You can't outrun the past.But maybe you can blind it with fire.
The streets outside the safehouse were smeared in hues of neon and decay, a bruised underbelly of a city that had forgotten how to sleep. Buzzing signs advertised languages lost to time. A billboard flickered above a rusted tram: "Become Who You Were Supposed To Be," the text glitching every other word.
Asher stepped into the fog-drenched alley, boots clicking softly against broken glass and oil-slick pavement. His breath fogged the air. Not from cold—but pressure. The kind that wrapped around your ribs and whispered: Don't breathe too deep. Something's watching.
He tightened his grip around the handle of his knife. The real one—not the metaphor.
He wasn't running.Not this time.
Something moved in the corner of his eye—a flicker just past the realm of reason.
And then she stepped into the light.
A woman, tall and still, framed in the halo of a broken streetlamp. Her eyes were oil-black whirlpools, rimmed in red like she hadn't slept since the world began. She wore a long coat made of something too heavy to be cloth. And when she smiled, it looked like it hurt.
"You've been looking for answers," she rasped, her voice like gravel dragged across velvet. "Maybe you should be asking better questions."
[Spice Tension – Enter: Dahlia]
Asher's body tensed. "Who are you?"
"I'm Dahlia. But names mean little in a city where faces lie and memories rot."
She stepped closer, her boots silent, as if the ground feared making noise beneath her. Her presence was intoxicating—like standing too close to fire and pretending you didn't feel the burn.
"They say you dream in knives," Asher said, eyeing her cautiously.
"They say a lot of things," she replied with a grin that never touched her eyes. "Some say I used to be human. Others say I never was."
Asher didn't respond. He didn't have to. She circled him like a predator playing with its prey.
"You want to know why the Variant looked at you like that. Why the mirror bled when you touched it. Why your dreams leave claw marks."
He stared.
Dahlia tilted her head. "You're a door, Asher. But you were never meant to open."
[The Puzzle Pieces Begin to Align]
She withdrew something from her coat. A photograph. A younger Asher—standing beside someone with white hair. Neither smiled. Both wore crowns made of broken gears.
Asher's stomach dropped. "Where did you get this?"
"It came from the Archive Below," Dahlia said. "The place even time refuses to remember."
She offered it to him. Asher took it with trembling fingers.
"The truth isn't just buried," she whispered. "It's been weaponized."
Asher looked up. "Why me?"
"Because you made a deal," she said, her tone sudden ice. "A long time ago. One you don't remember."
Her coat shifted, and from within, she pulled out a knife the color of midnight. It vibrated in the air, humming like it was alive.
"I brought this for you."
---------------------------------------
Creepy Moment – The Knife's Whisper
She pressed the blade to his palm—barely a graze.
And in that instant, Asher was elsewhere.
He stood on a hill of bone beneath a black sky. A tower of mirrors loomed in the distance, each one cracked, screaming with the face of someone he could've been. A thousand Ashers. A thousand deaths.
When he snapped back, his nose was bleeding.
Dahlia smiled softly. "It recognizes you."
He wiped his face. "What the hell are you?"
"Not your enemy. Not yet."
Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine.
A blur surged from the shadows—no footsteps, no sound. Asher rolled to the side on instinct. A blade sliced air where his neck had been.
Two figures now. One tall, broad, moving like a machine. The other… inhumanly thin, with eyes that burned like dying suns.
Dahlia stepped back, content to watch.
"You'll want to be quick," she called. "They don't tire."
Asher moved, striking first. His knife met flesh—or something close to it. The tall one stumbled, growling low and wet. The second launched forward, a blur of claws and teeth. Asher blocked it barely, staggering from the force.
Pain flared down his ribs. He didn't have time to bleed.
The world narrowed into instinct and movement.
And then—a whisper. In his own voice.
"You won't survive this time."
He faltered.
The demon lunged.
[End Of Chapter 15]
-----------------------------
A gunshot split the silence.
The creature stopped—jerked back—and dropped.
Behind it stood Liora, a pistol still smoking in her gloved hand, her other hand flipping her hair.
"Need backup?" she asked, striding forward, blood on her boots and satisfaction in her grin. "Or were you planning on dying fashionably?"
Asher let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"You took your time."
"I bring style. Not speed."
But behind her, something shimmered in the air. Another figure. Another version.
This one had wings.
And it was smiling.
Preview:
Chapter 16 – "The Price of Shadows"
The deeper Asher goes, the more fractured his reality becomes. With enemies wearing his face and allies hiding knives in their hearts, trust becomes a luxury. But when shadows start whispering truths only he should know… who's really in control?