The night had grown thick with celebration. Music spilled from the penthouse lounge of the Langley Hotel, where Vanessa reclined against velvet cushions, her crystal glass of champagne catching the glow of the chandeliers. Damian lounged beside her, tie loose, jacket discarded, his grin sharp as a wolf’s.Screens lined one wall, each displaying feeds from social media. Ethan’s humiliation replayed endlessly, him on his knees, the rejection, the laughter, the way Vanessa had turned her back on him without a second thought. The headlines were vicious.Vanessa twirled her glass. “Look at him. Hours ago, the world saw him for what he is, small, pathetic, beneath us.”Damian laughed. “And tomorrow, no one will remember his name.”Vanessa leaned closer, her perfume heavy with roses and venom. “That’s what I like about you, Damian. You understand that power isn’t about money or legacy. It’s about perception. Strip a man of dignity in front of the world, and he’ll never recover.”Damian raise

The suite was too quiet. Ethan sat at the edge of his bed, staring at the black coin where it lay on the nightstand.Even when untouched, it seemed to hum faintly, like the low vibration of a distant engine or the pulse of some subterranean current.He rubbed his palms over his face, dragging away the fatigue, then leaned closer. “What are you?” he whispered, as though speaking too loudly might wake something best left asleep.The shadows in the corners didn’t answer. But the coin glimmered, catching the first light of dawn. He didn’t leave the suite for hours.Room service trays collected dust by the door. His laptop sat open across the desk, tabs upon tabs of searches sprawled across the screen: obscure folklore forums, digitized occult manuscripts, archived conspiracy blogs that hadn’t been updated in a decade.He should have felt foolish. He didn’t. Because the deeper he went, the more he recognized patterns he’d already begun to sense.Stories about a Game hidden beneath the skin

The knock had stopped. Ethan’s fingers tightened around the coins in his pocket as the door eased open on its own, swinging wider without a sound. A figure stepped across the threshold.At first glance it looked like a man, tall and thin, dressed in a suit so black it seemed woven from shadow. But its face, no, not a face at all.Smooth, featureless skin stretched where eyes, mouth, and nose should have been, as though someone had erased them. Only the faintest suggestion of cheekbones shifted when it turned its head toward him.The air grew heavy. Every shadow in the suite stretched toward the figure, bending unnaturally, dragging across the floor like oil.Ethan forced himself to stand his ground. “Who are you?”The figure’s head tilted, the blank surface glistening faintly. When it spoke, its voice didn’t come from any mouth but from the walls themselves, vibrating in the bones of the room.“A herald. A witness. An emissary of the Ledger.”The coins in Ethan’s palm burned hot. His