The taste of blood in her mouth had become familiar — almost comforting in its daily horror.
Chen Yue ran her tongue across her split lip and winced in pain.
This time, Madame Henderson had hit her hard.
Very hard.
“Dirty little Chinese girl!” The words still echoed inside her head, each syllable burned into her memory like red-hot iron.
“You think it’s easy taking care of trash like you?” Tomorrow, she would turn eighteen.
Tomorrow, she would finally become an adult — free to leave the foster home that had become her personal hell.
But free to go where?
To do what?
She had nowhere to go.
No one waiting for her.
Born in Guizhou Province, China, Chen Yue had moved to England with her parents when her father, an engineer, was transferred overseas for work.
Both of her parents had been only children themselves, and their own parents had passed away long ago.
They had no family left in China.
She became an orphan at eleven years old.
Her parents died during a trip back to their homeland, where they had planned to pay respects to their ancestors’ graves.
Their plane crashed into the sea.
Since then, she had lived in England in a foster home run by Madame Henderson — a woman whose perfectly English surname felt almost ironic.
Behind the walls of that house, Chen Yue endured regular beatings delivered with cruel, methodical precision.
Silently.
Routinely.
With trembling hands, she packed the few things she owned into her worn backpack.
A few faded clothes.
An old Chinese storybook stained with tears.
And a yellowed photograph of her smiling parents.
That was all.
Eighteen years of existence reduced to a broken backpack.
She climbed onto her rusted bicycle, the same one she rode every morning to St.
Margaret’s High School.
Leaving early was a matter of survival.
It allowed her to avoid the other foster children who harassed and beat her relentlessly.
Chen Yue was neither particularly pretty nor especially talented.
She was not even good at school.
That mediocrity had become her shield — her way of disappearing.
But even invisible, she remained the perfect target.
She never ate lunch at school, terrified of encountering her tormentors in the cafeteria.
Going back to the foster home to eat was no better.
So she endured the hunger instead, even when her stomach growled loudly in class and the others laughed at the humiliating sound.
After school, she spent hours hiding inside Pemberton Library, tucked away between dusty shelves where no one ever looked for her.
Only after nightfall did she dare ride her bicycle toward the one warm place left in her life: Madame Chang’s grocery store.
The old woman, nearly eighty years old, had owned the tiny shop on Chinatown Lane for decades.
She had no family.
No children.
Only a loud, talkative parrot that filled the little store with colorful cries.
Since the age of eleven, Chen Yue had visited her every single day.
It had become a sacred ritual.
Her only lifeline in an ocean of loneliness.
With Madame Chang, she spoke fluent Chinese.
They would talk for hours in the language of her ancestors while the old woman cooked warm meals for her.
Because yes… it was there, inside that tiny cozy grocery store, that Chen Yue ate her only real meal of the day.
She survived on the food Madame Chang generously offered her, with a kindness so natural and genuine that it warmed her bruised heart.
That had been her life ever since she turned eleven: A cycle between a school where she was invisible, a library where she hid, and a grocery store that felt almost like home.
But tonight was different.
Only a few minutes remained before her eighteenth birthday.
Pedaling through the freezing January streets, wincing every time the icy air touched her split lip, she arrived at the grocery store and discovered something unthinkable.
Madame Chang was not there.
For the first time in seven years, the shop was completely dark.
No warm golden light filtered through the red silk curtains.
No cheerful parrot welcomed her with excited cries.
No Madame Chang smiling behind the counter while wiping her hands on her embroidered apron.
Nothing.
Only emptiness.
Chen Yue stood frozen in place, feeling as though her entire world was collapsing around her.
Madame Chang was her only family.
Her only reason to keep fighting.
Without her… what was left?
Nothing.
It was deep into the night now.
Long past midnight.
In the middle of January, the cold pierced through her thin jacket and bit into her already bruised skin.
The freezing wind lashed against her face, pulling tears from her eyes that she could no longer hold back.
Desperate, she lifted her gaze toward the black sky filled with indifferent stars.
Her voice cracked as she whispered into the emptiness: “Happy birthday, Chen Yue.” At that exact moment, something extraordinary happened.
A shooting star streaked across the sky in a burst of silver light, cutting through the darkness as though the universe itself had answered her.
She blinked, unsettled by the strange coincidence.
She was about to leave — to continue walking toward nowhere — when sudden movement caught her attention.
Something strange was moving through the shadows with unnatural speed.
The creature — because it was clearly an animal — leapt gracefully across the frozen ground, its paws barely touching the earth.
Despite her fear… Despite the pain… Curiosity overcame caution.
There was something deeply mesmerizing about the strange creature.
As though it were calling her.
Inviting her to follow.
Without truly thinking, she did.
The chase led her far away from Chinatown Lane, through the sleeping districts of the city, until she reached a cluster of abandoned industrial warehouses.
There, the creature finally stopped in front of an old decaying building.
The warehouse loomed like a dark beast in the night, its brick walls devoured by time and moisture, its shattered windows resembling dead eyes.
Chen Yue climbed off her bicycle, her backpack heavy against her shoulders.
She was about to turn back — the place gave her chills — when the creature drew her attention once more.
There were noises coming from inside the warehouse.
Strange sounds echoing through the frozen silence of the night.
Curiosity proved stronger than fear.
Letting go of her bicycle, she slowly approached the building.
Each step echoed dully against the gravel.
Each breath became a cloud of white mist in the icy air.
The entrance was impossible to open.
Locked.
Corroded by rust.
It looked as though it had been sealed for decades.
The metal was so badly damaged by time that opening it should have been impossible.
She pulled desperately on the handle.
Nothing moved.
Disappointed and freezing, she finally turned away.
But the moment she did— The door opened by itself.
A metallic creak tore through the silence as the heavy rusted door slowly swung open, as though moved by an invisible hand.
Her heart nearly stopped.
Startled yet irresistibly curious, she turned back toward the warehouse.
With extreme caution, she crossed the threshold and stepped into the darkness beyond.
The air inside was thick and heavy, carrying a metallic scent that reminded her of blood.
Her footsteps echoed strangely through the emptiness, multiplying endlessly within the darkness.
“Is… is anyone here?” she called out with a trembling voice.
No answer came.
Only oppressive silence replied to her.
A silence so dense it almost felt alive.
Then suddenly— When she turned around, she finally saw it.
The creature that had led her here stood motionless behind her, watching her with unsettling intensity.
It was a fox.
But not an ordinary one.
Its reddish fur shimmered unnaturally within the darkness, while its golden eyes seemed capable of staring directly into her soul.
Yet the strangest thing was what hung around its neck: Nine ancient keys attached to a chain, each engraved with symbols glowing faintly in the dark.
Slowly, despite her fear, Chen Yue stepped closer.
“Don’t be afraid, little fox,” she whispered softly, extending a careful hand toward it.
“I won’t hurt you.” She moved gently, afraid of startling the extraordinary creature.
But the moment she got close enough, the fox suddenly leapt away in a blur of fur and rattling metal.
As it fled, one of the nine keys detached from the chain and landed at her feet with a crystalline sound that echoed through the warehouse like a pure musical note.
With trembling fingers, Chen Yue picked it up.
The key was made from a metal unlike anything she had ever seen.
Neither gold nor silver.
Something in between.
It seemed to capture and reflect the dim light around her.
Surprisingly, it was warm to the touch — as though energy flowed through the metal itself.
Curious, she examined it more closely, wondering what it could possibly unlock.
The symbols engraved across its surface almost seemed to move beneath her gaze, forming hypnotic patterns she could not understand.
Then suddenly— Something impossible happened.
A door appeared before her in a burst of golden light, causing her to stumble backward in shock.
This was no ordinary door.
It looked as though it had been crafted from dark wood threaded with glowing veins of light, and it pulsed softly… almost like a living thing.
Its edges and lock radiated warm golden light.
The door felt alive.
As though it were calling her.
Inviting her.
Begging her to come closer.
She could feel that irresistible pull drawing her toward the impossible apparition.
Hands trembling beneath the spell of the supernatural vision, Chen Yue slowly inserted the key into the lock.
The metal fit perfectly.
As though both had been created for each other since the beginning of time.
She turned the key.
A sharp click echoed through the warehouse, followed by a deep rumble that made the entire building tremble.
The door burst open in a whirlpool of blinding light and violent wind.
And she was pulled inside.
The world overturned.
Reality shattered.
Her body was swept into a vortex of colors and sensations beyond human understanding.
She spun endlessly through the void, losing all sense of space and time, until…