Eve
Sanctum Core
1 Hour, 52 Minutes to Midnight
The seam widened with a wet, tearing sound.
Flesh peeled back in slow, deliberate layers—like a mouth unhinging or a chrysalis resisting its own rebirth. Steam poured into the chamber, curling around my ankles like mourning veils as something ancient and angry forced its way into the open.
The silhouette that stepped from the cocoon wasn't Hades.
Not yet.
It was Vassir.
And he remembered what love had tasted like when it bled.
He emerged barefoot, naked but cloaked in shadow, obsidian tendrils snaking along his arms, ribs, and spine. His flesh was half-man, half-scar—a latticework of wounds that had never healed and power that had never settled. His eyes weren't Hades'—they were starless and endless, pits of longing that never blinked.
But his voice… his voice was familiar.
Too familiar.
> "I thought I would hate you more."
He looked at me like a hunger never fed.
> "But you still wear her face. Her scent. Her sadness."
