Creak. Creak. Creak. Slam!

  My eyes snapped open.

  There was noise. Too much noise.

  I turned toward the clock beside my bed.

  My stomach lurched before my eyes even focused.

  [4:44 A.M.]

  Heat crawled up the back of my neck, my pulse suddenly too loud in my ears.

  "...That can't be good." My voice croaked.

  I crept toward the door, pressing my ear to the wood. Faint voices echoed down the hallway.

  "...Project...General...Master...Orders..."

  The voices didn't belong to anyone in this house.

  I cracked the door open and peeked out. Large shadows loomed in the hallway. Men in black gear, armed and searching. My breath caught.

  Suddenly—

  Bang!

  My door burst open. A hand like iron gripped me and hurled me across the room.

  I crashed onto the floor with a gasp. Pain exploded through my back. I tried to rise, but the man seized me again—massive, built like a tank, sword strapped across his back like a butcher's cleaver.

  "Let go!" I screamed, kicking and flailing, but my strength was nothing compared to his.

  He dragged me to Ma's room.

  No light.

  Only moonlight through the curtains, casting pale shadows on the floor.

  They were already there. Four strangers. They didn't wear masks, but that didn't make it better. It made it worse.

  One was tall and lean, carrying a blade too elegant for someone with eyes that cold.

  Another, more wiry, spun a gun on his finger like it was a toy.

  A third, obese and dressed in a white lab coat, crouched near Ma's body, carefully handling something inside a dry ice container.

  The last, a woman. Stood beside the bed with a whip that hissed like it was alive.

  They weren't just intruders.

  They were predators.

  "Hello. Miss Llyne, was it?" the swordsman spoke.

  I glared. "Never heard of her."

  I tried to stand, but the giant behind me forced me to my knees with a single push. The floor groaned beneath my weight.

  "Do you know what's in front of you, Miss Llyne?"

  "You?" I said flatly.

  He stepped aside.

  The blood drained from my face all at once, leaving my fingers numb.

  Ma lay on the bed, still and pale, her chest unmoving. A person with a lab coat was doing... something to her body. Replacing parts like he was swapping out batteries in a machine.

  "She's dead, child," the swordsman said.

  The words struck like ice.

  No.

  The word was a silent scream in my throat. My vision blurred at the edges, the world tilting until the only thing in focus was the unnatural stillness of her chest. This was the woman who had burned the toast yesterday. The woman who had yelled at me for losing my shoes. Now, she was being handled like a prop. A piece of meat for their 'Project.'

  No, no, no.

  This had to be another nightmare. I had to be dreaming.

  My knees wobbled as I fought to breathe, fought to think, but reality had already broken through.

  I pinched myself. Hard. The pain came. The nightmare didn't end.

  Everything inside me screamed, collapsed, shattered.

  Ma. My fierce, stubborn, warm-hearted Ma. Was gone.

  Gone.

  A cold, oily weight settled in my gut. I wanted to howl. I wanted to tear the Doctor’s throat out with my teeth. But as Master Khun’s cold eyes tracked the tremor in my hands, a different instinct flared up. A terrifying, cold clarity.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I breathed in, trying to quiet my heart.

  If you break now, you die. If you show them you’re a threat, they’ll end this right here.

  I glanced at each of them, memorizing details. Faces, postures, even how they breathed.

  They weren't assassins. They were contractors. Cold, calculated. Professional.

  The swordsman turned to the man with the lab coat. "How long, Doctor?"

  "Just finished, Master Khun."

  Master Khun. So that was his name.

  Master Khun crouched next to me. "Any last words, Miss Llyne?"

  Give them what they expect, I told myself, biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted copper. They think I’m a child. They think I’m a joke. Fine. I’ll be the punchline if it keeps me breathing.

  I forced a smile, though it felt like my face was made of cracking plaster. "Can I ask something first?"

  The gunman grunted. "Why do you—"

  "Master Jay." Master Khun interrupted.

  Master Jay clicked his tongue and turned away.

  "Continue," Master Khun smiled at me.

  I sat in the chair he pulled up, playing my role: a child, scared but curious.

  Inside, I was calculating. Watching.

  Looking for a way out.

  "What happens next?" I asked.

  Master Khun smiled, almost pityingly. "We stage a suicide. We've even forged a note in your handwriting."

  He showed it to me.

  It was uncanny. My skin crawled. They had been watching me for months. Every loop of my 'y,' every messy flourish... they’d studied me like a specimen. I wanted to vomit.

  "Who are you people?" I asked, suppressing the twisted feeling in my stomach. "Why us?"

  Master Khun glanced at the others, then back at me. "Your mother never told you?"

  "She only said she and my dad had enemies. That’s it."

  Master Khun met my stare with a silent, calculating stare. It felt like he was sifting through my thoughts, judging if I was worthy of knowing the truth. The silence stretched until my skin crawled, but he didn't say a word. He just kept reading me, his eyes boring in as if he were trying to peel back the layers of my mask and see my very soul.

  My mouth went dry. I broke eye contact first, my gaze drifting to the shell of my mother and the Doctor’s busy hands. "What... what did you put in her body?"

  The Doctor answered without shame. "Artificial organs. Our own custom designs. Hyper-realistic. Almost indistinguishable from the real thing. Impossible to trace."

  Disgust churned in my stomach. My Ma's body... defiled for a lie.

  I looked out the window.

  "If I die... let me at least die next to the window."

  Master Khun raised an eyebrow. "Dramatic. But it suits the scene. Alright."

  He nodded.

  The others began setting up the "scene": a rope tied from the ceiling, a chair dragged under it. One of them stabbed Ma's lifeless body. Blood soaked the bed.

  "A tedious charade," the woman muttered.

  "We agreed on this, Master Asha." Master Khun snapped.

  I swallowed my nausea.

  "Why Ma's room?" I asked.

  "Didn't you read the note?" Master Khun replied.

  "I did read it," I said, pitching my voice to sound slightly annoyed, like a bratty teenager. "But... have you seen my handwriting? I can't even read it."

  A pause.

  Watch his eyes. There. The slight flicker of confusion. He’s losing his rhythm. He’s a perfectionist, a 'Master,' and he can't wrap his head around a target who is this... trivial.

  Master Khun blinked. "How do you study?"

  "Badly."

  Master Jay stared. "This brat…"

  "Your mother raised you like this?" Master Khun looked visibly betrayed.

  "Yup. And she scared me with her nagging more than any of you ever could."

  Master Asha gave me a disgusted look. "Seriously?"

  "Her nagging made me wiser," I said solemnly. "I age every time she does it."

  Master Jay gagged.

  Keep it up. Master Jay is gagging. He’s disgusted. Good. Disgust is a distraction. Asha thinks I’m pathetic. Even better. People don't guard the exits against 'pathetic.' Every word is another second of life. Every laugh they give me is a foot closer to that window.

  "Stop wasting time," Master Khun said. He stood and hauled me up onto the chair. The noose dangled above me, waiting.

  "I'm afraid of heights," I whimpered.

  Master Jay rolled his eyes. "You're about to die. Just deal with it."

  "Can you open the window?" I asked softly. "I want to feel the air one last time."

  My heart was drumming against my ribs so hard I thought it would crack a bone. It was a pathetic request. A cliché. But I needed him to believe I had accepted defeat. I needed him to see me as a 'dramatic child' and not a 'threat.'

  I looked at Khun.

  He wasn’t just standing there; he was looming, his presence filling the room like a suffocating fog. He knew the perimeter was sealed. He knew his men were outside. This wasn’t mercy. It was indulgence.

  Master Khun didn’t move.

  The silence stretched, deliberate and heavy. His eyes searched my face, not for fear, but for calculation.

  Then he raised an eyebrow. A slow, knowing tilt of the head.

  He opened the window. Stepping back, he gestured toward the glass with a mock-gallant sweep of his hand.

  A breeze washed over me, cold and sharp but I didn’t look away from him.

  He’s letting me. He knows what I’m thinking, and he’s letting me do it anyway. He wants to see what I’ll do. Fine. I’ll give him a show.

  I moved before my courage could evaporate.

  I jumped.

  Crash!

  The glass didn’t give cleanly. It exploded inward, shards tearing across my arms and cheek as pain flared white-hot. The cold night air slapped my face, and for a second, I was weightless.

  I hit the tiled awning hard, the impact rattling my bones. My foot slipped on blood-slick glass, and for a breathless second, I thought I’d fall wrong.

  Then I rolled. Badly, and dropped into the grass-filled garden below.

  As Llyne's small silhouette vanished into the darkness of the garden, the room fell silent. Master Jay reached for his weapon, his face contorted in a snarl.

  "Oi!!!" Master Jay's voice screamed. "Brat!"

  "She jumped!" Master Asha snarled.

  "Stay," Master Khun’s voice was a quiet blade.

  Jay froze, one foot already toward the window. Master Asha narrowed her eyes, looking from the shattered glass to Khun. "You let her go? Master Khun, the Grand Master's orders were—"

  "I know the orders," Khun interrupted.

  He walked slowly to the broken window. He didn't look angry. He didn't look surprised. His finger traced a shard of glass still stuck in the frame, his touch light enough that he didn't bleed, his eyes fixed on the stumbling shadow of Llyne vaulting over the garden hedge.

  A faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. This one makes the hunt more promising.

  Their henchmen swarmed like shadows. Orders flew, guns were drawn. But I was already moving through hedges, vaulting fences, feet bleeding, lungs burning.

  And even as I ran,

  Even as the night screamed behind me,

  Even as grief clawed at my chest like fire,

  I didn't stop.

  I couldn't stop.

  Not now. Not until I found out the truth. Not until someone paid.

  This chapter closes Llyne’s “prelude arc.”

  Her world has officially broken, and from the next chapter onward, the story’s focus will shift toward aftermath, pursuit, and truth.

  Thank you to everyone following the story this far. This is where things truly begin.