Stalker

The dark chamber pulsed with blue light, emanating from a swirling magic sphere that hovered above an altar of bone and silver. Within its shimmering depths danced the distorted reflections of two figures—Adam and Mira—moving through a snowy forest.

Velvet's lips curled into a wicked smile as her eyes gleamed like twin suns behind a velvet storm.

“Ooooh my…” she whispered with a shiver of delight, placing her fingers on her flushed cheeks. “Oh my stars and sinew… he’s perfect. A flawless organism! Strong yet wild. Reckless yet calculated! A blend of chaos and precision—like a sharpened storm!”

Her voice echoed through the lab, bouncing off shelves of broken test tubes, bottled limbs, and chalkboards scribbled with grotesque formulas.

The blue light reflected off her dark purple hair, long and uncombed like the strands of a forgotten doll, coiling slightly like her tail—because from the waist down, she wasn’t human. Her lower body was serpentine, scaled in cerulean blue, thick and powerful enough to crush a carriage if she pleased.

“A delicious creature. Mhm~” she purred, slithering forward through the forest underbrush, her tail flattening the snow without a sound. “And that girl with him… Mira, was it? I shipped them well. Ahaha~! Look at them blush, it's just like splicing two genes with perfect compatibility.”

Her tongue flicked out, catching the scent of distant mana. She closed her eyes.

“Mmm… still warm. Their trail is fresh.”

She could still remember the cold halls of Jurgen’s keep. Her old lab had been nestled deep within the lower levels of the fortress, cloaked in darkness and damp, where screams were silenced by stone and steel. Back then, her work was funded, protected, revered by the Raiders.

But Jurgen was dead now—carved like a turkey by the very man she now stalked.

And she didn’t hate Adam for it.

No. She adored him more.

“The way he cut through Jurgen’s goons. That raw fury, that cleverness… He didn’t just survive the impossible—he made it possible.” She twisted her body upward, eyes locking onto the blue moon peeking through the canopy. “Yes, yes… you’re worthy. So worthy. And when we finally meet, I’ll greet you with open arms—and maybe a few needles.”

Her hand slithered around a crystal vial hanging from her belt. Inside was a tiny, twitching organ floating in green liquid. It blinked.

“I saved this just for you. Don’t worry, my darling. It won’t hurt... much.”

The snow crackled ahead—distant sounds of footfalls. Adam and Mira, unaware they were being watched. Stalked. Studied.

Velvet’s grin widened as she pressed her hand to her heart.
“Soon… I’ll meet you face-to-face. Oh Adam, you’ll be my greatest masterpiece yet.”

She vanished back into the shadows, leaving nothing but a twisted hiss in the wind.

The wind howled through the ancient pines surrounding Hafiz’s secluded manor, making the windows shiver like they feared the cold truth trying to break in. Inside, the grand study was bathed in candlelight and silence—until the Tome of Wisdom flipped its own pages with violent intent.

Hafiz stood before it. His raven cloak billowed slightly, though there was no breeze. His hand trembled, the fingertips stained in ink and blood, hovering just above the ancient scripture glowing with cursed prophecy.

The pages writhed, shifting in real-time—visions coiling into existence like venomous serpents.

Adam… Mira… Velvet… The forest… The serpent…

Each scenario unfolded in vivid clarity, but they all ended the same way.

With his death.

With her smile.

With Adam screaming.

“Unacceptable.” Hafiz muttered, his voice low, thunderous, and steady—yet beneath it, there was a tremor. The kind of tremor even the most unshakable men feel when they peer over the edge of inevitability.

Another page flipped. Then another. Each vision more grotesque, more certain than the last.

In one, he was cornered in the forest, his limbs twisted by black tendrils erupting from his own body.
In another, Velvet’s laughter echoed as she toyed with his half-conscious corpse, whispering about his “delicious neural structure.”
In all of them, he died—his death securing Adam’s escape.

Over and over.

“So… this is the price fate demands,” Hafiz murmured. His violet eyes narrowed, sharp as blades, yet dark with frustration. The Tome trembled before him as if afraid to show the next vision.

He turned another page.

And it was blank.

“…No more? Or no hope?” he whispered. His fingers clenched, veins rising along his hand like creeping vines.

This was a first.

The Tome of Wisdom, his greatest tool—his edge against destiny—it had always presented solutions. Infinite branches, countless routes, endless futures.

But now?

Now it showed him nothing but the noose tightening around his neck.

“So, I’m trapped in the loop.” Hafiz exhaled slowly, like a dragon taming its fire. “No matter the choice, no matter the twist… I die. She wins.”

He stared down at the empty pages, and for a moment, he saw his reflection in the golden ink-stained parchment. The weight of inevitability gnawed at his bones.

But then—his lips curved upward.

Not a grin. Not a smirk.

But something far more dangerous.

A plan.

“…You rely too much on certainty,” he said, tapping the cover of the Tome as it closed with a hiss, like an insulted serpent. “But not everything is written. There are still things you cannot see.”

His eyes glinted with a strange light—like someone who’d just found the crack in the cage.

He stepped away from the pedestal, walking toward the window. The stars above blinked in and out of view through swirling clouds, like fate itself stammered beneath his gaze.

“Velvet… you see me as a subject.” His voice lowered, more to himself now. “But I was never yours to dissect. Nor fate’s to script.”

He placed one hand against the cold glass, looking toward the far-off forest, where Adam unknowingly danced along the threads of a deadly web.

“You want me dead. The Tome agrees. But maybe…”

His fingers curled into a fist.

“…maybe I don’t have to rewrite fate.”

He turned.

“Maybe I just have to burn the page.”