[Location: Morningstar, New York]
I ran all the way from the basement to the kitchen like a starving wolf, lungs burning, legs heavy, vision tunneling in and out. My stomach wasn't just growling—it felt like it was trying to claw through my spine, gnawing from the inside. Every step echoed too loudly in the silent manor halls, each thud of my boots dragging muck across the polished wood floors.
"Food," I muttered under my breath, voice hoarse, dry. "Anything edible. Hell, even semi-edible."
The fluorescent light above the kitchen flickered once before buzzing steadily, stabbing into my skull like a migraine. The polished marble counters reflected the light in hard gleams, too clean, too sterile, almost mocking me. They were pristine, perfect, untouched—like they belonged to a showroom, not a manor where someone had just staggered back from a swamp-dungeon hellscape dripping in poison and blood. The contrast made me dizzy.
