I sat alone in the bar’s kitchen, my back against the cold metal counter. Everything around me was still. The air smelled faintly of grease and age, and the metal utensils that hung above the griddle swayed lightly every time the HVAC kicked on, clinking together with hollow sounds that only I could hear. The place hadn't been cooked in for weeks, maybe months. People didn’t come here for food anymore… well, not the kind this kitchen could produce.

  I didn’t move. I didn’t pace, fidget, or check the time. I just sat there, breathing slowly, hands folded in my lap, eyes half-closed as I waited in numb silence. Every second stretched across my mind, like the time between heartbeats was expanding. Inside me, something pulsed… the need as old as time, clawing against every fiber of my being.

  The Primeval of Annihilation; Myordrakien. It didn’t sleep, it watched through me… waiting to be unleashed… to be satiated by death.

  The steel door at the back groaned open, hinges squealing like some wounded thing. I didn’t bother turning around. The sound of Carter’s boots hit the ground first, followed by the quiet rustle of Martin’s coat. IT surprised me, and I quickly realized that an old suspicion was verified in the back of my mind; there was a second entrance into Martin’s bar, a secret one.

  I could already tell from Martin’s uneven stride that he’d been hesitant about bringing Carter here after their brief, private meeting. Not to mention, they didn’t expect me to be here yet.

  “Sam…” Carter’s voice broke through the stale air. It was soft, cautious. Maybe even a little worried.

  I looked up. Just once. Then back down, trying to quell the beast inside. I felt it rise from its cage even more at the feeling of something with a life to extinguish. Acknowledging that it was just Carter… it soothed, only slightly.

  Martin stepped into the room a moment later, wiping his hands on a rag that looked like it hadn’t been white in years. “You’re early,” he muttered, more surprised than anything. His eyes flicked over me like he was trying to read something buried in the surface of my skin. “Didn’t think you’d be the one waiting on us.”

  “I’m here,” I said flatly.

  A quiet passed between us before Martin cleared his throat and leaned back against the wall. “Alright. You wanted to meet. What’s this about?” His eyes were curious, but I could tell he was cautious. Carter must have told him I seemed weird over the phone.

  Carter looked to me again, like he wasn’t sure if I wanted him to speak for me. I didn’t. I stood slowly, letting the stool scrape back across the tiled floor with an ugly screech that set both of them on edge.

  “I need to find Charles.”

  Martin blinked. “Charles?”

  “I need to talk to him,” I continued. “I don’t care how… but I have to meet with him.”

  Martin’s eyes narrowed, and the helpful look he usually wore around Carter slipped. “Charles is... careful, reclusive. He’s with his family most of the time, and he doesn’t like being pulled out of it. Especially not for surprise meetings.”

  “He’ll make time,” I said unapologetically.

  “And what’s so urgent, Sam?” Martin asked, almost too gently, like I didn’t understand something about the supernatural world. “What could be important enough for you to come here like this, in such a rush?”

  I exhaled through my nose, controlled. Careful not to let my monster slip now that the blade had been taken, and its claws were already at the seam of the cage door.

  “There’s someplace I need to go,” I said quietly. “And the only person that I know can show me the way… is Charles.”

  Martin didn’t speak right away. He just studied me, then glanced at Carter, who was still watching me like he wasn’t sure I was the same person who called him an hour ago.

  Carter finally broke the silence. “Where are you trying to go?”

  I looked down at the floor, jaw clenching. I didn’t want to say it. Saying it made it real… and the reality was that I didn’t know what would happen after I went that far beneath the city. But it was already real. The thing inside me wouldn’t stop thrumming in anticipation. It wanted out. It wanted blood. I could barely keep it leashed above ground. I didn’t know how much longer I could pretend to be me without Death’s blade.

  “I have to go into the pits.”

  Carter frowned quickly. “The pits? What, like under the city?”

  I nodded. “There’s something down there; a lot of things. I’ve tried to get in, but I can’t. The entrances are old, hidden, sealed from me. But Charles… Charles has gone up and down more times than anyone I know. He still works for the Elders… if anyone can help me… it’s him.”

  “What’s down there?” Martin asked, his voice low. He knew that I knew something that he didn’t.

  I looked at him. My eyes didn’t blink.

  “Things I have to kill.” I struggled for a brief moment with those words. Myordrakien flexed his will inside of me at the thought of the mayhem we could unleash down there. My right hand quivered in the darkness of the kitchen.

  They didn’t respond. Neither of them knew what to say. Carter's lips parted like he was about to speak, then shut again when he met my eyes. He knew something was wrong. The way I held myself. The way I didn’t flinch. The way I wasn’t angry… just cold and muted.

  “I can’t hold it much longer,” I finally said, not looking at either of them. “It’s… hungry… in a way. I can feel it underneath everything, breathing inside of me, staring at the same things I am… urging me forward… to take lives.” I shook my head ever so slightly. “I feel its heartbeat every second I’m aboveground. I have to keep closing doors inside myself, locking things away until I can get somewhere to let it loose.”

  I raised my hand and looked at my fingers like I didn’t recognize them.

  “But down there… I can open the doors. I can let it out. Just long enough to do what has to be done.”

  Martin looked shaken, now fearful of the danger I posed to his friends. His voice dropped slightly, “And what happens when you're done? When you come back?”

  I stared at him for a long, quiet moment.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Sam, I know you’re… a rare type of creature,” Martin began, voice quieting as if the walls might hear. “But the pits aren’t just some place you go into to pick a fight.”

  The fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly as Martin flicked them on for Carter’s sake. I wished he wouldn’t have, because I felt like the sight of me in the light would be a shock for Carter. My black eyes were on full display, and I could feel fangs burning through ever so slightly.

  “I’m only assuming you’re trying to pick a fight with some pretty important people down there,” Martin continued. “And I would highly suggest you think about this before you do it.”

  His eyes flicked across the kitchen, scanning the old metal prep tables and the racks of unused pans like they might suddenly come alive with something he’d rather not see.

  Then his gaze settled back on me… Sam. Or what was left of that name. Carter was quiet, only watching me in the new light as he could see a struggle playing across my face; he just didn’t understand it.

  “Is Alex planning to go with you?” Martin asked.

  I blinked, slow and mechanical.

  “You two seemed like you’ve gotten closer,” Martin added, forcing a casual tone. “Which is odd, because she doesn’t befriend anyone.”

  “She wants to go,” I said, flatly.

  I felt Carter shift beside me. Martin’s brow tightened.

  “What’s her deal?” I asked, voice just above a whisper. “Why does she want to go? This seems like… a big deal for her.”

  Martin sighed through his nose and looked away. Something about the way he leaned against the metal shelf made him seem tired… real tired.

  “She’s always been a certain way. You know how some of us… accept what we are… in some way? Sink into the thirst, the urges, even if it’s just for a little while, until we can gather ourselves? She never did.” He paused. His hands clenched the edge of the sink behind him, knuckles taut. “She hates what she is. Hates those who love it. She’s watched so many of her loved ones slip away while she lives on. For her, most of her family lived long lives while she stayed away. She watched them slip away slowly, and she could never go to them. She’s struggled against the thirst for so long, done the right thing for so long… its never been easy for her like it is for every other vampire that indulges whenever they feel the need. But the truth is… if she gets down there, where the real monsters hide…” Martin swallowed. “She’s going to throw herself at them. Every last one.” He looked at me… really looked at me. “She’s either going to kill them all… or she’s finally going to get the death she always wanted.”

  The words hung there like fog in the air. Carter looked between us, brows furrowed.

  “That’s her mindset, Sam. She’s always wanted death to claim her, but she’d never bow and let it take her easily. No sunlight, no human hunter, no weaker creature… no easy way out. She’s always swinging above her weight class, because if death wants her, it has to earn her.” He exhaled, eyes glassy, and in that moment, I realized that Martin actually cared for Alex to a depth I had not realized. “If she’s going with you, it’s because a part of her doesn’t think she’ll come back.”

  I didn’t move. I didn’t react. I just… listened, and inside, the Primeval stirred.

  Carter just listened, staring at me in the cold, fluorescent lighting. I could feel it in him, this dark, blooming fear; a fear for me. It was a fear of what I might become if I let go for even a second. For the part of me I kept chained inside my form like a caged animal screaming to be let loose.

  I tried to refocus. If what Martin said was true… then Alex wasn’t just tagging along. She was knocking on the same door I had once begged to be taken through.

  Stolen story; please report.

  I remembered it, craving the end: the desire to be erased by an 18-wheeler on a lonely road, a high rooftop fall, a knife, a variety of bullets. Anything to stop the curse. I wondered… in her early days… how many times had she tried? Or was Martin right, and she wouldn’t even attempt it?

  “She wants to go down fighting,” Martin said, his voice now cracked, his calm dissolving. “And if whatever’s down there can kill her…” He looked me in the eye. “I have to ask you something, Sam.”

  I didn’t answer. I just watched him.

  “Don’t take her with you. Don’t let her throw herself into that place. She’s… she’s unique. She’s more than just what kind of vampire she is. She’s been through things. She doesn't think she matters to anyone, but she does.” Martin couldn’t say it out loud, but she mattered to him. “But she’s stubborn,” he admitted. “She won’t just take no for an answer. If you can’t stop her from going… then watch out for her.” He said the last part unwillingly. “I’m asking you as a friend.”

  I didn’t speak… couldn’t, maybe. There was a weight pressing down inside of me like gravity had set up shop inside of me. Because I knew the truth. I didn’t want her to come, not because I feared for her, but because… I wasn’t sure I could protect her once I opened the cage inside.

  And yet… a small part of me recognized her. A broken piece in the same shattered mirror. We both looked into it and saw the same thing staring back: a monster. She mocked me, fought me, and said all the wrong things just to piss me off. But she got it. She knew what it meant to carry destruction in your veins and still want the peace that was stolen from you. Even if it was the peace of the grave.

  Martin pulled out his phone and stepped into the main bar area, heading outside. I heard the ringing start as he passed through the front doors, unlocking them quickly. Something in his posture said he was trying to hold something in.

  I turned slightly, finding Carter still staring at me like I was a ghost wearing my own face. His voice came gently.

  “Is this because of what’s happening with Autumn… or the other thing… the entity?”

  I nodded once. “Entity.”

  He hesitated, chewing the inside of his cheek.

  “You’re coming back, though, right?”

  I nodded again. But inside… the answer wasn’t clear. Not to me, and not to the thing inside me.

  Carter stood close, his voice low but tense with barely restrained worry.

  “Sam, I won’t pretend like I know shit about the pits,” he muttered, eyes searching mine like he might find something human left in there. “I’ve only heard rumors. Stories from second-hand accounts… scraps Martin and Charles threw our way. But everything I’ve heard… it paints a picture of somewhere wrong. A place twisted at the root… more than anything that me or my family is prepared for.” He took a shaky breath and ran a hand down his face. “It’s not a place normal people walk in and out of. It’s not meant for us. There are things down there that don’t belong in this world. Not in any world.”

  His voice tightened with the kind of fear that only comes from imagining the unknowable. I think he was waiting for me to acknowledge his words, but I remained quiet.

  “I just don’t wanna see something happen to you because you’re doing someone else’s bidding.”

  That was the part that got him. It wasn’t the monsters or the madness. It was the thought of me, his friend, being nothing more than a pawn to someone else. A tool possessed in a larger scheme I didn’t even understand, and the entity held the reins. He thought I was being used. But he didn’t know what I really was. And that truth… it didn’t just change things… it rewrote everything.

  I waited until Martin had stepped away from the building. His voice could be heard faintly on the phone, far enough that what came next would be for Carter alone, even with Martin’s supernatural senses.

  “I know it’s hard,” I said slowly, quietly. “Watching someone you know walk off into the abyss.”

  He stared at me, silent as I began speaking in a lengthier burst. I still kept my voice unemotional and numb to stay in control.

  “But don’t worry about me, Carter. I’m not walking blind anymore.”

  I shifted slightly, feeling the weight of the truth rise in my throat like a sickness. Even through the unemotional detachment I held my mind in… I felt something as I started slipping the truth out to Carter.

  “I know the truth now. And that truth… makes this easier.”

  Carter didn’t speak. He just watched, tense, breath caught between his ribs.

  “I’m not doing this for some necromancer,” I continued, my voice a shade deeper now, edged with something ancient beneath the surface. “Not for an ancient Attuned or creature. I’m not bound to someone in this living world. The entity isn’t what you think it is.”

  I raised my void-black eyes slowly, meeting his. The quick eye contact raised his heart rate… I could hear the beating of his heart and the rushing of blood surging through his arteries.

  “The entity… the thing that gives me the names. That sends me the visions. That feeds this power through my bones…”

  My hand twitched slightly as the Primeval stirred… listening.

  “…I know who he is.”

  Carter swallowed hard. His pulse surged in his throat, through his carotid arteries.

  “I told this to Autumn,” I added. “And it broke her. I think that’s why she left. She didn’t say it, but when I told her what I’m about to tell you… it forced a reaction inside her. Shortly after… she told me she didn’t want me anymore…”

  His eyes widened slightly.

  I looked at the floor, then back to Carter. Back to the man who once trusted me before any of this. The only one right here still trying to see the person in me.

  “She hasn’t told you yet, has she?” I asked.

  He slowly shook his head. “No.” He looked confused at the seriousness of my attitude, and that his own daughter knew this and hadn’t said anything. I could tell it raised other questions about Autumn herself. Especially regarding the things I had told him about Peter, Patrick, and the hairbrush.

  I exhaled, barely a sound, “After I killed Peter…” I said, and the name alone made Carter’s expression twist with remembered horror, “...the entity appeared to me in a certain way. A truth I’d been circling for a long time but couldn’t accept. He all but said the words… and I came to understand the truth.”

  The kitchen grew quieter, as if the bar itself were listening. Like the walls knew what was about to be said.

  I spoke with finality.

  “He’s Death.”

  I let the word hang. Let it echo in the silence like the toll of a funeral bell.

  Carter blinked. His lips parted slightly. His breath caught.

  “The entity is Death, Carter,” I repeated. “Not a creature cloaked in shadows. Not a metaphor.” I leaned forward slightly. “I was bound to it the moment I was changed… the night I was taken from my life back in Texas. I wasn't infected or turned. I was chosen by Death himself, tied to something far more ancient than any other creature walking this earth.”

  There was a sound in the distance, like the metal in the walls shifted; like the building itself groaned in reaction. Carter looked over to the side in the direction it came, but saw nothing.

  “I’m not just wielding monstrous power,” I said. “I’m an extension of him… in a way. I sever the lives of all things he sends me after. The monster inside of me is…” I struggled to speak about Myordrakien for some reason… maybe because he was the only one with me in the moment. “The monster is destruction… annihilation… the end of all things.”

  Carter just stood there, motionless, like the weight of the air had tripled. His eyes had gone glassy. A pale sheen stretched over his face like frost creeping in from the edges of reality. I watched him… watched it land. The full realization of what I was saying. That Death wasn’t just coming. He was here, walking, speaking, standing a few feet in front of him in a strange kind of proxy.

  “It’s a lot,” I admitted, my voice distant now, like I was speaking from behind glass, separate from the world he was now consumed with, and I was leaving him to it. “I’m not asking you to accept it… or fully understand it. Autumn couldn’t… obviously. I thought she would be strong enough to hear it, but…” I doubted our connection after how she handled it. I didn’t need to say that for Carter to know what I meant.

  He hadn’t moved. Still staring at me like he was trying to hold the world together behind his eyes.

  “I didn’t mean to hide it from you,” I added. “I just didn’t want to say it. Not after how she reacted. Not when I didn’t know how you’d take it. I was… scarred to lose you guys…” I admitted shamelessly, thanks to the unemotional detachment I still held.

  Carter finally exhaled, voice cracking like a dry twig.

  “You were scared to tell us?” he couldn’t believe something about the situation that I couldn’t see.

  I nodded, unsure why he was so confounded.

  He blinked again and intentionally swallowed.

  “I mean… I won’t lie, that’s…” He looked away for a second, then looked back. “Death,” he said, repeating the word like it was foreign on his tongue. “Death…” Another pause. “So are you like… the Grim Reaper or something?”

  His voice wasn’t mocking. There was no humor in it. He was asking, like a child asking if the thunder outside could reach him.

  I laughed, but it wasn’t out of amusement. It was hollow. “No… I’m something else.”

  Carter’s brows pulled together, but he didn’t interrupt. He just listened, too stunned to do anything else.

  “There’s more to my story than just being bound to Death. Something… I don’t fully understand yet. But I’m starting to catch glimpses.” I paused, my hands flexing involuntarily as the pressure beneath my skin stirred. The urge filled every inch of me, raging against sharing too much about my Primeval side.

  “This thing inside me… It’s not just some puppet Death crafted for his errands. It’s not a weapon he forged from nothing.”

  I glanced over my shoulder… Martin was still out of sight, out of earshot. I leaned in slightly, voice barely above a whisper.

  “I think… it was something else. A long time ago. Before Death found it. It walked this earth. It had its own will, its own mind. A will that still moves inside me.”

  Carter’s face paled.

  “I think it’s tied to something beneath the pits. Whatever’s down there… It’s familiar… similar to what I have inside of me. It was tied to what was keeping Peter alive, too.”

  Carter’s jaw tensed, remembering the hell Peter had brought to them all. An enemy unnaturally saved from death… anchored in this world by a force they couldn’t understand.

  I looked down for a moment, my voice growing quieter, more haunted.

  “When I was in the other dimension… the hellfire where I vanished… I fought something called the Unseen. A Primeval that ruled over that realm. Something as old as the world itself.”

  Carter’s brow furrowed, struggling to make sense of the words.

  “That thing… it looked at me, and it saw past the meat and bones of my own body. It saw the other thing inside. And it called it something…” I raised my eyes, the memory clawing its way back to the surface like ice pushing through stone. “It called it ‘brother.’”

  Carter flinched like the word hit him in the stomach. “Brother?” His voice cracked. “Sam, that’s… what the fuck does that even mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “But it wasn’t just fear. It was recognition. It knew this thing inside of me.” I leaned back, the weight of it all pressing down on my shoulders again. “There’s a lot I still have to figure out. But it’s not a coincidence that this is where Death is sending me next. I don’t think it’s just a hit list anymore. It’s not just vengeance or cleaning up corruption in this world. I’m hunting Primevals…”

  I looked at the wall behind Carter like I could see through it. Through the bar. Through the earth beneath it.

  “There’s one beneath the city… and that’s why I have to go.”

  He said nothing. Just stared, lips sealed like he was watching something slowly crack in the sky above his world. IT was big… too big for his mind to wrap around quickly. I couldn’t blame him, because that’s how I felt when I came back from the Unseen’s dimension. After fighting that titan as a titan of death and destruction myself, towering over the land… it felt too big for even me. I wanted to return to the smaller, more manageable world that I knew. The place I was born. I could see that in Carter’s eyes in that moment.

  We sat in silence. The kind that wasn’t peaceful, but looming dread all around us. It was the silence that comes after something’s been broken in front of you and no one moves to pick up the pieces. It was the stillness after realizing that something cannot be repaired… not to the state it used to be.

  A moment later, Martin returned inside the bar and then back into the kitchen. His face looked unreadable as he stepped back into the kitchen.

  “He’ll meet us,” he said, slipping his phone into his coat. “He said he has to finish some things, but he’ll meet us in the city. He’ll talk to you, Sam.”

  There was a pause before he added, “I told him you wanted to go down into the pits. He didn’t say much. Just… went quiet. I think he’s worried.”

  “He has a family to protect,” Carter said, voice low. “He’s probably just worried about them.”

  Martin nodded, though his eyes lingered on me like maybe he was worried about more than just the people he called family.

  “We have to meet before sunrise,” Martin said. “But he’ll have to take an hour or so before we meet,” Martin added, but didn’t explain why.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket, thumbed the screen to check the time. Two hours until sunrise. Enough time to pretend we were still normal. That the world was still intact… or the moment, until I changed everything.

  “You want to get a beer?” I said, my voice flatter than usual. Just enough inflection to sound almost like myself. The part of me that used to exist. It was more of an olive branch for Carter after the shitstorm I had just dumped on him.

  Martin raised an eyebrow, surprised. Then he smiled faintly and shook his head.

  “I guess I can do that. I do know the owner.”

  Carter exhaled in something like relief, but it didn’t last long. His eyes still flicked to me when he thought I wasn’t looking. And I could feel it.

  The distance was growing between me and the world I called home, and between me and the people who still saw the ghost of Sam inside the thing I was becoming. While they sipped beer and tried to pretend, I sat there watching the seconds slip toward the inevitable, fearing that the next time I descended into darkness…I might not come back. And if I did… It might not be me who comes back.