Prologue

The air in the small room was thick with the scent of dried sage and something indefinably earthy. The shaman, a woman whose eyes seemed to hold more sunsets than years, leaned forward. The shadows cast by the single candle danced across her face, carving deep lines into her weathered skin.

"You have a very interesting past and future," she stated, her voice a low, resonant murmur.

Danny felt a cold prickle of alarm under his skin as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. "What do you mean?" he managed, his unease stealing his breath.

He had only come here with a knot of immediate dread—the haunting recent events and the unsolved murder that was eroding his peace. Now, this unexpected statement felt like a trapdoor had opened beneath him, promising something vast and terrifying.

The shaman’s gaze pinned him in place. "You are destined to walk the world until the end of time in this life, but you will not be walking it alone. A love long lost will soon reappear at the moment when you need them most."

She paused, letting the weight of her words settle. "As for what brought you here today... I can only tell you this: the path you are walking is one shrouded in darkness and mystery, a deep labyrinth. You must solve the case before you by going further down the rabbit hole. Only then can you truly fulfil your destiny."

Danny’s shock was a physical blow. An old love? His mind seized on a single memory: Alex. His first love. Alex had been brutally murdered two years ago, the case file gathering dust and despair in some forgotten police precinct storage room. Danny had seen the body identified; he had stood by the casket at the funeral.

He wondered if this woman saw a connection—a horrible, impossible thread connecting his destiny to a grave that should have been occupied for eternity.

Yet still the rational side of him wanted to leave this place now and never return. Danny never believed in fate or things that cannot be proven, yet here he was being swayed by the words of someone who doesn’t know him yet seems to be able to read his past and future like an open book.

"Impossible," he whispered, the word sharp with refusal. His brain, logical and desperate, rejected the chaotic information.

The shaman smiled with a faint, knowing warmth. "You'll see when you get home."

Before he could question the cryptic of her reply, the sharp chime of his phone cut through the silence. It was a text from his uncle.

Please come home. Now.

Danny stared at the screen, then back at the shaman, his confusion twisting into raw fear. His uncle was his rock, his only remaining family. What is going on?

"What is waiting for me at home?" he demanded, the composure he had fought to maintain finally crumbling.

"A love that has withstood lifetimes," she replied softly, "and one that heals the hole in your heart and protect you from what is to come." Her words stunning Danny for a few seconds, his brain not wanting to register her confusing and cryptic message.

Danny reached for his wallet, needing to ground the moment, to offer payment for the unsettling prophecy. But an ancient, warm hand covered his, gently pushing the wallet away.

"This consultation is free."

"Why?"

"Because I am the start of the payment that fate is giving you in return for everything it has taken," she said, her eyes suddenly intense. "Now, leave and hurry home."

With no more words needing to be said, Danny fled from that place and to the sanctuary of his car.

The few minutes' drive home was a blur of pounding adrenaline. His thoughts were a cyclone: his uncle’s sudden summons, the shaman's impossible words, and the ghost of Alex. He couldn't bear the thought of losing his uncle, the last familiar anchor in his increasingly unhinged life.

He finally reached the house, his tires screeched as he pulled in. His uncle’s familiar car was parked in the drive—a small comfort—but unknown panic propelled him up the stairs. He wrenched the front door open, his heart hammering against his ribs.

"Uncle! Uncle?" he called out, the sound desperate and echoing through the hallway.

"In here!" his uncle’s voice boomed from the living room. "And I've brought someone to see you."

Someone? The shaman’s prophecy echoed once again in Danny's mind, cold and clear. He reached the living room door, his hand shaking as it gripped the door handle.

"Who?" Danny asked breathlessly.

"Me," a young man replied.

The voice was familiar yet deeper, matured. Danny pushed the door open, his feet cementing to the floor. The hand holding the door handle remained fixed as he drank in the sight.

The man had jet-black hair, the familiar sharp line of high cheekbones, and those unforgettable brown eyes. He was broader now, taller, dressed in clothes Danny didn't recognize, but the face—the face was exactly the same at had once been. It was the face of the man who had been dead for two years.

He stood there, alive and whole. Danny's first love. His dead friend.

"Alex?"

The name was a fragile question; a sound stripped of rhetoric or disbelief. It was the last breath of Danny's normal life.

Darkness, swift and sudden, crashed in on his vision as his knees buckled. The last thing Danny registered was the look of pure terror on Alex’s face as he surged forward to catch him.