I didn’t leave the apartment for two full days.

Something inside me had shifted, and I wasn’t sure it was safe to be around anyone. My skin was a live wire. Emotions came in crashing waves—panic, hunger, restlessness. I felt too full and too empty at the same time. Even my reflection didn’t look right.

Aiden noticed.

“You okay?” he asked, hovering at my bedroom doorway. “You haven’t touched your cereal.”

“It’s cold,” I mumbled. “I’m not really hungry.”

“You’re always hungry,” he said, trying to make it light.

“I said I’m fine.”

He flinched at my tone. I regretted it immediately.

“Sorry,” I added, eyes on the wall.

He gave a small nod and backed away.

I buried my face in my pillow. I wanted to scream, to cry, to run, to fly—anything but sit still. Something was wrong inside me, and I didn’t know how to name it. But I knew who could.

Alexander met me on the rooftop just after sunset. He didn’t have to be invited—I’d left the window open like a signal flare.

“What’s happening to me?” I asked.

“You’re evolving,” he said, sitting beside me.

“Into what?”

He didn’t answer at first. Just looked out over the city skyline, Windsor lights twinkling faintly in the dusk.

“You’re still human,” he said finally. “But you’re not ordinary. You’re awakening to something older. A blood trait that hasn’t shown up in decades.”

“Great,” I said. “So I’m a genetic throwback?”

Alexander smiled softly. “You’re rare. Special.”

I hugged my knees. “That’s never good in stories like these.”

“No,” he agreed. “But it means you have choices. And you’re not alone.”

He told me about the Gathering.

Every generation, those like him—like them—meet in secrecy to renew old covenants and assess threats. It wasn’t political. It was survival. Power draws attention, and when too much power gathers in one place, people notice. Hunters. Governments. Others.

The Gathering was happening in Windsor, and the Creeveys weren’t the only ones in town.

“You want me to come?” I asked.

“I want you to see what you’re walking into,” he said. “Before you’re pulled in completely.”

“And if I don’t?”

“You will,” he said, voice low. “Whether you want to or not.”

The Gathering took place at an abandoned church near the riverfront—old, gothic, its windows shattered and covered in ivy. I’d passed it a hundred times without noticing. Now it pulsed like a second heartbeat.

We arrived just after midnight. Alexander led me inside, where candlelight flickered in iron sconces and the air was thick with something—incense, maybe, but also anticipation.

They were already there. Dozens of them. Some looked like ordinary people—young, old, punk, polished. Others didn’t. There was a woman with silver eyes and braided hair down to her knees. A man whose skin shimmered like oil on water. A teenager in ripped jeans who moved like a predator.

They turned as we entered.

“She’s the one?” someone asked.

Alexander nodded. “She is.”

A murmur spread. Some curious. Some hostile.

“She smells like fire,” the silver-eyed woman said, voice like glass.

“She doesn’t belong here,” muttered someone else.

“She belongs more than most,” Veronica said, stepping forward from the shadows. Her arms were folded. Her gaze was steady. “And she’s under our protection.”

The crowd quieted.

Then the man with the shimmering skin stepped forward.

“I’m Caelum,” he said. “I lead this circle. And I say she may stay… for now.”

The next hour blurred. They asked questions—where I came from, what I dreamed, what I’d felt. They weren’t cruel, but they were cautious. I was an anomaly, and anomalies were dangerous.

Alexander stayed beside me the whole time. I didn’t realize how much I leaned on him until I nearly fell.

At the end of it, Caelum looked at me again.

“There’s something in you,” he said. “An echo. A hunger that hasn’t woken yet. When it does, the choice will be yours—but not without cost.”

“What choice?” I asked.

“To become what you’re meant to be,” he said. “Or to burn it out and walk away forever.”

“And if I choose wrong?”

He didn’t answer.

Back in my apartment, I couldn’t sleep. My body still buzzed with their voices, their eyes. My dreams were a storm of fire and teeth and light.

Somewhere around dawn, I opened my sketchbook.

I drew the church first. Then Caelum. Then Alexander.

And finally, a figure I didn’t recognize—a girl with my face, but eyes that burned.

The caption wrote itself: She chooses.