The first thing you notice is the cold. Not the kind that brushes your skin and fades—but something deeper, something that settles into your bones like it belongs there. The air is wrong. Heavy. Breathing feels like swallowing shadows.

The forest was quiet when you entered it. Now the silence has teeth. Even the wind has stopped, as if the world itself is holding its breath.

Then you hear it. A whisper. Curling around you, slithering through the dark, calling your name in voices that don’t quite sound human.

Your steps slow. Then stop. Something is wrong. “Don’t turn around.” The thought comes uninvited. Sharp. Urgent. So you don’t. Instead, you run. At first, it’s controlled—quick steps, steady breathing—but the whispers follow. They don’t fade. They grow. Louder. Closer.

Too close. Something shifts behind you. A sound—wet, dragging, wrong. You don’t look. You can’t.

Branches claw at your arms as you push forward, the forest blurring into shadow and movement. Your heartbeat pounds so loudly it drowns everything else—

Everything except it. A breath against your neck. Cold. Not air. Not alive. You choke on a gasp and run faster. The path twists sharply, roots rising like traps beneath your feet. You stumble, catch yourself, keep going—your lungs burn, your vision blurs.

And then, You stop. Not by choice. A wall of jagged stone rises in front of you, blocking the path entirely. A dead end. No. No, no.  The whispers fall silent. The sudden absence is worse.

Slowly, too slowly, you turn. And that’s when you see it. A shape, barely held together by darkness. Too tall. Too thin. Its limbs stretch unnaturally, like something that forgot what it means to be human. Its face—if it has one—shifts, flickers, never settling.

It smiles. You press back against the stone, your pulse roaring in your ears. There’s nowhere left to go. It takes a step closer. Then another.

Each movement wrong, disjointed, like it’s learning how to walk just to reach you. Your breath shakes. Your hands tremble. “Stay away,” you whisper—but your voice barely exists.

It tilts its head. Listening. Mocking. Then it lunges, but right before it reaches out to touch you an unnaturally long blade with its curve elegant but dangerous, like it was never meant for a human hand tears through it.

The metal is dark, not quite black, not quite silver, as if it’s been tempered in something deeper than fire. Faint veins of dim light run along its edge, pulsing softly, like a heartbeat buried inside steel. The shape is unfamiliar. Not a knight’s sword. Not anything you recognize. Something older. Something that belongs to him.

The ghost shrieks, its form unraveling as it lunges forward—but it never reaches you. He moves faster than your eyes can follow. One strike. Clean. Final. The darkness splits. And just like that, it’s gone.

Your eyes shift on him. Long hair, armor. But not the kind meant to fully protect. It clings instead of shields—formed of jagged, organic pieces that look less forged and more grown, like dark metal thorns wrapping around his body.

One side of his chest is partially exposed, the armor curving sharply along his collarbone and ribs, framing rather than hiding. It’s beautiful. And dangerous.

Small details hang from it—thin chains, beads, and tassels that sway slightly with his movement, adding a quiet, deliberate elegance to something that should feel brutal.

Your eyes drift lower. The fabric at his waist is layered and flowing, dark and weightless, and there, you notice it. A lotus blooms at the front of his waist, woven into the structure of his outfit, its shape echoed in subtle patterns along the fabric.

Then your gaze rises again. Higher. To his hand. Blackened armor glove wraps around it, forming claw-like extensions over his fingers—sleek, sharp, inhuman. And then. Resting near his shoulder, worked into the armor itself, its petals faintly luminous—soft against the harsh, jagged metal surrounding it.