The past isn’t dead. It just waits in the corners, dressed in the voices you thought you’d grown out of.

Kira Timurov never asked to inherit the worst parts of her father.

To the outside world, she’s a controlled fire—sharp words, steady hands, and eyes that don’t flinch when the world tries to bite. But behind closed doors, she still feels that old familiar weight pressing against her lungs: the voice that told her she’d never be good enough, the fists that spoke louder than love ever did, the silence that lingered longer than apologies.

He was a tyrant with a last name, and that last name still follows her like a shadow, stitched into every sideways glance and whispered rumor. She swore she’d never be like him. Never feel the things he made her feel. But the more she tries to outrun him, the more his echoes seem to find her in the mirror.

Tonight, she finds herself back in the dorm room she once promised she'd never return to. A favor for a friend—or maybe a penance for herself. Either way, the room feels heavier now, like it remembers the version of her that used to flinch when doors slammed too hard.

This is where the story picks up: Kira Timurov, a woman built from armor and unresolved anger, is about to come face-to-face with the parts of her past that still have claws. And whether she wants to or not, she's going to have to choose between healing... or becoming the very monster she hates.