped the blade tighter, voice raw. "I'm not falling for the past again."
The trees rustled softly.
As if they approved.
The shattered image of herself still lingered in her vision as Emma staggered back from the glade, the blade slick with the illusion's blood. Her breath rasped like broken glass in her chest. Fog clung to her like spider silk, and the trees… the trees were no longer silent.
They whispered. Her name.
Her real name.
"Emaria Duskborne."
It cracked through the woods like thunder, and Emma froze. No one had called her that in years. Not since— A voice echoed from the trees. A child's voice. High and lilting, yet older than time.
"What is not born but always dies? What follows you but cannot be seen?"
A riddle.
It echoed again, closer now. Etched into the bark of a tree before her, a symbol appeared—three crescent moons, each inverted, carved by an invisible hand.
Emma's voice was barely a whisper. "My shadow…"
The tree groaned. The bark opened, revealing a shimmer—like a memory sealed in amber.
She reached for it. And the forest took her.
The Memory That Bleeds
The moment her fingers brushed the shimmer, the world bent.
The forest vanished. The fog did not.
She stood beneath a bruised sky, the moons above her blood-red and low, the stars swallowed whole by night. Around her, a memory unraveled—not like a vision, but a place she could walk through. Be in. Bleed in.
It was her childhood room—half-decayed, yet preserved in emotion. She saw the worn wooden crib, the shattered porcelain moon on the wall. Shadows stretched unnaturally across the floor.
And in the center of it all… a woman.
Not cloaked. Not hidden.
Her mother.
But younger. Sharper. Eyes like frost and flame.
Emma couldn't move. She couldn't breathe.
The woman turned, speaking not to Emma—but to a man whose back faced her, cloaked in shadows.
"She was born under a cursed night," the mother spat. "The wolves howled backward. Even the moon turned its face away."
"You think she's dangerous," the man replied. His voice was low. Gentle. Familiar. "But danger does not mean evil."
The mother hissed, "She's not a child. She's a prophecy."
The scene twisted—shuddered like glass warping under heat—and the man turned.
Emma gasped.
She didn't recognize his face—but his eyes were Kia's.
Her son's.
Before she could speak, the vision snapped like a thread pulled too tight.
She was alone again.
But her palm burned.
She looked down—etched into her skin was a single line, glowing faintly like ember ash.
"The moon remembers what the pack forgets." And after that something unbelievable started
The Lullaby and the Beast
The whispering trees gave no rest.
She stumbled forward through a corridor of bone-pale trees, her breath catching on every cold draft of wind. Then—music.
A lullaby.
Soft.
So painfully familiar it made her knees tremble.
Hush now, little flame...
Ashes to skies,
Blood knows your name...
Emma spun.
A figure sat on a stone in the clearing ahead—a woman in a red veil, humming with her back turned.
Emma stepped closer, heart screaming.
"Who are you?"
The woman's voice was like crushed velvet.
"I was the first to sing to you. The one you forgot. The one they erased."
Emma's lip trembled. "Are you—"
But the woman vanished before the question could leave her mouth.
And in her place…
The beast came.
It stepped from the shadows like it had always been there—towering, black as spilled ink, eyes glowing silver.
It had no face.
No features.
But it breathed her fear.
Emma stumbled back, weaponless—until the moonlight caught on something at her feet.
The blade. Her mother's blade. The one given to her before the trial. It shimmered now with the same crescents from the tree.
The beast lunged.
She didn't fight with brute force—she listened. It circled her. Each step it took echoed like a riddle.
"What cannot be touched, but scars you forever?"
Her answer came in a whisper.
"Memory."
The blade pulsed. The beast howled.
And when she struck—it vanished into smoke. Now she can't differeciate between what's true and what's illusion she lied on the ground staring at the moon tear falling down her eyes and she felt someone's presence as she closed her eyes. Who is it now an illusion or another dark past.