To not clog up my blurb, I'll do it here. Quick disclaimers and stuff and for the peeps who like skipping through things like this, joke's on you.

This is an unofficial entry to the Open Novella Contest 2022, a Wattpad Ambassador-run event running from February to May. In a way, this is a standalone and will be understandable without reading any of my other works. However, I would greatly appreciate it if you checked my other works as well. They're found at the latter part of this story so watch out for that list!

Since this is an [unofficial] entry to the ONC, here are the prompts it is based on:

18 - There was something inside me that wouldn't stop until the whole world was blood.

22 - For sixteen years your family has waited and watched, hoped and prepared. You were cared for, but never truly acknowledged. It left you wondering why you've always felt like an outcast, a little bit of a burden. Today you discover they all knew about the curse... they all knew you were chosen to carry it.

61 - A person from your colony runs away one night. A year later, the person returns, all safe and sound, but you find something strange and fishy.

66 - Your grandmother has told you folk tales about creatures of the night. If only she knew they're closely lurking around irrespective of day and night.

79 - A love so forbidden it was unspeakable. Who would have ever thought an Angel would fall for a Demon.

This is an unedited draft. This is not line-edited so you'll see a lot of possible typos, some unflowy sentences, and most likely, some degree of bad phrasing. I see them all the time so don't worry, I'm way ahead of you there. No need to scream about it in my comments section.

You might ask: why not just upload the edited thing on Wattpad?

My answer: NO. With the abundance of mirror sites and some muck-slurping, mushroom-brained thieves running around on the internet, I'm afraid that you'll have to sit through 50k+ words of crap because I won't ever post the version I'm gonna be proud of on this site. Like, EVER.

This story is set in a fictional world. Everything comes from my imagination and should be treated as such. I do my research and take inspiration from anything and everything but if there's something you feel iffy about, some detail that you think should not be there, please tell me so we can sort things out immediately. I will appreciate it. <3

I would advise you to avoid skipping anything in this story and that includes epilogues and the likes. Remember: everything is important in the Arcane Universes.

Thank you for having the patience to read up to here and for following this part's title. Now, the story will start in a place where the extraordinary isn't as fun as it looks.

Don't look back if you feel a shadow behind you.