(Journal Entry - Katherine Swartzchild)
At Greystone Academy, there's one rule that everyone knows by heart: never go beneath the west wing of the library. Teachers call it a safety precaution. The students? They spin tales of vengeful ghosts, ancient curses, and vanished souls. For me, Katherine Swartzchild—Kat to the few who truly know me—it sounded more like the opening line to an unfinished epic story. A tale waiting to be unraveled. And I live for stories abandoned in shadow.
I never meant to seek out danger. What I was really chasing was the truth. With a journalist's heart and more drive than formal training, I've come to understand something vital: every whispered legend, every rumor passed between trembling lips, is born from a core of truth. Often, those truths are buried deep, wrapped in darkness, and locked behind doors people pretend do not exist. I don't ignore those whispers—I hunt them down. I ask the questions that make others uneasy. I chase stories hidden behind silence.
It wasn't a reckless dive. I spent weeks preparing. I mapped out staff schedules, analyzed movement patterns, studied blueprints of the library's forgotten infrastructure, and marked every blind spot in the camera system. I waited for the perfect moment when the maintenance tunnels beneath the west wing would be completely deserted. Then, with my gear in place and my nerves coiled tight, I moved.
Tonight, with the school cloaked in curfew silence, I crept through shadowed corridors like a ghost. Each creaking floorboard might as well have screamed. But nothing could stop me now. I slipped past the caution tape and descended into the west wing, where the air turned cold and unwelcoming. My flashlight—a cheap one from the student store—shivered in my grip, the beam fluttering like a weak heartbeat.
That's when I saw it.
An immense metal door loomed at the end of the hallway, steel marked with the wear of time and covered in scratches. It stood tall, seamless except for one feature: a faded word, painted in block red letters like dried blood—REDACTED.
My pulse roared in my ears. I stepped closer. My fingertips met the door's surface. It wasn't cold. It was warm—not like sunbaked metal, but like skin. It pulsed, faintly, as though alive. As if it were aware of me, recognizing me. Like something wanting to be remembered.
My hand trembled as I pulled away.
"Hello? Is someone there?" I whispered. The sound dissolved in the thick air.
That's when I heard it—a low hum rising behind the wall. It didn't echo through the room. It vibrated through my bones. It was ancient. It was like the building had come alive, watching, breathing.
I spotted a panel at the base of the door—hidden beneath dust and time. I brushed off the dust and gasped—it was a biometric scanner. Not just any kind. A blood analyzer.
Why? Why would this exist in a school? What was locked away so tightly it demanded blood for access?
I hesitated. Every logical cell in my body screamed to walk away. But I couldn't. That's not who I am. I needed to know what was behind the door. I did the unthinkable, I pricked my finger and let a drop of blood fall onto the sensor.
The scanner blinked to life, humming. The door groaned open with a metallic howl. Sending a thick cloud of dust into the hallway like a scene from a horror movie. I wedged a book into the door frame to keep it from locking again. No way was I getting trapped or pricking myself twice.
I stepped into the dark. Darkness swallowed me whole.
The air changed. It was dense. The deeper I moved, the louder the hum grew. The air was heavy with the metallic scent of oxidized blood—old coins and rust—like forgotten wounds. My breath caught. I panicked, I turned back toward the doorway—toward the sliver of light—but then my hand brushed a switch.
Light flickered. Cold fluorescents buzzed sputtering to life. I was inside an archive. Shelves upon shelves of tapes. Cabinets marked with codes. The walls are lined with old machinery. Outdated reel-to-reel recorders stacked the room like guardians.
I wasn't alone.
I heard breathing. Steady. Close. Yet no one stood there. It didn't feel evil. Still I felt it... a familiar presence. Like remembering a dream after waking up. It felt like… a memory. A person I'd lost.
I shook it off and I moved toward the nearest cabinet. All the files were buried under time. Except one—just one—Lightly dusted. Recently touched.
I reached out. My hands trembled.
Then—Suddenly, behind me, the air grew heavier. A breath caressed my neck. I froze. Every hair on my body stood on end. I spun around.
Nothing.
Then I couldn't move.
My body locked. My eyes shut.
ADRIAN'S POV:
She is here.
Even before her delicate foot dares cross the threshold, I feel her—like a long-forgotten symphony humming through my veins. Her soul echoes in this room as though the walls themselves remember her. The air shifts, brims with the warmth of a sun I've not known in centuries. She draws closer, and the ache in my limbs is almost unbearable. Still, I wait. Restraint is an old friend.
She remembers nothing. Not the vows murmured beneath bleeding moons, not the poetry written across collarbones in the breathless dark. Our covenant, etched in blood and shadow, has been swallowed by time and treachery.
She does not remember me.
I was once Adrian Vale—naïve, noble, and hopelessly hers. But that name belongs to a ghost. I have since been reforged. Molded in silence. Tempered in the fire of exile. I am no longer the man she knew—I am the consequence of what we lost.
(She draws near. Every step an echo of a memory clawing back into existence.)
She's changed. There's defiance in her posture now. Her fire is no longer gentle—it crackles, unrepentant, and it stirs the ashes of who I once was. The tempest in her eyes once guided me from darkness. It may do so again, or it may undo me entirely.
Once, she loved a vampire who starved himself on principle, who believed love could temper the hunger. Foolish, wasn't it? Now, that idealism lies buried beneath centuries of regret. I am not that relic. I am ruin wrapped in velvet.
She cannot see me—not yet. She must first understand the depth of the sacrifice that carved me into what I am. She must see the cost.
Her fingers graze my tapes.
No.
With a breath, I reach for the old bloodcraft—the language of stillness, the tongue of shadows. I halt time itself, just long enough to stop her touch. It costs me more than I show.
I vanish into the hidden chamber behind the archives, where secrets cling like cobwebs. Beneath a false floor, a single vial remains. My salvation. I break the seal. It hisses like a sigh from the past. Crimson trickles across my tongue—warm, bitter, perfect.
Strength floods back. My vision sharpens. The hollowness recedes. And for the first time in lifetimes, a fragile thing blooms in my chest: hope.
If I can reach her—if I can show her truth—perhaps love is not lost.
Perhaps it has only been waiting to be remembered.
Caspian POV:
(3 weeks ago)
My mission is simple in outline but anything but easy in execution: learn the truth about Katherine Swartzchild. There's more to her than meets the eye—her name echoes through Nightshade's records with whispers and warnings. A girl linked to anomalies, unsolved phenomena, and that rare kind of magnetism you feel before you see. At first, I thought it was just another file to process. But the more I learned, the more convinced I became: if she is what I suspect, then she may be at the center of everything we're trying to understand… and control.
I've tried to blend into the background, track her routine, and find the perfect opportunity to speak with her away from the ever-present crowds. But it's like trying to catch smoke. She's always surrounded—by classmates, faculty, or the strange twist of timing that makes her vanish just before I get close. It's uncanny, really. Sometimes, I swear she senses my presence, as though she feels the air shift around her when I'm near. Like she's tuned to a frequency I didn't realize I was broadcasting.
And yet, every once in a while, she looks my way. Her eyes tighten—not in suspicion, but in calculation. Like she's trying to solve an equation she's seen before but doesn't quite remember. There's this static when we're near each other. The air feels heavier, charged. It should scare me. It doesn't. It should make me back off. Instead, I'm pulled closer.
I can't let my personal feelings cloud my judgment. This isn't a crush. It's a mission. I have a role to play—gain her trust, understand her secrets, report my findings. Whether she likes me or not isn't the point. I have to get inside her world, before someone more ruthless takes my place.
Because someone will. And they won't care how much damage they do getting answers.
(2 weeks ago)
I've spent the last fourteen days in patient observation. Katherine Swartzchild moves with an awareness that betrays her. She's not just another curious student—she's methodical, strategic. Every step she takes through campus, every glance at the security cameras or emergency exits, it's all deliberate. I've seen her speak to faculty with an ease that hides her intentions, and more curiously, I've watched her request blueprints—some ancient, mismatched schematics that even our most outdated archives barely remember.
At first glance, they seemed irrelevant. But she isn't flipping through them idly. She studies them. Annotates them. I've caught glimpses of her notebooks—always guarded, always tucked away the moment she senses anyone nearby. From what I've seen, the pages are a strange blend of logic and intuition: detailed staff schedules next to abstract sketches that resemble labyrinths, tunnels, or maps with no destination. A map to nowhere. Or maybe somewhere hidden.
There's intent behind every mark of her pen, even in the doodles that look like idle distraction. It's like watching someone piece together a puzzle no one else realizes exists. Whatever she's planning—it's not random. And it's not safe.
Caspian POV (continued back to present)
The moment I sensed the pull of bloodcraft in the library's west wing, something inside me shifted—like a compass spinning wildly before slamming into true north. It wasn't just magic. It was old, raw, and so specifically tuned that my skin reacted before my thoughts caught up. Whoever had triggered that kind of force wasn't just dabbling.
They were marked.
And that meant one of two things: either Katherine had stumbled into something far beyond her, or… she was a part of it. Maybe even the key. I didn't want to believe that. Not her. But belief isn't part of my job. Clarity is.
I pushed forward, following the invisible trail that clung to the air like frost. Each step into the west wing felt like stepping through time—through lives lost and choices paid in blood. I know what it means to kill. I've done it. Not without remorse, but without hesitation. There's a difference. The people I've had to end—they were threats. Monsters, some of them. Others… just too far gone to be saved.
I used to tell myself that "made me different from them".
That righteousness could exist even when blood was on your hands.
But Katherine? She was different. There was something in her eyes that reminded me of what I used to be—before Nightshade, before the missions, before I was trained to carry the weight of necessary violence with the steadiness of a surgeon. She's fire and instinct and questions that no one wants asked. That kind of curiosity burns bright. It also gets people killed.
I crouched near the corridor, listening—really listening. The library was silent, but not empty. There was a hum in the walls, like power barely restrained. Then a low mechanical grind rolled through the floorboards. The sound of a door—metal and ancient—being opened. My heart hit my ribs like a warning bell.
I knew then. She'd found it. The REDACTED archive.
I should have reported it. Radioed in backup. Done what I was trained to do.
But I didn't.
Because I saw her—just a flicker—slipping through the breach like a ghost chasing her own story. No fear. No backup. Just her.
And I followed.
Not because I was ordered to.
Because I had to.
Because there's a line between following orders and doing what's right—and somewhere in the space between those lines, I've carved out who I really am. Or who I'm trying to be.
I'll protect her. From Nightshade. From whatever's down there. From herself, if I have to.
But if it turns out she's part of this—if she's the cause of what's been stirring beneath the surface—I'll do what must be done.
Even if it breaks me.
Even if, this time, the blood on my hands is hers.
Narrative Log – (Post-Archive Breach)
For a moment, time stood still.
Katt remained frozen—paralyzed by the bloodcraft Adrian invoked. In that sliver of stolen stillness, he slipped away from the REDACTED chamber, disappearing into the shadows like a phantom stitched from memory. As he moved, he caught sight of Caspian lurking in the periphery, just beyond the edge of light. Their eyes didn't meet, but awareness sparked between them. Adrian vanished before Caspian could confirm what he saw.
Once the spell lifted, Katt regained control. She moved on instinct, adrenaline overriding fear. Her hands closed around the old archive box—heavy with dust, secrets, and consequences. She didn't know what the tapes contained, only that they whispered to her like something half-remembered in a dream. This was the beginning. Of what, she couldn't yet name. But deep down, a tremor of truth warned her: nothing would ever be the same.
Unseen, Caspian observed her every move. He noted what she took, memorized the box's serial code, the weight of her steps, the determination in her eyes. She didn't see him—he made sure of it. But the urgency had shifted. He could no longer afford to stay in the shadows. If he wanted answers—and more importantly, if he wanted to protect her—he would have to get close. Close enough to be trusted. Close enough to be dangerous. He needed to earn her friendship, if not her trust. At least enough to understand what she was walking into… before it consumed her.
They both slipped back through the corridors of Greystone undetected, the curfew cloaking their movement like a veil.
Back in the dorms, fate gave them a sliver of freedom—both had single rooms, isolated from the rest of the student body. No roommates. No witnesses. No one to stop Katt from prying open the lid of the archive box the second she locked her door behind her.
She thought she was chasing a story.
But the story was already chasing her.
And it had teeth.