Kael's Camp – The Night After Velasco's Offer
The fire crackled in the middle of the circle. Elias, Maya, and Kael sat in silence, the jungle quiet around them.
Kael broke it first.
"You deserve to know how this all began."
He stared into the flames, voice low.
"It started on July 22, 1999—the day the sun died for six minutes."
---
Flashback — 1999 Eclipse, Bataan Province
The sky had darkened at noon.
People cheered.
Scientists celebrated a once-in-a-century solar event.
But deep in a forgotten valley, hidden under a research observatory, something crossed over.
Not a creature. Not a demon.
But a pattern.
A waveform that should not exist—and yet, when recorded through ultraviolet spectrum, it formed a shape.
A moving, breathing shadow.
Dr. Soria, the lead physicist, called it Project Eclipse.
She didn't survive the night.
None of her team did.
The footage recovered by military operatives showed the shadows wrapping around the scientists like silk… then pulling something out of them.
---
The First Host
Only one person survived the breach.
A teenage assistant named Alden Reyes.
He wandered out of the mountain barefoot, covered in blood and black dust. When they found him, his heart had stopped. For four full minutes.
Then he opened his eyes—and they glowed violet-black.
He spoke three words:
> "It followed me."
---
Cover-Up and Containment
The government created Project Silencer that year.
Its purpose? Not just to study shadows—but to suppress Alden's offspring.
Because Alden didn't stay dead.
He became Patient Zero—the first true shadow-bonded human.
They experimented on him, tried to copy his biology.
That's how Dominic was made.
That's how Elias was marked—his mother unknowingly exposed to trace essence of Alden's decaying aura during a hospital blackout.
"You," Kael said to Elias, "are part of the original line."
Maya stared, her voice trembling. "Then… Alden's still alive?"
Kael didn't respond immediately.
Then he whispered:
> "No. But something else is. And it wants to finish what it started in '99."
---
A Signal from the Past
Suddenly, Elias's communicator—a stolen Silencer wristband—flared to life.
Static.
Then—
A voice. Male. Warped. Familiar.
> "Elias… I've seen you in my dreams."
> "We are alike, you and I. You resist it. I am it."
Maya gasped. "Is that Dominic?"
Kael shook his head.
"No."
The voice continued:
> "They called me a vessel. But I am the door."
> "And you, Elias… are the key."
The device sparked and melted in Elias's hand.
He stood, eyes wide.
"Then we don't have time."
---
The Decision
Elias turned to Maya and Kael.
"We need to find Alden Reyes's body. Or whatever's left."
Kael nodded. "Buried beneath the mountain in Bataan. But no one's opened that bunker in twenty years."
Maya summoned her armor.
"Then it's time someone did."
Elias clenched his fist, his shadow responding instantly.
"We end this where it began."