In the early 1800s, in a small village tucked between the Black Forest and the cold foothills of southern Germany, it was a cruel year to be a young girl named Emma Bauer.

The winter had lingered too long, pressing its gray weight against the houses and hearts of the villagers. Food was scarce, sickness common, and fear was something everyone carried quietly. Emma lived with her aunt and uncle in a narrow timber house that creaked endlessly, as if it remembered things better left forgotten. Her parents had been buried two winters before, claimed by fever, and since then Emma had learned that grief was something adults expected children to outgrow quickly.

But Emma’s fear was different.

At night, sleep never came easily. When it did, it brought nightmares so vivid they felt like memories. She dreamed of dark corridors, of stone walls slick with damp, and of eyes—burning red eyes—that watched her with patience rather than hunger. She would wake gasping, her nightgown soaked with sweat, her heart pounding as if it were trying to escape her chest.

And sometimes, she did not wake alone.

At first, the shadow appeared only in dreams. A tall shape at the edge of her vision, never fully formed. But as weeks passed, the shadow followed her into waking hours. It gathered in the corners of her room, stretched unnaturally along the walls, and lingered even when the candle was lit.

Emma named him Lucius.

She did not know where the name came from. It slipped into her mind as naturally as breathing, as though he had whispered it to her long ago. Lucius spoke without sound, his voice threading itself through her thoughts like cold smoke. He told her she was special. Chosen. That the fear she felt was only because she was human—fragile, temporary.

“You will not always be,” he promised.

Emma tried to tell the others. Her aunt crossed herself and scolded her for filling her head with foolish stories. Her uncle said nightmares were the result of weak nerves and too much imagination. The village pastor prayed over her once and then avoided her afterward, his eyes uneasy.

No one believed her.