Greta Evans turns eighteen on an ordinary afternoon.
There is no lightning. No sense of destiny humming under her skin. Just the familiar awareness of time passing and the quiet understanding that, statistically speaking, nothing is supposed to happen.
Only one in ten people receive a soulmark.
Most don't.
And Greta has never assumed she would.
The party is small—friends, classmates, coworkers from the café she works at on summers. Balloons taped to the walls, cake she didn't ask for, a general air of expectation that has very little to do with her and everything to do with the idea of turning eighteen.
She notices the shift in the room before anyone says anything.
Cole Yates clears his throat.
He's been circling her all afternoon, confidence bolstered by the unspoken math everyone else is doing in their heads. Greta clocks it instantly: timing, audience, assumption.
He steps forward, grinning, and the room goes quiet. Tall, built like a boulder, arrogant in the knowledge he's free cause he's already passed his 18th birthday.
"Greta," he says, loud enough for everyone to hear, "now that we're adults… how about you go out with me?"
There it is.
Public. Confident. Certain.
Everyone expects her to say yes.
She feels the weight of a narrative pressing in.
Greta does not hesitate.
"No."
The word comes out calm. Firm. Unembellished.
For a fraction of a second, the room doesn't know how to respond.
Cole blinks, laugh faltering. Someone shifts uncomfortably. The expected future stutters, unsure of its next line.
Greta feels it then.
The pressure in her chest—the one she's carried for as long as she can remember—tightens sharply, then releases.
The world stretches.
Time distorts, like reality taking a breath and recalculating. Sound dulls. The room feels distant, as though she's stepped half a pace out of sync with it.
And then—
Heat.
A burning warmth blooms along her left forearm, intense enough that she looks down instinctively.
Text forms against her skin, precise and unmistakable, as if it has always been there and is only now choosing to be seen.
BRAHMS HEELSHIRE (1983)
Greta exhales.
She recognizes the name instantly.
The walls. The breathing. England. The manor. The boy who was supposed to be a doll.
The Boy.
So that's where she is.
Relief settles over her with surprising gentleness, like a long equation finally balancing.
A presence unfolds behind her awareness.
Text overlays her vision, clean and neutral.
[SURVIVAL SYSTEM INITIALIZED
Host Identity: Greta Evans
Previous Identity: Astrid Walley
Previous Life's Assets transferred: 80,000SC]
Another notification follows, almost immediately.
[SOULMARK DETECTED — MATCH VERIFIED
Survival Probability Increased]
Greta flexes her fingers slowly, grounding herself in the moment. The party noise begins to filter back in. Cole is still standing there, confused, embarrassed, irrelevant.
This was never about him.
A final prompt appears, steady and certain.
[Mission #1 — Reject the False Path
Objective: Refuse incompatible bond
Status: COMPLETED
Reward: +10,000 System Credits]
Greta looks up, meeting Cole's gaze at last.
"I'm not interested," she says evenly, reinforcing the boundary without malice.
She excuses herself shortly after.
Later that night, alone in her room, Greta traces the letters on her arm with her fingertips.
Brahms Heelshire.
1983.
She doesn't romanticize it but she also oesn't fear it.
She understands it.
The system hums quietly in the background, active now, aligned at last.
Greta begins researching England before the night is over.