The rain tasted of iron that night.Lucien Dray stood on the edge of the flooded street, water sliding down his coat as if the city itself wanted to wash him away. The neon lights of Noctis District flickered against the storm clouds—purple, silver, electric blue. Each flash carved the same question into his mind: Why did she find me?
He shouldn't have been alive. Not after the experiment.The doctors had called him a miracle. He called himself a mistake—a man whose blood carried something not quite human. When his heart raced, the shadows around him whispered, bending toward his thoughts like loyal beasts.
Then she appeared.Elara Noctis—barefoot, drenched, her eyes glowing faintly under the rainlight. Not fear. Not wonder. Just recognition. As if she'd been looking for him through centuries of dreams.
"Lucien Dray," she said, voice trembling but sure. "The Genome chose you."
He froze. No one was supposed to know that word.
The air thickened, humming with unseen current. The puddles at his feet rippled outward. For a moment, Lucien saw his own reflection twist—horns of shadow curling from his temples, eyes burning silver. He blinked, and the vision died.
"Stay away," he warned. "You don't know what I am."
Elara stepped closer. "Then let me be the first to find out."
When her fingers brushed his wrist, darkness exploded around them—spirals of living ink rising from the pavement, wrapping both their bodies in swirling light and shadow. Pain tore through Lucien's veins; memories not his own flooded his mind—wars fought before humanity, promises whispered in the dark, a girl's voice saying I will find you again.
The storm fell silent.The city lights dimmed.And in that stillness, Lucien realized the truth:This wasn't their first meeting. This was their return.
Elara looked up at him, eyes shimmering with tears and something dangerously close to love."The Genome isn't a curse," she whispered. "It's the memory of what we were."
Then the world cracked open with a scream of metal and thunder.Sirens blared. White drones descended through the rain, scanning for energy signatures. A red beam locked on Lucien's chest.
Elara's smile faltered. "They found you."
Lucien's shadow rose behind him like a living storm.
"Then they'll regret it."
The next moment vanished in black light.
End of Chapter 1Next: "The Hunt Begins."