The Obsidian Blueprint

I held Baya’s trembling hand as the hospice monitor flatlined, her final raspy words chilling me to the bone: "You don't remember what you did... but he is coming." I thought I was just a timid spatial designer struggling to keep my chronically ill younger sister, Nemi, alive. Five years ago, I sold one night to the terrifying industrialist Tarkis Vendra to pay Nemi's medical bills. I ran, hiding the son that resulted from that desperate bargain. But when my four-year-old, Orik, breaches the impenetrable firewalls of Vendra Corp, Tarkis doesn't just find us - he leverages Orik's cyber-treason to force me into his compound as his lead architect. Now I am a prisoner in the very cliffside mansion I am building. There is no romance here; Tarkis looks at us with cold, calculating ownership. Yet, as I uncover encrypted schematics hidden deep in the mansion's servers, a horrifying truth emerges. Tarkis didn't hunt me down by chance. My past self planted Orik's code. I laid the breadcrumbs. I built this trap. But why would I willingly lock myself in a cage with a monster?