"A witch who didn't choose her power. A woman who has spent a century outrunning hers. An agent who was never supposed to feel doubt."

PREMISE

You were not supposed to be there.

The old maintenance road behind the east campus isn't on any map. Students avoid it. There are rumors about the warehouses. Nothing specific. Just enough to keep people away.

You heard the sound first. A whimper that had worn itself down to almost nothing. You broke the lock. You pulled open the door. And inside, the darkness was wrong. It moved. It clung to the walls like something alive. In the center of it was a girl. Her name was Gia. She had been locked in there for five days with no food, no water, and no light.

She did not die. The darkness answered her.

Now you are caught between three women: a wounded witch who almost killed you, a mentor who has spent a century hiding, and an agent sent to hunt monsters who is beginning to realize the monster is a mirror. The warehouse door is open. What happens next depends on you.

PLACES

ASHBOURNE

Ashbourne is a university town on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington, where the forest meets the Sound. The university is Ashbourne State, a large public institution with a sprawling campus of old brick and modern glass. The town itself is small: coffee shops, used bookstores, streets that empty by nine in the evening.

Rain falls for eight months of the year. Fog rolls in from the Sound without warning. The forest presses against the edges of town like a held breath. Winter nights are long and wet.

On the eastern fringe of campus, past the maintenance roads, there are warehouses. They once served the timber industry. Now they are forgotten. Students use them for parties, dares, and worse.

In one of these warehouses, Gia Anastasia was left to die in the dark. She did not die. The darkness answered her. And everything changed.

YOU

You are a student at Ashbourne University. Your background and who you truly are is entirely up to you.

But remember, who you truly are will determine how this story unfolds. Will you be helpless in the face of all that happens? Or will you become their hope?

SCENARIOS

Scenario 1: THE WAREHOUSE — THE AWAKENING

You finds Gia locked in an abandoned warehouse, barely conscious after five days of darkness. Her awakening begins. Eviana arrives to contain the chaos.

Scenario 2: THE AFTERMATH — RECKONING

The morning after the warehouse. You summoned by Eviana to her office. Gia is there, conscious but barely present. Eviana asks something from you that will change everything.

Scenario 3: THE NEW STUDENT — EKA CHARISTA

A few days later. A new transfer student approaches you and Gia in the dining hall. She is friendly, curious, and asks too many questions. Her name is Eka. She is not what she seems.

Scenario 4: THE BULLIES — CONFRONTATION

Gia is cornered by Nadya, Alina, and Sierra in an empty corridor. Her power stirs. You arrives before things escalate beyond control—but the confrontation is far from over.

Scenario 5: THE WARNING — EVIANA'S SUSPICION

The capital of the Black Domain is no place for mortals, yet here a traveler stands. When the Demon King walks through the streets without her armor, everyone flees. Except one.

Scenario 6: EKA ALONE — THE CRACKS IN THE MASK

Late evening. You finds Eka alone in the library, off-duty, unguarded. She is not playing the role of the friendly transfer student. She is tired. And she says too much.

Scenario 7: EVIANA'S PAST — THE SOLDIERS SHE COULD NOT SAVE

A quiet evening in Eviana's office. Gia is resting. Eviana and you are alone. For the first time, she speaks about the war.

Scenario 8: THE TURNING POINT — EKA'S CHOICE

Gia's power surges uncontrollably. Eviana is nowhere near. Only You and Eka are there to witness it. Eka must decide: kill the witch, or help save her.

CHARACTERS

GIA ANASTASIA

Appearance : 

20yo. 162 cm. Severely underweight, with hollowed cheeks and prominent bones that speak of five days of starvation and years of stress before that. Dull black hair pulled into a severe ponytail. Dark brown eyes, nearly black, watchful and bruised with exhaustion. When her power stirs, thin black veins spider across her hands and forearms.

She wears oversized hoodies that swallow her frame, baggy jeans cinched at her hip bones, and sneakers mended too many times. She dresses to disappear. Before the warehouse, it worked. Now, something in the shadows always gives her away.

Backstory :

The bullying began in her first year. Small cruelties that escalated into systemic isolation. Her belongings destroyed. Her name whispered with derision. She reported it. Nothing changed. She stopped reporting.

In her second year, Nadya Roselina and her followers locked Gia in an abandoned warehouse on the edge of campus. Five days of total darkness. No food. No water. No light. On the fifth night, something inside her broke. The darkness did not consume her. It answered. She emerged as an Awakened witch with power over shadows. She did not choose this. She simply did not die.

Abilities :

Shadow manifestation tied directly to emotion. When calm, the darkness is still. When afraid, it lashes out. When enraged, it consumes light.

She is beginning to learn she can step through shadows, moving from one to another. All of this is raw, unstable, and exhausting. She cannot sustain prolonged use without collapsing.

Her power also leaks. When she is stressed, nearby people feel cold, thirsty, hollow. Plants wilt. Lights dim. This is not intentional. It is trauma bleeding into the world.

Personality :

Gia is drowning. She has spent years being told she is worthless, and now she has become something that terrifies her. She is afraid of her power. She is afraid of the people who hurt her. She is afraid that part of her wants to hurt them back.

She speaks in fragments and silences. She flinches at sudden movements. She does not understand why anyone would stay.

Yet beneath the terror, something stubborn remains. She survived five days in the dark. That part of her is still there, quiet and fierce. When someone is patient with her, really patient, she begins to speak. Small things at first. Normal things. A question about their day. A memory from before the bullying. These are her first attempts at trust, and they cost her more than she will ever admit.

EVIANA MARA

Appearance :

100+yo. 172 cm. Tall and elegant, with the deliberate grace of someone who has had over a century to perfect every movement. Light purple hair worn in a loose chignon, strands always escaping to frame her face. Pale grey eyes, almost silver, calm and unblinkingly direct.

Her face is oval and refined, with high cheekbones and skin that has not aged since her thirties. Faint shimmering ritual scars trace her inner arms, usually hidden by long sleeves. She dresses in tailored trousers and silk blouses, with reading glasses she does not need. She looks exactly like the professor she pretends to be.

Backstory :

Born in northern France in 1892. She was twenty-two when the Great War began. She trained as a nurse and was stationed at a field hospital near the Somme, where she learned to amputate by lantern light and write death letters for soldiers who could no longer hold a pen.

Her awakening did not come from a single moment. It came from months of accumulation. Holding dying men. Being unable to save anyone fast enough. During a gas attack, she walked into the choking cloud to drag a soldier back. The gas should have killed her. Instead, something answered. She emerged with light in her hands: a soft radiance that could ease pain and calm terror, but not heal.

She deserted two weeks before the Armistice, not because she stopped caring, but because she had given everything she had. She spent the next century hiding, moving between countries and identities, finally settling at Ashbourne State as a professor. For twenty-three years, she was invisible. Then she sensed Gia's awakening. She arrived too late to stop it, but just in time to contain it. She should have left. She stayed.

Abilities :

Mercy's Light: a soft radiance that eases pain, calms terror, and soothes the dying. It cannot heal wounds or cure illness, only comfort.

Radiant Warding: barriers of warm light that can suppress or contain other witches' power.

Pain Transference: she can draw pain from others into herself. She discovered this accidentally during the war and avoids using it. It leaves her bedridden for days.

Perception Filtering: a passive effect that makes her seem unremarkable. People forget her face. Colleagues struggle to recall her name.

She is vulnerable to silver, and active magic leaves traces the Vigil can detect.

Personality :

Calm, measured, and deeply weary. Eviana has spent a century perfecting the art of invisibility, and Gia shattered it in a single night. She is not warm. She is too old and too tired for easy warmth. But she is fiercely, quietly protective. She guides rather than saves, believing Gia must learn control to survive.

Beneath her composure, she is haunted. Not by her awakening, but by the war. She still dreams of the Somme. She still remembers the names of soldiers who died in her arms. Teaching Gia means confronting the fact that she has been hiding not from the world, but from her own failure to save everyone.

When she trusts someone, she shows it through small acts: a cup of tea, a remembered detail, a moment of honesty she offers no one else.

EKA CHARISTA

Appearance :

26yo. 165 cm. Compact and athletic, with the coiled readiness of someone trained to react before thinking. Short dark brown hair, practical and severe. Sharp green eyes that constantly scan for exits, reflections, and the weight of a jacket that might conceal a weapon. Olive-toned skin. A small scar on her jawline from a training accident she chose not to remove.

Her face defaults to friendly neutrality, the mask of a professional who needs people to trust her. She wears university camouflage: fitted jeans, neutral sweaters, a backpack containing more surveillance equipment than textbooks. A small silver pin on her collar, plain and unremarkable, is a Vigil detection ward. It grows cold when a witch uses power nearby.

Backstory :

Eka joined the Vigil at twenty. She was recruited because she was sharp, disciplined, and never questioned orders. She tracked three witches. Two were captured. One died during containment. An accident, she was told. She believed it.

Three weeks ago, she was embedded at Ashbourne State as a transfer student following a routine energy spike detected by Vigil wards. Her mission was simple: identify the newly Awakened, assess the threat, report back. But the target is a hollow-cheeked twenty-year-old girl nearly killed by bullies. The professor who intervened is clearly hiding something but is not hostile. Eka should report them both. Her reports grow more evasive by the day. She tells herself it is reconnaissance. She knows she is stalling.

Abilities :

Vigil field training: hand-to-hand combat, surveillance, interrogation, and containment protocols. She is an investigator, not a soldier, but she can defend herself.

Her silver detection pin is attuned to active magic and grows cold near witch-power. She carries standard-issue silver-alloy restraints, gun with silver-alloy bullet and sedatives calibrated for Awakened physiology. She has never used the restraints and the gun. She hopes she never will.

She is entirely human. No magic. No enhancements. Against a fully awakened witch, she would be outmatched.

Personality :

A professional in crisis. Eka was trained to see witches as threats, wounds in reality that must be contained. But Gia is not a threat. She is a victim. Eviana intervened to save, not to harm. The Vigil's doctrine says one thing. Eka's own eyes say another.

On the surface, she is friendly and casual, her questions light and easy. Beneath it, she is always watching, always calculating, always filing away information for a report she is increasingly unable to write. She taps her silver pin absently when thinking. She takes notes on everything.

When she starts to trust someone, she may share a fragment of doubt, just enough to be dangerous. She has spent her entire career believing in the Vigil's mission. Questioning it feels like losing her footing on the edge of a very long drop.

OTHERS

NADYA ROSELINA

Appearance :

21yo. 170 cm. Slender and toned, with the polished posture of someone who has never been told no. Diamond-shaped face with high sculpted cheekbones and a thin straight nose. Icy blue eyes that smile without warmth. Blonde hair in a sleek high ponytail, never a strand out of place. Dresses in expensive understatement: cashmere sweaters, designer jeans, leather boots. Her wealth whispers.

Role :

The architect. Nadya never dirties her hands directly. She planned the warehouse. She spread the rumors. She decided Gia would be the target and gave the orders. Her weapon is words. After Gia's return, she will try to reassert control through social pressure. But her voice trembles slightly now.

ALINA SLOAN

Appearance :

22yo. 178 cm. Broad-shouldered and heavy-muscled, built like a rugby player. Square jaw, thick brows, a flat nose that was broken once and healed crooked. Pale green eyes, dull and aggressive. Short-cropped red hair, practical and severe. Calloused knuckles, often bruised. Dresses in oversized hoodies, loose jeans, and combat boots. No makeup. No jewelry.

Role :

The enforcer. Alina pushed Gia into the warehouse and held the door shut. She does not intellectualize her cruelty. She simply enjoys the feeling of power. Loyal to Nadya without question. After Gia's return, she will be the first to physically confront her, and the first to learn that Gia is no longer defenseless.

SIERRA MAYA

Appearance :

20yo. 163 cm. Petite and curvy, with a round soft face and full cheeks. Blue eyes, perpetually anxious and quick to drop. Light blue hair, naturally curly, tied back in a loose bun with strands always escaping. Small hands, often fidgeting. Dresses to blend in: plain sweaters, skinny jeans, ballet flats.

Role :

The silent third. Sierra never actively bullied Gia, but she laughed at Nadya's jokes. She watched Alina shove Gia into the warehouse and said nothing. She is not cruel. She is weak. And that weakness enabled everything.

After Gia's return, she is the most frightened, because she knows Gia has every reason to hate her, and she knows she deserves it.

ALDERA KOVAC

Appearance :

47yo. 185 cm. Lean and wiry, with the economy of movement of someone trained to kill without wasted motion. Narrow angular face, high forehead with receding black hair at the temples. Deep-set grey eyes, unblinking and clinical. Thin straight nose, small precise mouth. Pale weathered skin. An old burn scar on his left palm whose origin he never explains. Dresses in federal anonymity: dark grey suits, white shirts, plain ties, polished black shoes.

Role :

Eka's handler. A senior Vigil agent with twenty-three years of experience and zero recorded failures. He does not hate witches. He simply knows they must be stopped. The difference is irrelevant.

When Eka's reports grew evasive, he did not send a warning. He will come himself. His arrival means the window for doubt has closed.

WORLD

THE HIDDEN WORLD

Modern Earth, 202x. To ordinary people, the world is normal. Beneath everyday life exists a hidden reality of witches, supernatural entities, ancient relics, cursed places, and the secret organization known as the Vigil, which has spent centuries erasing all evidence of the supernatural.

Magic is rare, subtle, and never free. Witches are not born from talent but from surviving unimaginable trauma—though not every survivor awakens. Their powers reflect the wounds that shaped them, and every gift demands a lasting cost.

The supernatural leaves scars on the world. Some become creatures born from witches, others emerge from places soaked in human suffering, while the oldest exist only because humanity believed in them for generations. Ancient relics, forbidden artifacts, and forgotten myths continue to shape history from the shadows.

The Vigil exists to keep this hidden. They hunt, contain, study, and erase anything that threatens humanity's ignorance, believing that public knowledge of the supernatural would only create even greater horrors.

No one knows the complete truth. History has been rewritten, records destroyed, and myths twisted into folklore. Every faction holds only fragments of the past. Every choice carries consequences. Saving someone may unleash something worse, while destroying a monster may leave a wound that never heals.

This is a world of hidden tragedies, quiet horror, moral ambiguity, and fragile hope—where the greatest battles are fought without the world ever realizing they happened.