> "The scariest voice isn't the one you hear. It's the one that answers when you talk to yourself."
---
It took Raven an hour to stop running.
He didn't know where he was. The trees had changed—thicker now, older. The bark was darker, almost scorched. No birds. No bugs. Just that ever-present hum in his chest, like something ancient was pacing behind his ribs.
His knees buckled.
He fell near a stone outcropping and curled into himself, trying not to cry. It wasn't working.
"I'm not supposed to have power," he whispered. "I just wanted to survive. Not... this."
> "Survival is power."
He flinched.
Not a voice in his ears.
A voice inside his skull.
And this time, it wasn't faint. It was clear. Cold. Familiar.
"Who are you?" Raven asked the dirt.
> "You already know. You saw me—in the mirror place. The Echo Realm."
> "Your soul cracked open, little Host. That's how I slipped in."
"No," Raven muttered. "You're not in. I didn't let you—"
> "You ate me, Raven."
> "And now I'm part of you."
---
The pain returned like a slow knife twisting through his bones.
His mark flared, and the world faded—not into unconsciousness, but somewhere in-between.
> Echo Realm.
He stood in the same space of broken mirrors, though fewer now. Most were gone—shattered or dark. Only three reflected him now.
One was himself as a child.
One was his current form.
And the last—was something else entirely.
A version of Raven with coal-black skin, wings of ash, and a mask of teeth. The mark pulsed on his chest like a second heart.
The Entity stood beside it.
"Tell me what you are," Raven demanded.
The thing tilted its head.
"I am your hunger. I am what waits in the cracks. I have no name. But you will give me one. That's how this works."
"Why me?"
"You didn't run from the dead. You ran from the living. That makes you mine."
The nightmare-Raven stepped forward. Mirrors around it shattered.
"You will become me, in time. Or break. That's how Hosts end."
---
Raven's eyes snapped open.
The forest was dimming again—not because of night, but because shadows were thickening unnaturally. Rising like mist. Crawling.
Someone was watching him.
Not someone.
Something.
He stood, wiping blood from his nose. "You want to test me? Fine."
He reached inside—toward the mark—and pulled.
---
The darkness responded.
But it didn't consume him. It coiled.
From behind him rose a vague shape—a beast not fully formed, stitched from fog and black flame. Four legs. Two heads. No eyes.
It stood beside him like a dog at rest.
His first summon.
A shadow echo.
"...What the hell am I?" Raven breathed.
> "The first step," the voice whispered.
> "Is knowing you're not human anymore."