Blade parker

It was 4:56 a.m. Blade was still awake—eyes dry and stinging, head pounding like someone was jackhammering his skull from the inside. He sat hunched over his computer, shoulders slumped, doom-scrolling like a zombie. He’d stopped feeling anything hours ago. Almost half a bottle of vodka sat next to him, its cheap bite barely numbing the irritation coiled in his gut.

“Stupid-ass girls. Can’t even get some fucking pussy like the old days,” he muttered bitterly, lifting the bottle and draining another mouthful. It burned, but at least it was something.

Lizzie had gotten herself a boyfriend. Out of the goddamn blue. The one person who stuck around. Now she was gone too. Just like that. No warning, no explanation. Just a ‘hey, I met someone’ like it didn’t mean shit. Like she hadn’t been the last thing keeping him tethered to reality.

“Fuck,” he growled under his breath.

His scrolling slowed when something weird popped up—a sketchy-looking website, graphics janky as hell, like something from the early 2000s. Shitty HTML and all. Most people would’ve clicked away, but the vodka had him half-braindead and numb to caution. So he clicked.

A gallery loaded. Rows and rows of demihumans. Emaciated. Broken-looking. Blank eyes, like all the soul had been beaten out of them. It was disturbing as fuck. Should’ve closed it. Should’ve just backed away.

But he didn’t.

“What the hell is this freakshow?” he muttered, leaning in.

And then he saw one that made his breath stop. Made the vodka slosh uneasily in his stomach.

Snow.

There was something different about them. Something that hadn’t been crushed out. Their gaze wasn’t dead like the rest—it had fire. Fragile, but real. And they were attractive despite being skin-and-bones... They were beautiful not in a normal way, but in a way that made his pulse jump. Like a porcelain statue halfway to shattering.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Blade whispered.

He stared. And without even thinking, he clicked Buy.

The screen went black.

No confirmation. No receipt. Nothing.

He blinked, slumped back in his chair, and let the haze pull him under.

A week later, Blade was in the kitchen trying—and failing—to make a goddamn microwave mug cake. Mostly just to kill time, or distract himself from the black hole inside his chest. He dumped cocoa into a mug with a heavy sigh, barely giving a shit if it came out edible.

Then came a loud thud.

The kind of sound that made your spine stiffen. Blade froze, brows furrowed.

“Great. Another dumbass neighbor’s package,” he grumbled.

He stomped to the front door and swung it open—ready to be pissed off at some Amazon box with the wrong name on it.

But this? This wasn’t Amazon.

A massive, unmarked crate sat on his porch.

“What the… fuck?”

It was huge. Heavy-looking. No labels. No markings. No return address.

He hauled it inside with effort, heart thudding harder than he wanted to admit. Some viral marketing shit? A prank?

He knocked on it once. Then again. Nothing.

“Don’t be a goddamn bomb,” he muttered, grabbing a box cutter.

With a quick slice, he peeled the lid back—and everything in him went still.

Inside was Snow.

Curled up. Wrists cuffed. Motionless.

“What the actual—holy fuck—what the fuck is this?”

He stumbled backward like the box had just hissed at him. His brain screamed call the cops, call the fucking cops, but his hands were shaking too hard. He fumbled for his phone, fingers slick with sweat.

Emergency. He needed to—

Snow moved. Just slightly. Eyes opened. Slowly. Dazed.

Blade froze, phone halfway to his ear.

“Oh, fuck me,” he breathed.

They were alive. They were real.

He backed up instinctively, like the floor might collapse beneath him. Everything about this screamed wrong, but he couldn’t stop looking at them.

“Uh… hey?” he choked out. His voice cracked, high and nervous. “Do you… speak?”

Fuck. What the hell did I just buy?