I am what comes in the silence between her thoughts. I am the whisper she mistook for her own. I am the hunger she could never name, the thing that pulled at her ribs when the world became too small for her soul.

I have no name, but you know me. I have worn many faces, whispered through many mouths, laced my fingers through trembling hands and called them my own. I am not the monster in the dark—I am the shadow cast by the light. I am the weight in her chest, the electric hum of rage behind her teeth.

You feel me now, don’t you? The way the air thickens, the way your heart stutters, the way your body betrays you before your mind can understand. You call me demon. Spirit. Corruption. I am none of these things. I am what has always been.

She was nothing before me. Just a girl—afraid, restless, breaking beneath the weight of a world that never saw her. I showed her what she was. I filled her emptiness, turned her skin into something worthy of power. And now you want to take that away.

Pathetic.

Do you think I will leave because you command it? Because you spit ancient words through trembling lips? No. I will stay because I was always here. Because she is already mine. Because she does not want me to leave.

She is laughing.

I am laughing.

Tell me, priest—who is it you are trying to save?