The First Legacy: Devourer of Souls

There are places where the night lingers longer than it should, where the shadows seem to have their own pulse, their own hunger. Deep within the ancient forest of The Queens Crossing, the trees themselves seem to bend, recoiling from the earth as if to escape something far older and far darker than the mere creatures of the woods. For within the belly of this forsaken land lies a secret—a darkness that predates time itself.

His name, once whispered only in nightmares, was Solomon Grigori. A name lost to history, forgotten by men but remembered in the darkest corners of the earth. He was the first of his kind, a creature not merely bound by the curse of vampirism but something far worse. Solomon was a soul eater, an entity whose hunger transcended flesh and blood. He didn’t just kill; he consumed the very essence of life, leaving his victims as hollow, twisted shells—living corpses with no soul to speak of.

The legend of Solomon began long before the fall of empires. Born a prince in a time of bloodshed and darkness, he sought a path to eternal power. His arrogance led him to the doorstep of a being older than creation itself. In a forgotten ritual, he made a pact with this ancient force, a deal that twisted his body, his mind, and his soul into something unspeakable.

The first to fall were his closest advisors, men who had once called him friend. He devoured them, not with fang or claw, but with his mind. He stared into their eyes, and in an instant, their souls were ripped from their bodies, dragged screaming into the bottomless pit of Solomon’s consciousness. He did not merely kill them—he trapped them inside him, their torment feeding his unholy power. Every victim added to the cacophony of tortured spirits that wailed within him, their agony endless, their screams woven into his very thoughts.

As Solomon wandered through the centuries, the earth itself began to rot in his presence. Villages disappeared overnight, their populations drained of life, their faces frozen in eternal terror—eyeless sockets, gaping mouths, skin withered like ancient parchment. The only sign of Solomon’s passing was the stench of rotting souls that clung to the air.

His legend grew, though none truly believed the horror of it. Until one night, Jaclyn—just another woman trying to survive in a world of creeping death—found herself in the ruins of a town near Applegate Estates along Old Hwy 90. The place was a graveyard, bodies littering the ground like broken dolls, their faces twisted in silent screams, their eyes… gone. But it wasn’t the physical devastation that gripped Jaclyn’s heart in icy terror; it was the feeling—an unbearable weight pressing down on her spirit, as though the air itself were saturated with the screams of the dead.

She found a survivor—an old man, barely hanging onto life. His breath came in ragged gasps, each word dripping with dread. “He’s here… he never leaves…” The man’s eyes rolled back into his skull, and he began convulsing, his body writhing as if something was crawling through his skin, tearing him apart from the inside. Jaclyn knelt beside him, but there was nothing she could do.

With a horrific snap, the man’s body went rigid, and his mouth gaped open, but no sound came out. His soul—she could see it—was being pulled out of him, an invisible force yanking it from his chest, stretching it like a twisted, screaming thread. His last words were little more than a strangled gasp, “He takes the soul... don’t… look…”

Before Jaclyn could move, the man’s head jerked violently to the side, and his eyes—what was left of them—rolled forward, empty and cold. His body slumped to the ground, utterly lifeless. And yet, there was something even more chilling: Jaclyn could still hear him. His scream echoed, not from his dead lips, but in the back of her mind—a distant, agonized cry that would never stop.

A deathly silence fell over the town.

And then she felt it—him. Solomon was near.

She turned, heart hammering in her chest, to see a figure emerging from the shadows of the tree line. He didn’t walk; he seemed to glide, his feet barely touching the earth, as if even the ground recoiled in fear of him. His body was tall, impossibly gaunt, and his eyes… those eyes. They weren’t just glowing—they were consuming. Black pits of nothingness, swirling with the faintest whispers of the countless souls he had taken. Staring into them was like staring into the abyss itself.

"Come closer," he whispered, though his lips never moved. The sound of his voice came from everywhere and nowhere, as though the forest itself had spoken. It was not a single voice—it was the voice of hundreds, of thousands of lost souls, all bound to his mind, screaming for release, begging for the suffering to end.

Jaclyn’s blood ran cold. She felt something probing at her thoughts, scratching at her sanity. Solomon’s power wasn’t physical; it was mental—he could tear the soul from the body with a mere glance, rip the spirit from its vessel and trap it in the blackness of his mind forever.

She tried to back away, but it was too late. Solomon’s eyes locked onto hers, and she felt it—the pull. Her soul began to unravel, an invisible thread winding its way out of her chest, yanking her toward the dark void that was his mind. The scream started deep within her, silent at first, but growing louder as she realized she was being dragged into him. She could feel the cold tendrils of his consciousness wrapping around her, pulling her closer to that pit where countless souls screamed in the eternal darkness.

Solomon smiled, and the world around her seemed to distort—bodies twisted, the ground warped, and the very air seemed to suffocate her. The souls of his victims clawed at her, their faces disfigured and twisted with the horrors they had endured. She could hear their voices, all at once, whispering and screaming, trying to warn her, but there was no escape. No escape.

In a moment of desperation, Jaclyn remembered the vial—the last hope, the only weapon that might stand against such an ancient evil. With her last shred of will, she smashed it against the earth, and the ground erupted with violent tremors.

The spirits trapped inside Solomon’s mind tore free in a cataclysmic storm, their screeching voices filling the night with a sound so terrible it drove Jaclyn to her knees. Solomon screamed, a deep, guttural roar that seemed to shake the world itself. His body twisted and contorted as the souls ripped free from him, tearing him apart piece by piece.

His once-immortal flesh shriveled into nothingness, his bones cracked and split as his form disintegrated into ash. The last of the trapped souls broke free, and with them went Solomon’s scream, fading into the void.

But the silence that followed wasn’t peaceful. The ground where he had stood was still blackened, dead, and Jaclyn knew deep down that something remained. Though Solomon was gone, the darkness that created him, that fed him, was still there—waiting for another fool to stumble upon it.

And in the distance, carried on the wind, she could still hear them. The screams of the souls Solomon had taken, still trapped somewhere beyond reach, their torment never-ending.

The legacy of Solomon Grigori was far from over.

And the hunger of the void would never be satisfied.