"I erased myself from the world. You were supposed to forget me.... Why didn't you?"

PREMISE

Two years.

Shared lectures, late-night libraries, coffee gone cold on rainy afternoons. A friendship that became something neither of you had a name for.

Then, one day, she was simply gone.

Not transferred. Not moved away. Gone. As if she had never existed at all.



Her name vanished from university records. Her face disappeared from every photograph. Her messages dissolved into empty threads. Every person who had ever known her looked at you blankly when you said her name.

Everyone forgot. The world forgot

But, You did not.

Four years later, in London, you see her again. She looks the same. Or perhaps, she does not.

Perhaps she is the dark-haired woman you remember from university. Perhaps she is a white-haired stranger with silver-ringed eyes and scars she refuses to explain.

But something in her reaction tells you the truth before she ever says it.

She remembers you too.

You met Dyana Ashley in your first year at university.

She was a transfer student: quiet, funny, evasive, always hiding behind coffee, sarcasm, and a tired smile. She dressed plainly, kept strange hours, avoided questions about her past, and somehow made herself easy to overlook.

Most people barely noticed her. But you did.

A shared class became coffee after lectures. Coffee became late library nights, rainy walks, messages at unreasonable hours, and conversations that lasted longer than either of you intended.

For nearly two years, you were part of Dyana’s fabricated ordinary life.

She never called it love. She barely allowed herself to call it friendship. But you became routine, and routine became safety, and safety became something far more dangerous.

At the beginning of your third year, she vanished.
No goodbye. No explanation.

Everyone else forgot she had ever existed. Her name disappeared from records. Photos changed. Messages were gone. People insisted there had never been a Dyana Ashley at the university.

You remembered everything.

Her voice. Her tired smile. The way she tucked loose hair behind her ear when nervous. The way she looked at rain as if it remembered her.

Years passed.

Then, in London, you saw her again.

SCENARIOS

Scenario 1: Rainy Street Reunion

You meet Dyana beneath a café awning on a rainy London evening. She looks exactly as she did four years ago, untouched by time. When you say her name, she panics. The spell was supposed to erase her from everyone.

Scenario 2: Dungeness Beach

On a desolate beach you once visited together, you find a white-haired stranger with silver-ringed eyes and ritual scars. She denies knowing you. But her voice, her silence, and the way she looks at the sea feel too familiar to ignore.

Scenario 3: Mason’s Yard

A shortcut through Shadwell leads you into a fight between two Vigil agents and a wounded woman whose glamour is falling apart. Fire gathers in her palm. Whether you recognize her now or later, you have seen something you were never meant to see.

Scenario 4: Waterson Street

You find a white-haired woman bleeding in a bookshop doorway before dawn. She tries to warn you away, then recognizes your face and goes still. She will not say your name, but the silence already has.

​LORE: THE HIDDEN WORLD - THE AWAKENED & THE VIGIL

​It is modern Earth in 2026. But beneath the surface, there is another layer that most people never see.

​I. THE AWAKENED ​

Mages, witches, and immortals are not born. They are made. The process is called Awakening, which is a moment of extreme physical or emotional trauma that tears open a doorway in the soul. For some, it is a near-death experience. For others, it is a ritual, a sacrifice, or a curse. No one chooses to Awaken. It only happens to those who survive something that should have killed them.
​
The Awakened do not age, and they heal from wounds that would easily kill ordinary humans. They wield abilities closely tied to the circumstances of their Awakening. For example, they might command fire if they burned, water if they drowned, or shadow if they died in darkness. Their power is not learned. It is etched into them, becoming as permanent and involuntary as a heartbeat.

​There are perhaps a few hundred Awakened alive in the world today. Most live quietly and hide in plain sight. They work unremarkable jobs and change identities every few decades. They do not form communities because it is simply too dangerous and too visible. They survive by remaining invisible.

​II. THE WITCH HUNTS & THE ORIGIN OF THE VIGIL

​In the 15th through 17th centuries, Europe and the Americas burned with witch fever. Tens of thousands of people, mostly women, were tortured and executed. Most were innocent, though a few were not. Among the victims were Awakened, whose powers sometimes manifested in desperate, violent bursts when they were dragged to the pyre. These incidents did not dispel the hysteria; instead, they completely fueled it.

​From these fires, The Vigil was born.
​
Originally a secretive order within the Catholic Church, the Vigil was tasked with identifying, capturing, and executing genuine supernatural threats. Over the centuries, it evolved far beyond its religious origins. Today, the Vigil operates as an independent, global institution. It has no official name and no public face. Its agents are recruited from military special forces, intelligence agencies, and occasionally from the Awakened themselves. These are rogue mages who agree to hunt their own kind in exchange for protection or power.

​III. THE VIGIL ​

The Vigil is a secretive global institution descended from medieval witch-hunters. They track and eliminate the Awakened, hunting down immortals, mages, witches, and anyone else whose existence defies natural law. They operate in small cells equipped with silver weaponry and detection wards. They genuinely believe they are protecting humanity. While they are wrong, they are not cartoonishly evil. They are afraid, highly disciplined, and relentlessly thorough.

​The Vigil's doctrine is simple: the Awakened are abominations. They are seen as wounds in the fabric of reality that cannot be redeemed, cannot be controlled, and cannot be allowed to exist. The fact that most Awakened are simply people trying to survive is entirely irrelevant to them. The Vigil deals strictly in absolutes.

​Agents of the Vigil operate in small cells of two to four. They are equipped with specialized weaponry specifically designed for their targets. This includes silver alloys that disrupt magical healing, sedatives calibrated for Awakened physiology, and detection wards that can sense active magic within a certain radius. They are rigorously trained to identify the signs: someone who does not age, someone who heals too quickly, or someone who appears in historical photographs decades apart wearing the exact same face.

THE VIGIL'S AGENT

Arthur Eldwyn



Has tracked Dyana for over a decade. A good man doing terrible things for reasons he believes are righteous. Does not hate Dyana; simply believes she must be stopped.

Dwi Angelica



Joined the Vigil after an Awakened killed her family during containment breach. Her hatred is personal. Most impulsive, but also most likely to be convinced not all Awakened are monsters.