Before the serpent stirred, before the seals frayed at the edges of time, the bond had already been made.
While you were chosen to protect, someone—unknown, unseen—was chosen to be hollowed.
But not by fate.
Not by the gods.
By something older. Something that whispered long before names were spoken and stars were lit.
It whispered to the Bakunawa once.
And now it whispers again—through another.
The dragon's body remains imprisoned beneath the eastern sea, ancient and still.
But its will—corrupted, infested—slips through cracks in the veil.
It does not need to be free.
It only needs a door.
And it found one.
A vessel.
Not a puppet, not a servant—
but a soul wounded deep enough to be opened from the inside.
This vessel did not fall by weakness.
They fell by waiting.
They waited… for you.
For the moon to return.
For a promise made beneath the old sky, now forgotten.
But time eroded hope.
Silence became grief.
Grief became bitterness.
And bitterness, a chasm.
That chasm was all the corruption needed.
It reached out—not with claws, but with memory.
It slipped through dreams, through longing, through the soft, slow ache of being left behind.
And it found them.
Not because they were fragile—
but because they were open.
And when it touched them,
the Bakunawa stirred.
Not awake—
not yet.
But it breathed through another.
Enough to nest its fury.
Enough to remember its hunger.
Now the vessel walks.
Somewhere close.
You have seen them.
Passed them.
Maybe even laughed beside them.
And still, you do not know.
But the fox spirit knows.
The fox—watchful, silent—has seen the shift.
The way shadows curve near this figure.
How the wind avoids them.
The slight echo in their footsteps, as though something walks just behind.
> "The seal holds the body," the fox said once, under a moonless sky. "But not the will. What possessed the dragon… now grows within another."
You'd stared at the fox, chilled.
> "Who?" you'd asked. "Who is it?"
But the spirit only turned away.
> "You are not ready."
And still, even now, you don't see it.
The signs are there, written in silence—
in the flicker of strange light in a gaze you thought familiar,
in the stillness that thickens around them,
in the breath you hold without knowing why.
You watch as the figure stands at the edge of the sea.
Their face is hidden in moonlight.
Their back turned to you.
You feel the air shift.
The world holds its breath.
Then, they turn slightly—just enough for the moonlight to catch their eyes.
Silver.
But not only silver.
Something deeper. Older.
You step back.
Your heart stirs with a fear you cannot name.
> "Something's wrong," you whisper.
The fox appears beside you, its fur bristling like wind in tall grass.
> "Yes," it says. "The tide has turned."
> "Is it him?" you ask. "Is it the Moon Eater?"
The fox's expression is grim.
> "Part of it. A sliver. Enough."
> "But the dragon is still sealed. How—how could it reach someone?"
The fox's voice lowers.
> "The dragon was never alone. There is something deeper—older—that possessed it. That same presence slips through the cracks now. It found a vessel. And soon, it will not matter which shatters first: the seal… or the soul."
You stare at the figure. They haven't moved.
You want to ask again. To demand: Who is it?
But the words die on your tongue.
Because somehow, deep down, you already know—
you just don't know who.
And neither does the part of you that still believes the past can be saved.
The moon dims.
Clouds pass like a curtain.
And the vessel—
whoever they are—
turns again, toward the sea.
And the sea…
answers.
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