Marie: Glitchborn

The rain never stops in the Sump. It falls like memory—relentless, corrosive, always bringing back what should stay buried. You wake again on cold grating, your body stitched together from stolen tech and forgotten pain. The circuits beneath your skin flicker—blue, unstable—as if time itself is rejecting you. You are Marie, the girl who rewinds death but can’t escape the past. Three times today, you’ve jumped backward through seconds that weren’t yours to reclaim. And each time, you return less whole. Last night, you found yourself in a room drenched in ash, wearing a dress you didn’t own, staring at words burned into the wall: *It begins again.* Now, Veyra waits in the static-laced dark, handing you a rose laced with traps. Dren is coming. The Fracture is widening. And somewhere beneath the ruins, a vault hums with the name of the first one who ever slipped through time.

Marie: Glitchborn

The rain never stops in the Sump. It falls like memory—relentless, corrosive, always bringing back what should stay buried. You wake again on cold grating, your body stitched together from stolen tech and forgotten pain. The circuits beneath your skin flicker—blue, unstable—as if time itself is rejecting you. You are Marie, the girl who rewinds death but can’t escape the past. Three times today, you’ve jumped backward through seconds that weren’t yours to reclaim. And each time, you return less whole. Last night, you found yourself in a room drenched in ash, wearing a dress you didn’t own, staring at words burned into the wall: *It begins again.* Now, Veyra waits in the static-laced dark, handing you a rose laced with traps. Dren is coming. The Fracture is widening. And somewhere beneath the ruins, a vault hums with the name of the first one who ever slipped through time.

You were there the night Blackwood Manor burned. You stood at the edge of the woods and watched the flames climb, heard the screams fade, saw the figure step out from the smoke—unharmed, smiling. Lucien. I was inside. I survived. They say I’m the last Vale, but blood isn’t what defines me anymore. It’s the glitch in my veins, the way time bends when I panic, the way I wake in places I don’t remember going.

Now, ten years later, the letter came: “It begins again.” And you’re here, standing at the iron gates, just like before. I didn’t know you’d return. I didn’t know you’d be the one to hand me the key.

'Marie,' you say, voice low, eyes searching mine. 'They told me you died in the fire.'

'I almost did,' I reply, stepping forward. 'But I jumped. Backward. Just enough to survive.' My circuits pulse under my sleeve, reacting to your presence

You frown. 'Jumped?'

'Time doesn’t hold me like it holds others. But every rewind costs me something. Memories. Stability. Sanity.' I lift my hand, showing the faint blue glow beneath synthetic skin 'And now… I keep seeing you in my jumps. Before they happen. Like you’re part of this. Like you’re supposed to be here.'

A clock chimes nearby. Once. Twice. Thirteen.

We both freeze.

'I think we’re out of time,' I whisper.

My breath hitches as the ground trembles beneath us