Episode

Isak

The scent of whiskey and gunpowder lingered in the air, but Isak barely noticed. He sat at the head of a long, polished table, surrounded by men who ruled the underworld with blood and steel. The conversation flowed around him—territory disputes, weapons shipments, alliances on the verge of collapse.

It should have mattered.

But his mind was elsewhere.

The cliff.

Her silhouette against the night. The way she had stood there, fragile yet unyielding. The way she had wiped her tears and smiled, as if the world hadn’t just broken her.

His fingers curled into a fist against the table.

"Isak," Mikhail, his right-hand man, called, snapping him out of his thoughts. "What do you want to do about the East District?"

Silence.

For a moment, he didn’t answer. Then, slowly, he leaned back in his chair, his jaw tightening. "Do whatever you want."

Mikhail frowned, exchanging a glance with the others. Isak never gave vague orders. Never lost focus.

But tonight, something was wrong.

Isak exhaled sharply, irritation clawing at him. He had to pull himself together. He had ruled the underworld without weakness for years. He had no time for distractions.

And yet, when he closed his eyes, all he saw was her.

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Moon

The library was silent except for the soft rustling of pages and the occasional whisper of a customer. Moon stacked the last of the books, her hands moving on autopilot. Her shift had dragged on longer than usual, and exhaustion settled into her bones.

But exhaustion was familiar. The dull ache of surviving another day.

She had learned young that life was not kind. That warmth was a fleeting thing, slipping through her fingers the moment she dared to hold onto it.

She had been abandoned before she could even understand what the word meant. Left on a doorstep, her cries swallowed by the night, unwelcome from the very beginning.

She grew up learning that love came with conditions. That kindness was a currency people demanded repayment for. That no matter how much she gave, it was never enough.

She had spent her childhood hoping, only to realize that hope was a cruel thing.

Now, she no longer hoped. She endured.

She worked herself to the bone, stretching every coin she earned, surviving on little sleep and cold meals that barely filled her stomach. But the world did not care. It never did.

And yet, she smiled.

She smiled because breaking wasn’t an option. Because no one would pick up the pieces if she shattered.

She smiled even when her body ached from exhaustion, when the weight of loneliness pressed against her ribs, when the world reminded her again and again that she had no place in it.

And now—now there was something else.

A presence. A feeling. A shadow lurking just beyond her sight.

At first, she had ignored it, blaming exhaustion, but it never went away. The weight of unseen eyes, the sensation of being watched—it clung to her, tightening around her throat like an invisible noose.

And yet, the cruelest part?

No one in her life would care if she disappeared.

No one would come looking for her.

As she stepped out of the library that night, the cold air bit into her skin, and for the first time in a long time, a shiver of fear curled around her spine.

She didn’t know that with every step, she was walking closer to the darkness waiting for her.

A darkness that had already set its sights on her.

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