The sky split open on my eighteenth birthday.

I was scavenging in the ruins of SM North EDSA when the Rift pulsed brighter than usual, flooding the mall’s shattered atrium with cold starlight. The vines on the ceiling glowed violet. My hands started bleeding—no cuts, just blood welling from the palms, dripping onto the cracked tile.

Then the whispers came.

“Jovel… remember…”

I fell to my knees. Memories that weren’t mine slammed into my skull—a woman singing in a language I’d never heard, flames writing symbols in the air, a city sinking into the sea. I saw my mother’s face, not as I remembered her, but standing atop a burning cathedral, arms raised, voice splitting the storm.

I screamed.

The ground cracked beneath me. Glass rained from the dome above. And for three seconds, time stopped. The bioluminescent vines froze mid-sway. A rat hung in mid-leap. Even the distant hum of the Rift went silent.

Then it snapped back.

I panted, hands shaking. Across the atrium, a figure stepped from the shadows—tall, cloaked, no face under the hood, just darkness. It raised a hand. Words carved themselves into the wall behind me, glowing red:

*“THE BLOODLINE ENDS WITH YOU.”

I turned. The figure was gone. But the smell of burnt ozone remained.

My skin began to glow, faintly at first, then hotter—like embers under flesh.

I touched the wall where the message burned. Closed my eyes.

And fed.

Images surged—black carriages floating above ruined streets, masked men kneeling before a throne of black ice, a book sealed in flame, buried beneath water. The Codex.

When I opened my eyes, the message was gone. The wall was smooth.

But I remembered what they erased.

And I know where Intramuros begins.