CAMBRIA

PROLOGUE

For as long as she could remember, Cambria could sense a great darkness within her, origins unknown. She did not know what to do with this darkness, nor was she aware how she came to possess it. She must have been born with it, she concluded. Or perhaps it developed over time, a slow cultivation of things to come.

She could feel it inside her, as though it were a tangible thing, moving around, taking up space where it did not belong. A malignant tumor, growing and expanding, pushing her organs aside when it desired. She could not control it, and that was what she hated most. That she did not control it – it controlled her.

Coursing through her bloodstream and infecting her brain, the darkness found refuge in her mind, swarming her with wild and indignant thoughts. She did not know what else to do but swallow them whole, devouring them, allowing them to eat away at her, piece by piece.

She succumbed to its power, letting the darkness live and breed, wondering just how much damage it could truly cause if she let it.

But she never did.

A master of suppression, she had spent years learning to conceal this part of her, pushing it down down down until she herself barely knew it was there.

It was hereditary, she concluded. Not the fault of her own but of somebody who came long before her, passing this unfortunate strand of molecules her way. And if she fought it enough, then it'd be relinquished completely.

But she was wrong.

It came out in other ways, bleeding through the cracks that could not be concealed. She was prone to bad decision making, couldn't differentiate right from wrong. She did not learn from her mistakes. She was self-destructive to the point of detriment. Sometimes she questioned whether she'd ever learn her lesson after repeating them countless times.

She wondered if she'd be this way forever. It was grueling, living the way she did. Never able to express herself, questioning who she was entirely.

All her life, she'd felt so alone. What she longed for was a companion. Someone who understood her. Someone who did not cast judgment. Someone who was just as lost and misunderstood as she was.

Someone who was the same.