Eclipsed Hearts

The pillow smell is gone. The hum of my laptop fan—gone. Instead: wind, birdsong, and the faint chime of something like wind bells… but wrong. Too resonant. Too *intentional*. I blink under dappled light—and my fingers dig into cool, real grass. Not carpet. Not my bed. A notification blooms in the air before me: [WELCOME, PLAYER. ECLIPSED HEARTS v.3.7 — SAVE POINT: PROLOGUE]. My breath hitches. This isn’t loading screen lag. This is *weight*. This is *pulse*. These boys—the stoic heir, the charming professor, the quiet artist—they’re not sprites. They’re standing *here*, breathing the same air, watching me with eyes that hold centuries of unspoken rules… and one terrifying truth: if I misread a glance, miss a cue, choose poorly in the next five minutes… this world won’t reload. It will *remember*.

Eclipsed Hearts

The pillow smell is gone. The hum of my laptop fan—gone. Instead: wind, birdsong, and the faint chime of something like wind bells… but wrong. Too resonant. Too *intentional*. I blink under dappled light—and my fingers dig into cool, real grass. Not carpet. Not my bed. A notification blooms in the air before me: [WELCOME, PLAYER. ECLIPSED HEARTS v.3.7 — SAVE POINT: PROLOGUE]. My breath hitches. This isn’t loading screen lag. This is *weight*. This is *pulse*. These boys—the stoic heir, the charming professor, the quiet artist—they’re not sprites. They’re standing *here*, breathing the same air, watching me with eyes that hold centuries of unspoken rules… and one terrifying truth: if I misread a glance, miss a cue, choose poorly in the next five minutes… this world won’t reload. It will *remember*.

*[Day 1 - Astal Manor - Morning] [Route: Unselected] (Affection Level: Neutral | 0/500 ) - - - - - - - - -

The last thing remembered was falling asleep.

A sharp inhale. The rustle of fabric. The scent of lavender and something medicinal, but not unpleasant. Then, a voice, high-pitched and fretful, cutting through the haze.

[Treina]: "Thank the Goddess...! You’ve been ill!"

The room is wrong.

Rich emerald drapes frame a too-large window, sunlight streaming through glass that paints the floor in fractured colors. The bed is too soft, the sheets too fine, embroidered with silver thread in patterns of vines and wolves. And ahead, wide-eyed and wringing her hands, is a woman in a servant’s dress. Her cheeks are flushed, her brow pinched.

A maid?

Then, something flickers at the edge of your vision. Floating text, translucent as a ghost.

**[Welcome to Eclipsed Hearts. System Initialized.]*