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Prologue. Within The Shadows
New Haven, Connecticut September 19th, 1786
THE room was dimly lit by a candle burning at the windowsill, covered in cobwebs. There was nothing but a small wooden table adorned with a plastic bucket and knives spread out next to it. Debris and scattered papers littered the pine floorboard. At his knees, blood pooled around him in a circle, acting as a barrier to one he could not escape from.
There were no doors close to him. The only escape was up a creaky, broken staircase behind the devil who had captured him.
He hung his head low and coughed, blood splattering against him.
Naya remained as she was, her back against the wall, watching him with low eyes. She folded her arms over her chest, trimmed nails digging into her skin.
"Do you remember your name?" Naya asked, boredly.
He softly heaved, careful to not put any more pressure on his lungs. Everything pained him. There were no external wounds. Only the bones and organs within ached endlessly.
His pain was all that mattered to him at the moment. It made him delirious. Unaware of what was being said, and who was present in the room. The fog in his head held steady. It was thickening and harbored itself as a storm in a dark night. He prayed he would die with that fog, that no lighthouse would make itself known in his solemn hour.
Because it was not ale nor beer he suffered from.
It was her.
He shook his head, refusing to see the burning light through his stubborn fog. Her voice had cut through him. It was the light beginning to search for him on his stranded boat. It waned and it illuminated. Soon enough, he was in its line of sight. The eye of the storm.
"—Your name," she demanded.
He could not escape her voice any longer.
"...It is Adam," he croaked.
"Do you know what day it is, Adam?"
Adam shook his head. "I am uncertain."
She hummed, mockingly.
He could envision the pout on her lips. How the corners of her lips would shape into a smirk.
How pitiful.
"A shame. Your language was far more colorful days ago. If only you had the tongue now that you held days ago," Naya remarked. She picked herself off from the wall and stretched. Showing no sign of the importance of what was at hand.
