“Dad… my back hurts.”
Those four words froze Jonathan Romero in the middle of the most important meeting of his life.
Jonathan Romero, a tech billionaire, was seconds away from closing the deal of the year. A multi-billion-dollar partnership with an Asian technology giant—one that would cement his empire for decades. His office, perched on the fiftieth floor of a glass-and-steel skyscraper in downtown Chicago, overlooked a city he had helped reshape with code, capital, and ambition.
But the trembling voice of his seven-year-old daughter, Sofia, shattered that world instantly.
“Dad… it really hurts,” she whispered on the phone.
Jonathan tried to stay calm. “Sweetheart, maybe you slept wrong. Put some ice on it, okay? The nanny’s there. Daddy will be home soon.”
But something in her voice—an urgency he had never heard before—made his stomach drop.
“It’s not like before,” Sofia whispered. “It’s… cold.”
Cold.
Jonathan hung up without another word.
“Cancel the meeting,” he told his assistant. “Family emergency. Now.”
He didn’t wait for the elevator. He ran.
The House Was Too Quiet
The drive back to his mansion in the northern suburbs felt endless. Traffic blurred past as fear clawed at his chest. Sofia had been different lately—quiet, withdrawn. She hadn’t wanted to go to the park. She stopped drawing. She barely ate.
None of it was normal.
When Jonathan arrived, the iron gates opened slowly. The manicured garden looked perfect. Too perfect.
Inside, the mansion was silent.
“Sofia?”
“Maria?” he called, naming the nanny.
No answer.
He took the stairs two at a time, heart pounding. Sofia’s bedroom door—painted with stars and moons—was slightly open. A dim light glowed inside.
Jonathan pushed the door open.
Sofia was curled on the bed, facing away from him. Stuffed animals lay scattered on the floor. The room felt strangely cold despite the heating.
He sat beside her. “Daddy’s here.”
She slowly turned around.
Her eyes were swollen from crying.
And then he saw it.
The Mark
On her left arm, just beneath the sleeve of her pajamas, was a mark.
Not a bruise.
Not a scratch.
A burn.
Dark purple. Irregular. Almost geometric—like a symbol etched into her skin.
Jonathan’s breath caught.
Behind her pillow, soaking into the fabric, was a dark, sticky stain—reddish-black, glossy under the bedside lamp. It didn’t smell like blood.
“What is this?” he whispered.
Sofia flinched when he tried to touch her arm. “Don’t, Daddy… it hurts.”
Tears streamed down her face. “He came.”
“Who came?” Jonathan asked, his voice shaking.
“The shadow man,” she whispered. “He’s big. And cold. He touched me… and then everything went dark.”
No One Had Broken In
Within minutes, the mansion filled with flashing lights. Paramedics. Doctors. Police.
The nanny swore she had heard nothing. Security footage showed no forced entry. Doors and windows were sealed. The surveillance system—state-of-the-art—showed nothing unusual.
The ER doctor was disturbed.
“The burn isn’t thermal,” he said. “It looks chemical… or electrical. And this substance on the pillow—it’s not human blood. It’s organic, mixed with metals and a powerful natural sedative.”
Jonathan didn’t sleep.
That night, as Sofia rested sedated in the hospital, one phrase echoed in his mind:
“The shadow man.”
The Glitch
The next morning, Jonathan returned alone to the mansion.
He reviewed security footage frame by frame.
Everything looked normal.
Until he saw it.
At 2:13 a.m., in the hallway camera outside Sofia’s room, there was a flicker. A glitch—less than a second.
Jonathan rewound.
Right before the flicker… a shape.
Not a person.
A shadow darker than darkness itself, sliding along the edge of the doorframe.
No face.
No body.
Just an absence of light.
His blood ran cold.
The House Had a History
Jonathan dug into the mansion’s past.
Old blueprints. Family letters. A journal belonging to his great-grandfather.
He discovered the house had been built over the ruins of an old fortress. Beneath it—tunnels. Smuggling routes. Hidden chambers.
And in the journal, he found a drawing.
A symbol.
The same one burned into Sofia’s arm.
Beneath it, a phrase in Latin:
“Custos Aeternum. Hereditas Tenebris.”
Eternal Guardian. Inheritance of Darkness.
The Basement
That night, Jonathan heard a sound from the basement.
Metal scraping stone.
The door—usually locked—was open.
Cold air poured out, carrying that same metallic, sweet smell from Sofia’s room.
He followed it down.
A crack had opened in the stone floor.
Beneath it—stairs.
And whispers.
His name.
At the bottom, he found a hidden chamber. In the center sat an old wooden box, sealed with a rusted iron lock.
The symbol was carved into the lid.
Then a voice spoke from the darkness.
“You found it.”
A tall figure stepped forward—thin, hooded, eyes like ice.
“I am Alaric,” the man said. “Last of the Custodians. This house was stolen from my bloodline. What lies in that box is mine.”
Inside the box was an ancient codex—and a map.
A hidden gold mine.
A fortune.
But Alaric’s price was clear.
“If you don’t return what was taken,” he said calmly, “your daughter—marked by the Guardian—will become the key.”
A Father’s Choice
Jonathan didn’t hesitate.
When Alaric lunged, Jonathan shoved a stack of rotting crates onto him. The chamber shook. The vial Alaric carried shattered against the wall.
Jonathan grabbed the codex and ran.
Behind him, the tunnels roared awake.
But one truth was clear:
The fortune didn’t matter.
The mansion didn’t matter.
Only Sofia did.
And Jonathan Romero would burn the entire inheritance to the ground before letting the darkness claim his daughter.