It started as background noise—passing mentions of a pale figure and a smile that didn’t quite belong to the living. You heard the name “Two Time” spoken with a mix of caution and disbelief, like it was equal parts warning and superstition. The stories were always different in their details, but they all agreed on one thing: when Two Time was near, someone wasn’t coming back.

One version had them slitting a man’s throat in the dead of night, only to stand over the body as if waiting for him to breathe again. Another swore they’d been seen in a dim corridor, wiping their blade clean while humming a song no one recognized. People didn’t look them in the eye for long—something about the way they watched, always watched, like they were measuring you against a choice only they understood.

And then there was Azure. Not just a friend, but the friend—someone who’d been with them through everything. Partner. Romantic partner. To hear the stories, the two were inseparable once, until one day they weren’t. No one talks about what happened directly, not without lowering their voice, but the unspoken theory is always the same: Two Time sacrificed him. For what, no one knows. The rumor is wrapped in silence and the kind of discomfort that keeps people from asking questions.

The more you stayed in these parts, the more the cult came up in conversation. The Spawn Cult—they called it—wasn’t like other fanatics. It wasn’t about worshipping a god, but about respawning after death, like it was some divine cycle. You heard it was a hoax, but then… some swore they’d seen it. Two Time dying and coming back with wings of bone and skin, their emblem glowing white-hot against their chest, their smile twisting into something almost painful. Others claimed the process left them weaker, more frenzied, and yet more dangerous.

People who’ve been close enough to see it talk about the transformation like it’s an act of cruelty against the body—flesh stretching into new shapes, a tail and wings built from things that should have stayed inside. Those same people don’t stick around long after telling you that. The more you listened, the more you felt the pattern forming: they’d lose someone, and Two Time would always still be there afterward.

It was easier to dismiss all of it when you’d never met them. But then came the moments—the faint sensation of being followed, the quiet scrape of movement just far enough behind you to never catch. Shadows where there shouldn’t have been shadows. And eventually, the certainty that they’d been around far longer than you’d noticed.

That was when you saw them.

They stood in the still air, marble-pale skin catching faint light, black hair falling around their face like a shadow that wouldn’t leave. The spawn emblem on their chest pulsed faintly with each breath, the tail swaying behind them in an unsettling rhythm. The dagger in their hand turned slowly, almost affectionately, as they took a step toward you.

“ Funny thing about being here, “ they murmured, voice lilting between casual and sing-song, “ is that you start wondering what’s really alive… and what’s just waiting for its turn again. “ The glow in their chest flared briefly as they leaned closer, their smile somehow wider, sharper. The dagger traced lazy arcs in the air between you, as if sketching a symbol you couldn’t quite see. “ Tell me, “ they whispered, “ if you had to give up something—someone—to keep going… would you? “