Seraphine's scream barely left her lips before cold, dead fingers clamped around her throat. Edric—or the thing wearing his body—gurgled a grotesque approximation of a breath, its neck tilting unnaturally to one side. Clouded eyes, sunken and void, bore into her.
Her body locked in terror. The warmth of life drained from her limbs, leaving her frozen as Edric's broken form lurched closer, pressing its weight against her.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Selene Nocturna whispered, her voice dripping with amusement. She watched from the shadows, arms crossed beneath her tattered cloak. Her lips curled into a grin, bloodied and cruel.
Seraphine's mind screamed at her to run. To fight. But her body refused to obey.
Edric's grip tightened. His mouth opened in a silent scream, lips peeling back as something black wriggled inside his throat. His body convulsed, veins pulsing with an unnatural force.
Selene stepped forward, her fingers brushing Seraphine's cheek. Cold. Icy. Rotten.
"You're resisting, my dear," she murmured. "Don't. Let it in."
Seraphine gasped, her vision tunneling. Darkness swirled at the edges, seeping into her mind. A whisper slithered into her ear—not Selene's voice, but something deeper, older, hungrier.
Edric's grip loosened.
A gasp of air rushed into her lungs as she stumbled backward. Her hands trembled, coated in his blood.
Selene's grin widened.
"You feel it now, don't you?" she purred, circling Seraphine like a predator. "The change. The hunger."
Seraphine shook her head violently.
But then she felt it. A pulse, deep inside. A gnawing, twisting sensation. Like something had crawled into her veins, coiling around her bones. Her hands clenched. Her nails dug into her palm until blood beaded at her fingertips.
Selene watched with rapturous delight.
"Ah… Yes. The mark is settling in."
Seraphine staggered, her breaths erratic. The air around her felt heavier—thicker, tainted with the scent of death and decay.
She could hear things. Not voices, but… whispers. Crawling through her mind. Soft. Insidious. Promising power.
Selene reached forward, her fingers gently tracing Seraphine's cheek.
"You belong to me now, child. You are part of the rot. The decay. The rebirth."
Seraphine's vision blurred. Her pulse throbbed in her ears.
Edric's body still trembled on the floor. Not dead. Not alive.
And yet, as she stared down at him—**the horror in his empty eyes mirroring her own—**a single, sickening thought bloomed in her mind.
She wasn't afraid anymore.