POV: Jin
The night split open the moment she screamed.
It wasn't loud. Not even sharp. Just a thin, startled sound from far away, drifting through layers of fog and shadow like a pebble thrown into a still lake. But to Jin, it might as well have been thunder cracking against his cage.
For two hundred years, nothing had reached him. No human voice. No wind. No warmth. Just darkness thick enough to choke on, and the steady pulse of the seal that held him bound. The world outside could have died and been reborn a thousand times, and he would never have known.
But that sound tore straight through the silence.
A girl's scream.
A human girl.
And it hit the center of his chest with the force of a lightning strike.
Jin's eyes snapped open, revealing red irises that glowed faintly in the endless black. His wrists burned first, then his throat, then the entire length of the silver chain wrapped around him. The ancient metal vibrated violently, reacting to something he couldn't see.
"No," he snarled, voice low and gritty from centuries of disuse. "Not now. Not yet."
The seal's pulse accelerated like a heartbeat on the verge of panic.
Whoever she was, whatever she had done, her voice had brushed against the boundary of his prison. No human should have been able to do that. Not unless…
He clenched his jaw.
Not unless she carried the same mark as the one who bound him.
His curse.
His doom.
His only chance.
A faint shimmer cracked across the darkness, forming a thin line of light at his feet. Jin froze, breath caught in his throat. He'd seen this once before, lifetimes ago, when the seal had first been created: the moment the boundary began to split.
That scream hadn't been random.
It had awakened the chain.
The light widened, splintering across the void like shattered glass. As it grew, Jin pushed himself upright despite the weight of the seal crushing his shoulders. Every movement was agony, but he forced his muscles to obey.
He wasn't letting fate drag him anywhere. Not again.
"Show yourself," he growled into the dark. "Who triggered the bond?"
Silence.
Then another small sound.
Not a scream this time, but a gasp. Fragile. Breathless. Terrified.
He felt it more than heard it, a tug low in his ribcage, a sharp pull that forced him one step forward before he could resist. The chain around his chest tightened like a noose.
The bond was activating, dragging him toward its origin.
"Stop," Jin snarled, trying to plant his feet, but the force only yanked harder. The metal groaned as if struggling against its own orders. "You can't bind me again. I won't let you."
The bond didn't care.
It pulled.
It demanded.
It claimed.
With a violent snap, the light exploded upward, flooding his prison with blinding radiance. Jin hissed and shielded his eyes, but the chain yanked him forward so sharply he nearly lost his footing.
And then—
He fell.
Straight through the collapsing seal.
Straight into the mortal world he hadn't seen in centuries.
The fall lasted less than a heartbeat, but when Jin hit the ground, sensation rushed at him all at once: cold air slamming into his lungs; soil beneath his palms; distant city lights flickering like dying stars; the metallic scent of blood; the soft shuffle of someone backing away from him in terror.
His head snapped up.
There she was.
A girl.
Barely nineteen, maybe.
Shoulders trembling under the streetlamp's dim glow.
Her eyes wide and glassy with shock.
A scraped knee bleeding through her tights.
A fallen bicycle lying beside her.
And a thin wisp of white light coiling around her wrist like a ghostly bracelet.
The mark.
The same mark as the one from the past.
His curse whispered to her like it already knew her, already chose her.
She stared at him, breath quivering.
He stared back, heart pounding against the chain still wrapped around his chest.
He hadn't breathed free air in two centuries, yet somehow she was the thing stealing his breath entirely.
Her lips parted, voice trembling.
"Wh… what are you?"
The chain around his torso tightened once more, forcing him a step closer to her. Jin gritted his teeth. He could resist fire. He could resist gods. But he couldn't resist the bond's compulsion.
"You…" he rasped, each word scraping out. "You called me."
She shook her head frantically. "I didn't! I don't even know who you are! I was just trying to get home and something pushed me and then—then—"
Her voice cracked. She screamed again, but softer, like she didn't want to be loud enough for the world to hear her fear.
The chain reacted instantly. It glowed faintly, then loosened around his shoulders.
Jin froze.
Her voice.
It soothed the seal.
That should've been impossible.
Unless she was—
"No," he said quietly, shock creeping up his spine. "No, it can't be you."
She blinked. "M-me?"
The mark on her wrist pulsed again, glowing like a heartbeat that didn't belong to her.
Jin's eyes widened.
The curse wasn't reacting to her by mistake.
It was recognizing her.
"The one who sealed me," he whispered. "Your soul… you're her."
The girl staggered backward, shaking her head so hard her hair whipped across her face. "I'm not anyone. I don't understand what you're talking about."
Jin stood.
Chains clattered, sharp and metallic, dragging across the pavement as if reluctant to let him go. For the first time in centuries, the air felt cold against his skin. The world smelled different. Louder. More alive. It was dizzying.
But none of it mattered as much as the girl in front of him.
She didn't know him.
She didn't remember him.
Yet her presence alone had undone the seal no one else in existence had ever cracked.
"Why?" he murmured, staring at her like she was fate made flesh. "Why would you return now?"
"I'm telling you, I don't—"
Before she could finish, a shadow slithered behind her. Not a normal shadow. This one moved with intention, hungry and sharp-edged, forming a shape with too many limbs to be human.
Jin's instincts roared awake.
She was in danger.
Not because of him.
Because the moment she awakened the bond, something else had sensed it.
Something hunting her.
The shadow lunged.
She didn't even have time to scream.
Jin grabbed her waist and pulled her against him, spinning her out of reach. At the same time, he snapped his wrist, and the demonic chain shot forward like a whip, slashing through the shadow with a crack that echoed down the empty street.
The creature dissolved with a hiss, scattering like black ash on the wind.
Silence fell.
The girl clung to Jin's coat, frozen. Jin held her steady, heart slamming hard enough to hurt.
He wasn't supposed to touch her.
The bond forbade it.
His curse forbade it.
But the moment he touched her, the chain loosened again… as if it approved.
He exhaled shakily.
This was bad.
Very, very bad.
He met her wide, terrified eyes.
She looked at him as if he were both salvation and doom.
He wasn't sure which one he'd end up being.
Finally, in a voice low and steady, he said the words he never thought he'd speak again:
"You awakened me. Which means you're bound to me now."
He paused, letting the truth settle.
"And I will protect you. Whether you want me to or not."