Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 1 - Chapitre 5

I woke with the taste of blood flooding my mouth and the sharp certainty that something had gone terribly wrong. For a few seconds, I could not remember where I was or why every breath felt as though it had to scrape its way through broken glass. Cold earth pressed against my cheek, dampness seeped through my clothes, and somewhere nearby water dripped with maddening patience. I tried to lift my head, but pain detonated beneath my ribs and spread through my body like fire racing through dry grass. My fingers curled instinctively against the ground, searching for something solid to hold. That was when I felt it: the warmth beneath my palm, thick and sticky, unmistakably blood. My blood.I swallowed, fighting the nausea climbing up my throat, and forced myself to remember. The last thing I could clearly recall was leaving the house after midnight. I had received a message from an unknown number telling me to come alone, and despite every warning instinct screaming inside me, I had fo

The heartbeat came again, and this time I knew I had not imagined it.I froze with one hand on my bedroom door, my fingers curled around the brass handle while my heart hammered inside my chest. Beneath it came another rhythm, slower and deeper, as if something had settled inside me and was knocking from the other side.I pressed my palm against my chest and held my breath. “Please, not again,” I whispered. The second heartbeat answered immediately, and my stomach twisted. It was not coming from the walls, the hallway, or the forest beyond my window. It was coming from inside me.I stumbled backward until my hip struck the desk. “This is impossible,” I said, staring at my reflection in the mirror. “I am tired. That is all. I have not slept properly since the night in the forest.”I placed both hands over my chest. My heartbeat was uneven, but the other one remained steady, patient.I swallowed and whispered, “Who are you?” Nothing answered me, yet the second pulse continued beneath

The first thing I noticed the next morning was the blood beneath my fingernails, and the second was the man standing across the road who looked at me as though he had just seen a dead woman walk out of her grave.I froze beside Mara old wooden gate, my fingers curling into my palms as I stared at the stranger. The morning air was cold and damp, carrying the scent of rain and wet earth from the forest, but I barely noticed it because my thoughts were still trapped in what had happened the night before.The claws had disappeared before sunrise, leaving my fingers almost normal again, but the skin around my nails remained tender. Every time I looked at my hands, I remembered them lengthening and darkening while Mara watched in horror.I had barely slept because the second heartbeat beneath my ribs had continued throughout the night. It was steady and unfamiliar, like another presence had awakened inside me and was waiting for me to understand why it was there.Mara had insisted tha