Chapter 3
795 Words
Juliet Nocturne
She lit another candle as we sat in the cavernous dark of the tunnels, the flame painting her pale skin in gold. I wanted answers. She gave me a story.
Her voice was quiet but sharp. Like lace soaked in venom.
> “My name wasn’t always Juliet Nocturne.”
> “I was born in 1842. London. The year the fog choked the city and the rats outnumbered the prayers.”
> “I died in 1888. Just after the fifth.”
I stared.
“You… died?”
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “Not all the way. He made sure of that.”
> “The Ripper.”
> “I wasn’t a victim. Not in the way the others were.”
> “He didn’t cut me open. He gave me a choice.”
Her gaze flicked toward the wall, where old blood stains had long since blackened.
> “He said something was coming. A war older than London’s stones. One that fed on souls, not flesh.”
> “He believed death was an art. But he didn’t kill for pleasure, not really. He killed for balance.”
I laughed—cold, sharp. “He was a butcher.”
She leaned forward. “He was a guardian of a gate that should’ve never been opened.”
> “And now that you’re here, Eli, that gate’s creaking again.”
> “You’re not a killer. Not yet. But your blood remembers.”
I swallowed the bile building in my throat.
“Why you?” I asked. “Why did he choose you?”
Juliet went still. The candle between us flickered wildly, and for the briefest second, her reflection in the metal wall behind her smiled—even though she didn’t.
> “Because I was born still.”
> “And he brought me back.”
> “Half of me belongs to the grave.”
> “The other half… to him.”
Reaper’s Chosen
Juliet didn’t blink as she spoke, like the truth was a knife and she was ready to bleed it.
> “The Reaper’s Chosen are not people, Eli.”
> “They’re fragments of a forgotten curse. Souls marked by death itself, reborn with a single purpose: to bring the balance back.”
I stared at her, fists clenched. “Back from what?”
> “From what he broke. From what your father twisted.”
Her words punched the breath from my lungs.
> “Your father,” she continued, “was never meant to carry the mark. He stole it. From a dying priest in Whitechapel. The original guardian. He took the blade, the bond, the balance—and carved his name into the shadows.”
> “That made you a legacy. A blood heir to a power he had no right to wield.”
I shook my head. “No. I’m not him. I don’t want this.”
Juliet rose, brushing dust from her coat. “Want has nothing to do with it. The Chosen are waking up. Some want to restore the seal. Others want to rip it open—and you, Eli Walker, are the only one with blood old enough to tip the scale.”
> “You are the fulcrum. The blade or the bearer. And they know it.”
I stepped back.
> “They’re already looking for you.”
---
The Vision
I left the tunnels shaking. The streetlights buzzed like hornets in my ears, and the fog had thickened to something unnatural. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone—or something—was following me.
I made it back to my flat. Locked the door. Triple-checked the windows. Poured a glass of whiskey I didn’t remember buying.
That’s when I saw the mirror.
It wasn’t my reflection staring back.
It was my father.
Or something wearing his face.
Blood dripping from his hands. A knife in one. Something twitching in the other—small, fragile. A locket?
I blinked.
And suddenly I was in the vision.
London was burning. Gas lamps exploded in bursts of flame. People ran in the streets, mouths open but silent.
The sky was red. The air, thick with ash.
I stood in an alley, but it wasn’t mine—it was older. Dirtier. A woman lay at my feet, throat slashed. Eyes wide with betrayal.
My hands were covered in her blood.
Then a voice behind me:
> “You’ve already chosen.”
I turned.
Nothing.
When I blinked again—I was back in my flat.
But the mirror…
It was shattered.
And carved into the glass with something sharp, were four words:
> “WELCOME BACK, RIPPER’S SON.”
- Writer
