The Seal is almost at my grasp
Darkness claws at me, suffocating and endless, thick like tar. My lungs burn, my vision flickers between reality and something else—something worse. My body is screaming, my mind unraveling, but I can’t move. I can only listen to the raspy breath that isn’t mine, feel the nails digging into my skin, the heat of something ancient curling around me like a noose tightening.
I’m dying.
Or maybe I’m already dead. That’s the funny thing. I should know, right?
But before we get to all the messy details of my current situation—like the fact that an ancient demon is trying to rip my soul apart—I should probably introduce myself. You deserve to know whose horror show you just stumbled into, and trust me, it’s not pretty.
The name’s Emma Cranes. Once upon a time, I was just a women with a mundane, repetitive life. Wake up at 5 AM, catch a bus to work, drink tea or warm water like some old lady, come home, sleep, repeat. A goddamn merry-go-round. A predictable, unremarkable cycle—until the day it all shattered.
Now? Now I’m bleeding out on a cold, cracked floor, gasping through the searing pain as something unholy breathes against my face, whispering things I can’t understand but feel sinking into my bones. This isn’t a nightmare. It isn’t some hallucination or near-death experience that ends with me waking up in a hospital bed. No. This is real. This is my reality now.
And if I’m being honest with you, dear reader, my reality is completely fucked.
The demon’s voice slithers through my ears, guttural and raw. “Your body is breaking Mother.” it hisses, talons tightening around my wrists. “Mother...”
A sharp pain slices through my chest, and for a moment, I can’t even scream. My body convulses, fire replacing my blood, and then—
Flashback. Because what’s a horror story without a proper backstory, right?
Let’s rewind to before I was torn apart by hell itself. Before I knew demons were real. Before my life became something worse than death.
Let’s start at the beginning.
The part where I was still breathing.