> They say blood is thicker than water.
But what if your blood is poison?
The night my mother died, everything changed. No warning, no goodbye. Just the sound of glass shattering, a scream that cut through the walls, and a silence that swallowed me whole.
I didn't cry. I didn't speak. I just stood there, holding a letter with no name on it, only an address written in black ink.
Blackthorne City.
Sector 9.
That's all it said.
I didn't know where that was. I didn't know who it belonged to. But my mother kept it hidden for years. She clutched it in her hand when they found her body.
That had to mean something.
So I packed a single bag. I left behind the girl I used to be quiet, obedient, invisible and I boarded a train with nothing but that address and the kind of silence that lives under your skin.
Blackthorne welcomed me like a bad omen. Rain. Sirens. A city that never looked you in the eye.
I booked a cheap room under a fake name. Started asking questions. Started noticing the way people flinched when I said "Sector 9."
One man whispered, "That's where the king lives."
I asked what king.
He didn't answer.
> Two nights later, someone tried to break into my room.
I didn't scream.
I didn't run.
I held a knife to the door and waited.
Narration shifts subtly here to her emotions:
> Fear used to own me.
But grief... grief made me brave.
I wasn't looking for trouble.
I was looking for the truth.
But trouble found me first.
The handle turned slowly, like whoever it was didn't expect resistance. The lock clicked once, then twice, and stopped.
Silence.
I stood there, barefoot on the cold floor, every muscle stiff and ready. Then came the sound of paper slipping under the door.
Just one page. No footsteps. No voice.
I waited three full minutes before moving.
I knelt. Picked it up. Read it.
> "You're asking the wrong questions, Rhea Morgan.
Go home… before you're buried here."
My throat went dry. I never used my real name. Not once since I entered this city.
Someone was watching me.
Someone knew exactly who I was.
I didn't sleep that night.
I stared out the window with a blade in my hand and a wildfire in my chest.
This city knew me before I even arrived.
And now?
I was sure of one thing:
> I wouldn't be leaving alive… unless I tore the truth out of someone's throat first.
I burned the letter.
Not because I was scared.
But because I knew fear was useless now.
Whoever wrote it had already found me.
I changed hotels before sunrise. Paid in cash. Kept my back to the wall. I bought a burner phone. A new coat. I even changed how I walked.
I wasn't Rhea Morgan anymore.
I was a ghost chasing a shadow.
Three days later…
I found Sector 9.
Or maybe it found me.
The street had no name. The buildings stood too still. Windows boarded. Cameras blinking. I felt eyes in every reflection. Movement in every silence.
A single black car rolled past me.
Tinted windows. No plates.
It stopped twenty feet ahead.
My feet stopped too.
The passenger door opened slowly… like an invitation.
Or a warning.
I stood there, the cold crawling up my spine, waiting to see who stepped out.
But no one did.
Not at first.
Then I saw him.
A man in all black.
Face half-covered.
Gloved hands.
And the kind of presence that made the air feel thinner.
He didn't speak.
He just looked at me.
And smiled.
A slow, deadly smile that didn't touch his eyes.
Like he knew exactly who I was.
Like he'd been waiting.
I should have turned around.
I should have ran.
But I didn't.
> Because for the first time since I stepped into Blackthorne…
I felt like I was exactly where I was meant to be.
And so it begins…
The man didn't move.
Neither did I.
His smile faded slowly like it had served its purpose. And maybe it had.
He didn't need to speak.
He had already said everything with his silence.
I stepped forward.
One step. Two.
His head tilted, just slightly. Watching me. Studying me.
Testing me.
I stopped at the open door. Glanced inside. Leather seats. Smoke in the air. No driver.
"Who sent you?" I asked.
No answer.
His eyes flicked to something on my wrist. A bracelet. My mother's. The only thing I'd kept.
That's when I knew.
He wasn't here to hurt me.
Not yet.
He was here to see if I was ready.
He stepped aside; not offering, not requesting, just allowing.
The kind of power that doesn't need permission.
I got in.
I didn't know where we were going.
I just knew that whatever I was about to walk into…
my name wasn't the only secret I carried.
Some truths don't whisper. They explode.
And we'll carry the emotion forward with Rhea's tension in that car, the suffocating silence, the presence of the stranger, and the sense that everything she thought she knew… is already unraveling.
And in that car, silence was the sound right before the blast.
He didn't look at me.
Not fully.
Just stared out the window like he wasn't the one who dragged me into this.
I didn't speak either.
I didn't ask where we were going. I didn't ask who he was.
Because part of me already knew:
This was a test.
Of what?
Maybe of how much I was willing to risk just to get answers.
Maybe of whether I belonged in the world they'd buried my mother to protect me from.
The car turned sharply. Streets blurred. We weren't heading downtown. We were going underground.
Literally.
He reached forward and tapped once on a black screen beside the seat.
A moment later, we descended into pitch black, the kind of darkness that feels thick in your lungs.
Then he spoke.
Just one word.
> "You shouldn't have come, Rhea."
His voice was low. Measured. Not a threat , a fact.
I turned toward him. Finally.
> "And yet… here I am."
He turned to me then.
Really turned.
His eyes were cold. Not cruel. Not angry. Just… distant. Like he'd seen too much to flinch anymore.
"You don't belong in Blackthorne," he said. "Not in this part of it."
I leaned back, gaze steady. "Then why bring me here?"
He didn't answer right away. Just watched me in that quiet, dangerous way like I was some kind of puzzle he already knew how to solve and was deciding whether it was worth it.
Then:
> "Because he wants to meet you."
My stomach twisted. "Who?"
His jaw flexed.
"The man your mother died protecting."
The car stopped.
No noise. No voice telling me to get out.
Just the silent click of the door unlocking beside me.
He didn't move. He didn't explain.
So I stepped out.
My boots hit the concrete floor of a place colder than winter and quieter than a grave.
The air smelled like steel and secrets.
And something in me whispered:
> This wasn't the beginning of something.
> It was the start of everything falling apart.
[End of Episode 1]
Next: The man behind the bloodline.