Benjar: Monika

The machine had done more than connect realms. It had torn one open.

She adjusted the dials, merging her father’s frequency with the rift’s chaotic energy. The shadows recoiled. The voices dimmed. monika benjar

Too late, the workshop’s walls began to warp, fissures of shadow crawling up the wood. The rift expanded, and a low moan filled the air—a chorus of voices, pleading, wailing. Monika staggered back as a gust of arctic wind lashed her, though the fire on her stove still roared. The machine had done more than connect realms

A whisper slithered through the room— not sound, but thought . “Who seeks the unspoken?” The machine’s hum deepened, and the glass pane of the Lexicon rippled like water. Across its surface flickered a figure: a man in a frayed coat, his face gaunt, eyes wide with recognition. “Monika?” The shadows recoiled

In the dim glow of her father’s old workshop, Monika Benjar adjusted the brass dials on the humming apparatus before her. The air crackled with static, and the gears of the steam-powered machine turned with a rhythmic clack , like the ticking of a clock counting down to some unspoken fate.

Revise the mentor character: Dr. Vorne was her father's colleague, now in opposition. Maybe the father disappeared trying to reach another dimension. Monika wants to continue his work, despite Vorne's warnings.