An elegant but cold and shadowed private study within the Pierce mansion, late at night. The air is still and heavy, smelling of old paper, leather, and the faint, metallic scent of fear.
Moonlight filters weakly through thick, velvet curtains, catching the dust motes dancing in the air like lost souls.
A massive, claw-footed oak desk dominates the room, but the true focal point is a locked, ornate cabinet near a dormant fireplace - its polished ebony wood glinting with secrets.
PIERCE MANSION STUDY - NIGHT
ANGELA , her face pale with a mixture of anger and dread, slips quietly into the study. She moves with the practiced stealth of a child who once snuck in here to read forbidden books.
Her purpose is specific, her destination not her mother, but a place of forgotten childhood games. She kneels on the Persian rug, her fingers finding the almost-invisible seam of a loose floorboard near the hearth.
Prying it open with a soft groan of old wood, she pulls out a leather-bound journal and a stack of brittle letters tied with a faded crimson ribbon.
She sinks into a deep wingback chair, the worn leather sighing under her weight. The silence of the house presses in on her. She unties the ribbon, the fragile silk threatening to crumble.
The letters are from her father to her mother, written in his last days before he died. His handwriting, usually so bold and confident, is spidery and frantic.
She reads one, her heart pounding against her ribs.
"Darling they know. The Circle is closing in. The Gulbar… it whispers to me at night. It shows me things. Horrible, beautiful things. You must never let them have it. Burn it. Drown it. Send it back to whatever hell it crawled from."
With trembling hands, she opens the journal. Her father's familiar script twists into something alien and terrifying, the entries growing more erratic.
ANGELA
(Angela, whispering the words from the journal)
"The Gulbar is not a gift, but a pact… a pact with shadows. It offers protection at the cost of one's soul… a loyalty that devours its bearer… It feeds on secrets and promises power, but the price is absolute."
Her breath hitches. A tear escapes and traces a path down her cheek, landing on the page with a soft blot. She flips through more pages, her knuckles white. The final entries are barely legible.
(Her voice trembling, choked with realization)
He didn't just vanish… he was running. From them.
"The Circle." It says they hunt for it still… that their vengeance is… biblical. They don't just kill their enemies; they erase them from history.
She slams the journal shut. The sound echoes like a gunshot in the cavernous room. Disbelief wars with a horrifying sense of clarity.
The puzzle pieces of her life - her father's sudden disappearance, her mother's suffocating secrecy, the strange figures she's seen watching the house, the unsettling nightmares - are slotting into a monstrous picture.
Suddenly, a cold draft snakes across the floor, chilling her ankles. The heavy double doors to the study swing open without a sound, as if pushed by an unseen hand.
MIA, dressed in a sharp, tailored pantsuit the color of a stormy sky, and TOM ( broad-shouldered and radiating a predatory stillness, step inside.
They move with an unnerving, fluid confidence, as if they own the space. Tom closes the doors behind them with a deliberate, heavy thud that seals the room.
They don't see Angela, who is swallowed by the deep shadows of the large chair.
Their focus is entirely on MRS. PIERCE who stands near the fireplace, her expression a mask of hardened composure, though her hands are clasped so tightly they tremble.
Mia breaks the silence "We won't trouble you for long. The city air is so… unclean."
Her voice is like chipped ice, precise and cold. She glides to the desk and places a small, dark object on its polished surface—a wooden sigil carved with a spiraling, predatory symbol that seems to writhe in the dim light.
This is my home, Mia. You may not be welcomed.
Tom: (Chuckles, a low rumble)
Your home is just a box. A very nice box, I'll grant you. We're here for what's in the box.
The Leader grows impatient. And his patience… isn't a virtue. It's a resource he's running out of.
He lets his long coat fall open just enough to reveal the bone-white hilt of a ritualistic dagger tucked into his belt. The threat is unspoken but absolute, a promise of swift, brutal violence.
Mia continues ; You have had a decade of quiet. A decade you didn't earn. That time is over. You have one chance. The Gulbar. Now. No more games, no more delays.
Mrs. Pierce's gaze flickers to the ornate cabinet, a barely perceptible movement, but Mia's eyes, sharp as a hawk's, catch it. A faint, cruel smile touches Mia's lips.
Mrs Pierce responds; you have no idea what you're asking for. That relic is a poison. It corrupts everything it touches. My husband learned that lesson the hard way. It hollowed him out, turned him into a stranger long before he disappeared.
"Your husband was weak. Sentimental. He tried to control it with love and morality" Mia added.
"Pathetic. The Leader is not weak. He will master it. He will bind it to his will. And he will be… displeased if he has to come here himself to collect it. You know the stories.... You know what he does to those who disappoint him."
From the shadows, a chair scrapes against the hardwood floor. Angela rises. The journal is clutched in her hand like a weapon, her face a canvas of grief and newfound fury.
"Stop it." Angela shouts
Mia and Tom turn, their surprise quickly melting into cold, predatory assessment. They hadn't accounted for a third party. Mrs. Pierce's composure finally cracks, her eyes wide with pure, undiluted fear for her daughter.
"Angela, no. Go to your room. Now! This doesn't concern you." Mrs Pierce ordered.
(Angela ignores her mom, stepping into the sliver of moonlight)
"It doesn't concern me? I've been reading his journals, Mom. His letters. All of it. The Gulbar. The Occultic. The pacts....."
(Voice breaking, raw with pain)
Mrs Pierce cuts in ; " I was protecting you! Do you think I wanted to lie to my own daughter every single day? This burden… this darkness… it was mine to carry, not yours!«
>Tom: " A family reunion. How touching. It changes nothing. The ultimatum stands. Give us the relic, or the girl pays the price for your stalling."
ANGELA(Her fear hardening into a diamond-sharp fury)
"So that's it? That's your plan? Just let them walk in here and threaten us"
Mia lets out a soft, condescending laugh. It's not a sound of humor, but of pity and absolute power.
Mia ; fight us? Dear girl, you're a child holding a match, threatening an inferno. We are not just people; we are an idea, backed by centuries of power you cannot possibly comprehend."
" Failure to comply doesn't just mean your death. It means an example will be made of you. An agonizing, unforgettable example. We will unmake you, piece by piece, and ensure the story of your suffering is whispered in our Circle for generations."
Tom takes a slow, deliberate step towards Angela. Mrs. Pierce moves instantly, placing herself between them, a lioness protecting her cub.
The years of fear and hiding seem to fall away from her like a shed skin, replaced by a weary, dangerous resolve. She looks at her daughter—at the fire in her eyes, so much like her father's—and makes a decision.
MRS. PIERCE
(Her voice low and steady, laced with steel)
"My daughter is right. The discussion is over. Leave my house."
A tense, charged silence hangs in the air. Mia studies them both, her expression unreadable, calculating. She picks the sigil up from the desk, her manicured fingers tracing its twisted shape.
Mia ; "Very well. But understand this. The Leader's judgment isn't a threat...It's an appointment. And it is now set."
Tom gives them a final, predatory smile that doesn't reach his eyes. He and Mia turn and walk out, leaving the heavy doors wide open behind them, an explicit invitation for the darkness of the world to seep in.
The room is deathly quiet, the silence more menacing than the threats. Angela turns to her mother, her anger softened by the shared, terrifying peril. The journal feels heavy in her hand.
"He knew they were coming. He tried to warn you. What do we do now?"
Mrs. Pierce doesn't answer immediately. She walks to the ornate cabinet, her reflection a pale ghost in the polished wood. Her hand hovers over the silver lock, a key materializing in her palm as if from nowhere. She looks back at Angela, her eyes filled with a grim, unfamiliar light—the light of a warrior long dormant.
Mrs Pierce : " Your father avoided them but was eventually hunted. He thought he could protect us by hiding the Gulbar. He was wrong. Hiding only delays the inevitable."
"Now… we learn how to fight with shadows." Together.
She turns the key. A heavy, resonant click echoes through the study, like the cocking of a gun. The weight of their legacy settles around them, no longer just a secret, but a battle waiting to begin.