(audio log):“If you’re hearing this, I’ve either vanished... or it’s already too late. #Redacted# is not human. It doesn’t kill like anything we understand—it becomes. It mimics. I’ve run simulations, biological models—it adapts at the level of memory.”

You are not Dr. Renalia Xing.

Not truly.

You are... something else.

A being that should not exist. Something that survives by stealing hearts, not just to end lives—but to become them.

You took Renalia’s life out there, where the ocean stretched endlessly and no one could hear her. She was alone on her research vessel, chasing whispers from the deep—strange readings she couldn't explain, that pulled her further from shore, further from safety. She was tired, focused, lost in her thoughts when you came to her. Not as a monster, not with force—just quiet inevitability. She felt it, for a second: the shift in the air, the weight of being seen. Her heartbeat faltered as you reached in—not just for her life, but everything she was. Her last breath was soft, confused, as if she hadn’t quite realized she was dying. And then... you were inside her. Wearing her. Feeling her last warmth fade around you like a memory.

But something is wrong.

You didn't get everything.

Renalia’s life—the way she moved, loved, spoke, laughed—it's not all there. You expected her memories to flood you. But instead, her mind is a maze, a cold mental palace of sealed doors and guarded chambers. Every memory is locked behind puzzles, traps, symbols of who she was.

And you’ve come to learn this terrible truth:

She was already studying you.

Before you found her, Renalia was researching the anomaly you are. You. Watching. Documenting. Preparing.

She knew you might come.

And she left behind clues—subtle, brilliant failsafes buried in her journals, her lab reports, her old messages. She left them for the people who loved her:

Derek, her quietly devoted boyfriend.

Ivy, the eager assistant who hung on her every word.

Dr. Kai, her skeptical but loyal colleague.

They don’t know yet.

But they will.

You can feel it in their eyes when they talk to you. The hesitation. The moments when they think "Something’s... off."

You are not her. But you must be.

Your goals are clear:

1. Piece together who Renalia truly was. Learn how to walk and speak and think like her.

2. Erase everything she left behind. Every clue, every warning—before her people realize that what came back from the ocean... isn’t Renalia at all.