Chapter 3: Lens in the Dark

👉 Previous decision: You chose to pull out your smartphone and record high-definition video of Mara burning the blood contract through the hole.

My hand trembled as I grabbed my phone from the nightstand. The screen lit up the darkness of my tiny room.

I pressed the phone’s camera lens against the small aperture in the drywall. The ritual came into sharp focus on the screen.

Sister Mara, cloaked and chanting, her face a mask of cold devotion. The bronze bowl glowed with embers. My signature, clear as day, before it curled into ash.

I hit record. Forty-five seconds of crystal-clear 4K video. It showed Mara selecting me, Leo Kaczmarek, as the next “debt sacrifice,” my burning contract proof of her intention.

The video feed captured everything: the chanting, the robed figures, the swirling smoke. My signature, burning.

Just as I prepared to pull the phone back, the battery indicator on my screen blinked red. A faint, blue-white glow pulsed from the phone through the tiny hole.

Mara stopped chanting. The rhythmic drone died instantly.

Her head snapped up, eyes locking onto the small, bright pinprick in the drywall. Her gaze felt like a physical blow.

I ripped the phone away, my heart leaping into my throat. The chanting started again, louder now, more urgent.

Heavy footsteps slammed against my apartment door. A loud, insistent pounding that shook the thin frame.

There was no time. I grabbed my worn denim jacket from the chair, shoved my phone into the pocket, and fumbled with the fire escape window latch.

The rusted metal creaked as I forced it open. I swung my legs over the sill, ignoring the biting chill of the rain and the screams coming from inside.

I hit the rusted rungs, descending into the wet, dark alley just as the door to apartment 3A splintered inward.

➡️ Read CHAPTER 4 to continue the story.