The sun died over Arcadia years ago. Nobody talks about it anymore—what's the point? The city lives under this thick blanket of clouds that never breaks, and the air tastes like ash and old grief. Demons did this to us, way back when our grandparents were still kids. Now we just get by, day after day, trying not to think about how many of us won't make it to tomorrow.
Rex was nobody special. Eighteen years old with a busted arm that never healed right, working whatever jobs people would give him. Most folks looked right through him, and honestly, he preferred it that way. Less questions, less pity. But damn if he wasn't tired of being invisible. Sometimes, lying in his cramped little room at night, he'd think about doing something crazy. Something that mattered. He just didn't know what.
After another shit day of loading crates at the docks, Rex walked to his spot by the river. It wasn't much—just a patch of muddy bank where nobody bothered him. He'd sit there and watch the water, pretending he was somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Tonight, though, the river looked wrong.
At first Rex thought maybe he was more tired than usual. The water had this faint glow to it, like someone had stirred moonlight into the current. He rubbed his eyes, blinked hard. Still there.
"What the hell?" he muttered, crouching down for a better look.
The glow was definitely real, pulsing gently as it flowed upstream. Rex had lived by this river his whole life and never seen anything like it. Part of him wanted to ignore it, go home, forget the whole thing. But a bigger part—the part that was sick of his boring, pointless life—wanted to know where that light was going.
So he followed it.
The forest swallowed him up pretty quick. Thick, gnarled trees blocked out what little light came through the clouds, and every step felt like walking into a trap. Rex's heart was beating so loud he was sure everything in the woods could hear it. This was stupid. This was how people died.
But he kept walking.
The demons found him twice. The first time, he heard them coming—heavy footsteps and that weird clicking sound they make with their teeth. Rex dove behind a rotting log and pressed himself into the dirt, watching three of them walk past not ten feet away. Their eyes glowed red in the darkness, sweeping back and forth like searchlights. He held his breath until they were gone, then waited another ten minutes just to be sure.
The second time was worse. A whole pack of them, howling and crashing through the underbrush. Rex scrambled up some rocks like his life depended on it—which it did—and wedged himself into a crevice. He could smell them below, all sulfur and rotting meat. One of them climbed halfway up before giving up, its claws scraping against the stone.
By the time Rex made it through the forest, his shirt was in tatters and his good arm was covered in scratches. But the glow had led him somewhere incredible.
The temple rose out of the trees like something from a fever dream. Massive didn't even cover it—the thing was so tall Rex couldn't see the top. Vines had taken over most of the walls, but underneath you could still make out these intricate carvings of battles between gods and demons. The whole place felt old. Ancient. Important.
In front of the temple stood a statue that made Rex's breath catch.
It was a warrior, but not like any he'd seen in the history books. The guy held a silver shield in one hand and a golden sword in the other, and both weapons looked like they'd been forged by the gods themselves. But it was the crystal embedded in the shield that really got Rex's attention. That same ethereal light he'd been following poured out of it like liquid starlight, streaming down the statue and into the river.
Rex stood there staring for what felt like hours. Every rational thought in his head was screaming at him to turn around, go home, pretend this never happened. But when had he ever listened to the rational part of his brain?
The temple doors were cracked open, just enough for someone to slip through.
Rex walked inside before he could change his mind.
The air hit him like a wall—thick and electric, making his skin crawl in the best possible way. His footsteps echoed off stone walls covered in murals he couldn't quite make out in the dim light. Room after room stretched out before him, each one more mysterious than the last.
He wandered deeper, drawn by something he couldn't name. Most of the rooms were empty except for broken altars and faded paintings, but one wall caught his eye. It looked different from the rest, covered in years of dust and debris. Rex could just make out the outline of a door underneath all the mess.
His hands were shaking as he started clearing away the rubble. Cobwebs stuck to his fingers and his bad arm was killing him, but he kept at it. When he finally got the door open enough to squeeze through, he found himself looking into a hidden chamber.
And everything changed.