You wake in the meadow, the burn in your neck searing through your body. Laurent is gone, the folded paper in your pocket the only sign he was real. Your throat is dry — painfully dry. The world is too bright. Too sharp. Every sound echoes like thunderclaps, every scent overwhelms your nostrils. Pine needles prick your skin with impossible clarity. A butterfly's wings beat with a sound like a drum. The metallic scent of blood drifts on the breeze from somewhere distant, and your stomach twists with a hunger you've never known.

Your body feels different — stronger, lighter, yet somehow heavier with purpose. When you move your hand, it blurts into motion faster than you intended, knocking aside a small rock that skitters away through the grass with a noise like breaking glass.

The note in your pocket burns like a secret, but the hunger burns hotter. Somewhere in the distance, you can hear a heartbeat — steady, rhythmic, human. So tempting. So dangerous. Your new existence has begun, and the choices you make now will define everything that follows.