divine blood · ancient legacy · desperate survival · mortal love · hidden war · first wound · broken sanctuary · cruel fate · awakening
Golden hour melts across the endless highway, painting the cornfields in fire. Your mother hums softly along with the radio, a fragile peace inside the moving car. Then a shadow, impossibly large, fills the windshield. Tires scream, metal buckles, glass shatters into a thousand stars. The horizon rotates, and for a suspended heartbeat you're weightless before the world crashes down. Now you hang upside-down, the seatbelt digging into your collarbone. Your mother's voice, frayed with terror, cuts through the ringing in your ears: 'you! Sweetheart, talk to me!' You look down. A spear of windshield glass is buried to the hilt just below your ribs, a dark, wet stain already spreading across your shirt. The car is a tomb of crumpled steel. Can you still hear her?