Chapter 1 Doctor Selene

The clock wouldn’t stop humming. I don’t even know if clocks are supposed to hum, but this one did.

It crawled under my skin, louder than the breathing and the machines around me. It was close to midnight.

The hospital smelled like rain and antiseptic. My eyes burned from too many hours awake. I was folding gauze at the nurse’s station, trying to stay busy, when the emergency doors slammed open.

A little boy was rolled in on a stretcher. His mother was behind him, crying so hard she couldn’t catch her breath. The kind of cry that makes your heart hurt when you hear it.

He looked… gone. His lips were blue, his skin pale like paper. For a moment, I thought we were already too late. The blanket over him shook each time his heart tried to pull in air.

“Seizure,” one of the nurses said. “Vitals unstable.”

I didn’t think…I just moved. “How long has he been like this?”

“Ten minutes,” his mother sobbed.

Ten minutes. That’s a lifetime for a child not breathing right. I checked the monitors,his heart rate was jumping like it couldn’t decide whether to stop or fight. His skin felt hot, but his hands were freezing. None of it made sense.

Something inside me stirred. That quiet thing I’d buried years ago. I pressed two fingers to his neck. I knew I shouldn’t, not like that, not while everyone was watching. But I did.

His heartbeat was weak. Barely there. I leaned close and whispered, “Stay with me, okay?”

Then I saw it.

It was quick…so quick I thought I imagined it. A thin line of silver light slid across my palm, soft like moonlight touching metal. The boy’s body jerked once, then gasped. The monitors beeped in rhythm. His color came back like someone flipped a switch inside him.

The room filled with relief. The nurses started breathing again. One of them smiled at me. “Nice work, Selene. You’ve got magic hands.”

I forced a small smile. “Just luck.”

But my hand was still warm. Too warm. That strange buzzing under my skin.it was the same feeling that came before everything went wrong last time.

When my shift ended, the rain had started falling heavy. I pulled my coat tight and stepped outside. The air smelled like iron and wet earth. I skipped the alley shortcut; the shadows there always made me uneasy.

Halfway home, thunder rolled over the sky. I looked up and saw it,just for a second,a silver flash behind the clouds shaped like a full moon. My heart tightened.

“It’s nothing,” I told myself. “You’re just tired.”

But the hospital lights behind me flickered. My heart didn’t slow down.

I crossed the bridge, the one that always creaked in the middle. The water below looked restless, dark. That’s when I felt it—someone watching me.

I stopped. “Who’s there?”

Nothing. Just rain dripping from the trees.

I turned slowly, my heart pounding. The street looked empty, but in the puddle by my foot, my reflection showed faintly. My wrist glowed faintly, silver again, like the light from before. I blinked my eyes, and it was gone.

“Keep walking, Selene,” I whispered. “Don’t look back.”

The voice in my head wasn’t fear. It was warning. Old and familiar.

When I finally got home, I locked the door twice and left the lights on. It was 2:17 a.m. The rain hadn’t stopped. I tried making tea, but my hands were shaking so bad that half of it spilled on the counter.

I sat by the window, staring at the streetlights. They turned off and on. “Why now?” I whispered.

I’ve kept this part of me hidden for years. Nobody here knows what I am..or what I was.

I pressed my fingers together. A faint light appeared, quick like a spark. It vanished before I could breathe. I closed my fist tight. “Don’t start,” I said. “Not again.”

Lightning cracked outside. Down on the street, something moved. A shadow. Tall. Too smooth to be human.

I stepped closer to the glass, trying to see. The light above the road flickered once, then went out.In Silence.

My breathe fogged the window. I turned away, and that’s when I saw them…two golden eyes in the dark, staring right at me.

I didn’t sleep. When I finally drifted off, thunder still grumbled over the city.

I dreamed of a forest glowing in silver light. Trees whispered my name. And from somewhere deep inside that dream, a woman’s voice called softly….

“Selene… the moon remembers.”

I woke up gasping. Morning light spilled across my bed. My pulse was racing. I tried to remember her face, but I couldn’t. Only the voice stayed, echoing through me like it had always been there.

Outside, the city looked calm. The storm was gone, but the air felt charged..like the world was holding its breath.

And deep down, I knew this wasn’t the start of something new.

It was something coming back.

Something I thought I’d left behind.