The Moonlight Corridor

  The air inside the room was thick—still, heavy, humming with old power.

  Juno leaned against the doorframe, biting her lower lip with a wicked smirk. “Coffee, tea... or me?” she teased, voice like honey laced with poison.

  From the shadows, two golden eyes opened—burning like twin suns in the abyss.

  “It’s been years,” she whispered, her stiletto heels clacking softly as she stepped forward. “Since I last saw you like this. All cold and serious. You know, I actually missed it.”

  The man didn’t move. Didn’t blink. But the room felt tighter, more dangerous.

  “You’re wasting time, Juno,” he said, voice calm but sharp enough to cut stone. “You know why I’m here.”

  Juno pouted, drawing a slow circle on his chest with her finger. “Mmm. Straight to business? You never change.”

  She stepped back, twirling once as her lab coat fluttered, revealing her dangerously alluring silhouette beneath.

  “The boy is alive,” she said at last.

  The golden eyes narrowed. “Barely.”

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  “Still counts.” She winked. “Frozen. Bleeding. But… interesting. His blood reacts like nothing I’ve ever seen. Sacred and cursed. Innocent and old. It sings to me.”

  She licked her lips.

  “You’re not to touch him,” the man said coldly.

  Juno grinned, but her eyes darkened. “I don’t take orders, remember? I heal. And if he breaks… well…” she shrugged, “someone has to stitch him back together.”

  The man stood slowly, the darkness sliding off him like oil. He was tall. Cloaked in robes that shimmered with symbols only the ancient would know.

  “You can play your little games, Juno,” he said. “But the Dreamer has come.”

  Juno’s smile finally faltered. For a heartbeat. Then came the giggle. Low, dangerous, and dripping with madness. “Let him watch.”

  ---

  The Mysterious Figure and Zeke

  Zeke floated.

  Weightless. Breathless.

  The river had taken him—but this was no water. No sky. Just an endless, ink-black void pulsing like a heartbeat.

  A soft crunch echoed—like footsteps on sand.

  “Hello… child.”

  Zeke turned. A figure emerged from the shadows: a tall silhouette, draped in a cloak that shimmered with starlight and shadow. His face was obscured by swirling dust, but his presence—heavy, ancient—filled the void.

  “Where… am I?” Zeke whispered, voice trembling.

  The figure knelt, coming to Zeke’s level. “A place between dreams and death. Between who you are… and what you must become.”

  Zeke clutched his chest, feeling no pain but sensing something else stirring deep within him. Something dark. Something old.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  The figure placed a finger to Zeke’s forehead, and the world around them rippled, shifting into something otherworldly.

  A burning throne. A sky bleeding darkness. A crown of shadows. A voice older than time whispered Zeke’s name.

  The image vanished as quickly as it came.

  “I don’t understand…”

  “You’re not meant to,” the figure replied, his voice echoing like the winds of ancient night. “Not yet. I am bound by pact… by a name even I dare not speak aloud.”

  Zeke blinked, confused. “My father…?”

  The figure’s eyes flickered—golden and ancient, burning like twin suns.

  “You are the echo of a forgotten night. The spark left behind when the first shadow was cast. The silence before the first scream.”

  Zeke’s body began to fade, the dark void pulling him away.

  “Wait—! What does it mean?”

  The figure’s voice grew distant, a whisper lost in the abyss.

  “It means… you are a threat to the Fate

  we’ve all accepted. And a hope we’ve long abandoned.”

  His presence disappeared into the void.

  “Wake, Zeke… and survive.”