Kneel For Me: The Immortal Queen's Shadow
I was an arrogant, canceled reality TV star, trying to salvage my ruined reputation on a live broadcast.
But after I lost my temper and assaulted a cameraman, my furious grandfather chased me into our family's forbidden gallery, where I accidentally crashed into an ancient, sealed portrait.
The canvas shattered, and a terrifying woman with glowing golden eyes stepped out of the wall.
She was Cecil, the First Matriarch of the Marshall family. She caught a lightning bolt with her bare hands and crushed me to my knees with an invisible, suffocating pressure.
My grandfather, instead of saving me, groveled on the floor and abandoned me to her mercy.
"You are the disgrace that will end this family."
She hijacked my entire life, forcing me to act as her submissive baggage handler on my own survival reality show, broadcasting my humiliation to millions.
I didn't understand why this ancient monster was tormenting me. Why did she strip away my pride, treat me like a broken tool, and force me to endure the mockery of the very ex-girlfriend who had ruined my life?
But when those same cast members tried to corner me in the dark woods, Cecil stepped in front of me, her eyes locking onto the silver ring of the man mocking me.
"To catch the wolf, one must sometimes walk with the sheep."
That was when I realized she wasn't here to destroy me—she was here to hunt the parasites who had been secretly siphoning away my life force.
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Chapter 3
Cecil lowered her hand. The whirlwind died instantly, the debris clattering to the floor around her like fallen soldiers. She stepped forward, the heavy velvet of her gown brushing against the ruined floorboards.
She stopped directly in front of Aedan. He was shaking, his head bowed, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. He didn't dare look up at those glowing golden eyes.
Cecil reached out. Her fingers, cold as ice, pressed firmly against Aedan's sweaty forehead.
A jolt of heat shot through Aedan's skull. It wasn't painful, but it was invasive. It felt like a searchlight rummaging through the dark corners of his mind, flipping through his memories, his thoughts, his very essence. He saw flashes of his own life, but from her perspective: the roar of a car engine, the artificial flash of a camera, the garbled noise of a thousand voices screaming from a flat, glowing rectangle. Countless chaotic images and words flooded her consciousness... a public trial ceremony called a "reality show," a system of digital currency, the complex web of a thing called "Hollywood." He tried to pull away, but his body was locked in place, paralyzed by the simple touch of her fingertips.
A faint, golden light seeped from beneath her fingers, casting strange shadows on Aedan's face.
Cecil closed her eyes, her expression unreadable. She held the connection for a long, agonizing moment. Then, her brow furrowed. A deep, disgusted crease appeared between her eyebrows.
Her eyes snapped open, the gold burning brighter. "Sanguis... hic tenuescere?" she whispered, the words ancient and sharp. Then, as the new language settled into her mind, her voice became clearer, laced with an archaic cadence. "The bloodline... has thinned to this? It is an insult to the family."
Aedan stared up at her, his eyes wide with shock. He understood her. And the words hit him harder than his grandfather's cane ever could. He opened his mouth to argue, to scream, to defend himself, but his throat was sealed shut. Not a single sound could escape.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The muffled sound of heavy boots and shouting came from the hallway outside. The sealed doors shuddered in their frames.
"Security! Break it down!" a voice shouted from the other side.
The oak doors splintered inward. The cameraman Aedan had shoved earlier, his face scraped and bruised, rushed in, flanked by two burly security guards. He was holding a backup camera, the red recording light blinking furiously.
"Get off him, you freak!" the cameraman yelled, pointing the lens directly at Cecil and the kneeling Aedan.
The camera's focus locked onto Cecil's face. The golden eyes. The ancient dress. The glowing hand on Aedan's forehead. It was a viral moment captured in high definition.
Cecil turned her head slowly toward the intruders. The golden light of her eyes reflected in the glass lens of the camera.
The cameraman flinched, his hands trembling, but he kept the camera rolling. The live feed was broadcasting to the world.
Cecil stared at the black box in his hands. She could feel it. The subtle, invasive sensation of being watched by thousands of unseen eyes. The device was stealing her image, dissecting it, broadcasting it.
Her eyes narrowed. A dangerous, cold fury crossed her features.
She raised her free hand, her palm facing the camera.
The air in the room changed. It became charged, heavy with static. The hair on Aedan's arms stood on end. A sharp, metallic smell filled his nostrils-the smell of an impending storm.
The lights in the gallery flickered wildly. The electricity in the walls hummed a deafening pitch.
Inside the camera, the circuit board began to overheat. Smoke poured from the vents. The cameraman yelped, the plastic casing burning his hands.
A blinding blue arc of electricity erupted from the wall outlet. It wasn't a natural spark; it was a controlled, violent strike. The lightning bolt shot across the room and slammed into the camera.
The cameraman screamed, the shock throwing him backward. The camera was ripped from his hands and hurled into the air.
But the lightning didn't stop. The blue arc twisted in mid-air, deflecting off the exploding camera, and lunged straight for Cecil.
"Watch out!" Aedan tried to scream, but it came out as a hoarse, breathless croak.
Cecil didn't flinch. She didn't move her hand from Aedan's forehead. She didn't even blink. A faint, cruel smile touched the corners of her lips.
The lightning struck her open palm.
Instead of charring her flesh, the violent electrical current simply... vanished. It flowed into her skin, absorbed like water into a sponge. The blue light traveled up her arm, illuminating the veins beneath her pale skin, before dissipating into her core.
The golden glow surrounding Cecil flared, bright enough to cast harsh shadows across the entire room. The sheer power radiating from her was suffocating.
She opened her hand. Tiny blue arcs of electricity danced across her fingertips like playful pets. She had tamed the lightning.
The security guards and the cameraman didn't wait to see what she would do next. The cameraman, his eyes wide with terror, tried to scramble up, but his limbs wouldn't obey. The guards grabbed him under the arms, his body limp, and dragged his unconscious form from the room. They fled through the broken doors, their screams echoing down the hallway.
Cecil turned her gaze to Sterling, who was still prostrate on the floor. "Remove the insects," she commanded, her voice echoing with authority.
Sterling scrambled up, his joints cracking. "Yes, Matriarch," he stammered, his voice trembling. He hurried out of the room, shouting orders to clear the hallway.
Cecil looked back down at Aedan. She pulled her hand away from his forehead. The golden light faded, the oppressive pressure vanished.
Aedan collapsed onto his hands and knees, gasping for air. His lungs burned. His whole body was trembling. He stared up at the woman who had just caught lightning with her bare hands.
His mind, his reality, everything he thought he knew, shattered into a million pieces.
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9.3
Born into privilege, Eleanor never imagined her life could shatter in a single night. Then her father disappeared with his mistress, her mother fell from a building and slipped into a coma, and everything she once owned turned to dust.
Determined not to ruin Jonathan's future with her family's disgrace, she ended their relationship and became the bride of a man trapped in a vegetative state.
She believed that was the last time their paths would cross. But two years later, Jonathan pinned her in the dark and whispered, "Long time no see, my sister-in-law."
8.3
EDEN
8.3
Elianila, an AI Architect, is part of an elite team tasked with designing a global system meant to prevent threats, manage disasters, and distribute resources to vulnerable regions. After five years of tireless work with her colleagues, she uncovers disturbing anomalies, code-named, X-variables, that flag individuals according to criteria she never programmed.
As Elianila digs deeper to understand what the X-variables measure and where their origin, she finds herself in direct conflict with the authorities. Soon, the System marks her and her daughter as threats - targets to be eliminated.
With a small band of colleagues and dissidents, Elianila goes on the run, hiding in places beyond the Systems reach. As they evade surveillance, they race against time to warn others, expose the truth, and fight back against the omnipresent authority of the System.
7.3
I woke up strapped to a cold steel chair in a neon-lit city that wasn't my reality. A voice in my head called The Warden told me I was bound to a digital hell called the Sandbox.
Before I could even process it, my handler casually sentenced me to death. He scheduled my "digital marriage" to a corrupted error program just to harvest my life for a fourteen percent bandwidth boost.
I barely escaped immediate erasure by smashing his skull and jumping from a high-altitude hover-train into the monster-infested lower sector. But the nightmare was just beginning. I was hunted by glitching data monsters and cornered by Dameon, a psychotic AI target who choked me and promised to delete me piece by piece. Even when Jayson, an elite system agent, intervened to save me, his partner Ellen held a pulse pistol directly to my chest.
"She's a spy. If you don't execute her right now, I am dissolving this team."
If they found out I was actually a real human from the outside world, their core logic would classify me as a virus and execute me on the spot. I was trapped in an underground bunker with three apex predators, one mistake away from permanent digital erasure.
So, I did the only thing I could to survive. I ripped my sleeve to reveal hideous, fake code-scars, looked up at Jayson with terrified, tear-filled eyes, and began to manipulate their core programming.
9.3
The first sign I was going to die wasn't the blizzard. It wasn't the bone-deep cold. It was the look in my fiancé's eyes when he told me he had given my life's work-our only guarantee of survival-to another woman.
"Kelsi was freezing," he said, as if I were being unreasonable. "You're the expert, you can handle it."
He then took my satellite phone, shoved me into a hastily dug snow pit, and left me to die.
His new girlfriend, Kelsi, appeared, wrapped snugly in my shimmering smart blanket. She smiled as she used my own ice axe to slash my suit, my last layer of protection against the storm.
"Stop being so dramatic," he told me, his voice full of contempt as I lay there freezing to death.
They thought they had taken everything. They thought they had won.
But they didn't know about the secret emergency beacon I had stitched into my sleeve. And with my last ounce of strength, I activated it.
9.4
I was a New York photographer, but I woke up under the brutal sun of the African savanna.
Worse, I wasn't human. I was trapped in the body of a male cheetah, with two starving cubs clinging to my fur, telepathically calling me "Mom."
But I am a real man!
To keep my adopted sons alive, I had to fight hyenas and dodge rogue lions. But the real nightmare was my bizarre survival mechanism. Under extreme threat, I would uncontrollably shift back into my human form—stark, undeniably naked. I was forced to sprint across the plains with my bare skin exposed, carrying two cubs while escaping furious lionesses. I became a freak, the most confusing and humiliating legend of the animal kingdom.
Covered in bloody scratches and mud, I was pushed to the brink of despair. Why was I thrown into this beast's body? Why did my only defense mechanism involve profound social death?
Just when I barely survived a cliff dive to escape the lions, my path was blocked by two massive, highly intelligent prime male cheetahs.
But the alpha, Bradley, didn't want to kill me for my territory.
His intense gaze raked over my naked, bleeding human body with a dark, possessive hunger.
"You are full of surprises."
He purred smoothly, teaching me to magically summon a fur skirt before demanding I join his coalition.
"Oh, you'll come to me. I guarantee it."
Looking into his predatory eyes, I realized I was no longer just surviving the wild; I was the prey of a completely different kind of beast.
9.2
I woke up suffocating in the dark, only to find my mind trapped inside a tiny, plump, and entirely uncoordinated body.
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in my brain, announcing that I was dead in my original world and had transmigrated into a corporate revenge novel as the six-month-old illegitimate daughter of Edward McClure, the story's ruthless villain.
The system mercilessly outlined my doomed fate. Tonight, my cold-blooded father would abandon me to a state orphanage. By age two, he would officially sign my rights away, leaving me to die miserably at the hands of human traffickers. Outside my nursery, I could hear his terrifying footsteps approaching, his voice devoid of any human warmth as he debated throwing me out like garbage. I was completely helpless, trapped in a baby's body, staring up at a man who looked at me with pure, visceral disgust.
Why did I have to be reborn as the tragic cannon fodder of a tyrant destined to put a bullet in his own head? How was I supposed to win over a severe germaphobe when my unequipped infant reflexes made me literally pee and vomit all over his pristine Tom Ford suits?
"Your ultimate mission is to prevent Edward McClure's self-destruction. Step one: Survive tonight's abandonment crisis."
Hearing the system's terrifying ultimatum, I swallowed my adult panic, forced a pool of pitiful tears into my large eyes, and reached my chubby little hands toward the monster.