Beneath Arkwick's streets, where echoes refuse to die and memories twist like broken glass, Asher Blackwood steps into the heart of the Cathedral. The Watchers have returned—and this time, they're not alone.
The stale air reeked of rusted chains and incense left to rot. A smell that clung, invasive, as if the place itself had lungs, exhaling decay with every breath Asher and Renna took.
Asher's boots scraped over the cracked marble floor, each step echoing too loudly, too long. His flashlight beam jittered, cutting through a gloom so thick it felt alive, hungry.
"This city's got too many basements and not enough exits," he muttered under his breath. His voice bounced back, warped—an unsettling reminder that even sound got twisted down here.
Beside him, Renna adjusted her gloves, her eyes glinting faintly in the dim light. "You hear that? Whispering again. Same pattern as before. A litany… but fragmented. Broken up like a scratched record."
Asher paused, bracing himself. The power inside him—the tether to The Mask—shivered, quivering like a live wire under the skin. His heartbeat synced with the Cathedral's low thrum, and he knew. Knew this wasn't just a ruin. The Cathedral was awake. And it was remembering.
Symbols scorched into the walls flickered to life for a fleeting second: chaos runes, tangled techno-script, and sigils he recognized from the Watchers' files. Each glow was brief, but it felt like something was...watching. Measuring their steps.
Renna's hand drifted to her sidearm. "Feels like we're poking a wasp's nest."
He nodded, eyes hard. "And praying they're all dead wasps."
From deeper in the ruin, something shifted. A sound like wet meat slapping against stone, slow and deliberate.
Renna froze, fingers tightening around her weapon. "Tell me that's a rat. A really, really big rat."
Asher's jaw tightened. "Biggest damn rat this side of Arkwick. Stay sharp."
Then—a flicker of movement. A slithering shadow, half-seen, folding and unfolding limbs that bent the wrong way, as if someone had assembled it without a manual.
Renna cursed under her breath, leveling her gun. "I've had enough of this Silent Hill garbage."
Before Asher could reply, a loud THWUMP cracked through the silence. Above them, a corroded statue toppled, smashing into the floor with bone-rattling force. Marble shards exploded outward, and behind the wreckage… they saw them.
The Watchers.
Not masked this time.
Their faces were bare, pale as wax, eyes shattered into fractal mirrors. Each mirror-eye reflected something different: riots burning in the streets, corrupted rituals on cathedral altars, faces twisted in rapture and agony.
One of them smiled—a slow, creeping grin—and its jaw clicked unnaturally, unhinging just a little too far. "We remember you, Asher Blackwood. Do you remember us?"
Asher felt his throat tighten. Images flickered across his mind—half-forgotten missions, shadows he'd chased, eyes he'd glimpsed behind porcelain masks. His fists clenched until his knuckles cracked. "More than I want to. But less than I need."
The Cathedral's stained-glass window, fractured long ago, began to pulse with dull, sickly light. In its fragmented pieces, hidden symbols writhed like worms: serpents swallowing their own tails, crumbling towers, and an enormous eye that blinked once and froze.
Renna's voice cut the tension. "Asher… that window's not supposed to do that."
Before he could answer, the pulse hit.
It struck like a battering ram to the skull. Asher staggered, dropping to one knee as a flood of visions crashed over him: the succubus club's crimson nights, whispered deals for impossible power, Lilith's outstretched hand...and then faces—Silas, the detective twins, Delphira—blurring together into one endless nightmare.
He gasped, gripping his head, the walls tilting. Somewhere distant, Renna's voice shouted, panicked but firm. "FOCUS, Asher! Don't spiral now!"
He bit down hard, anchoring himself on her voice. Forcing breath back into his lungs, he locked eyes with the Watchers again, rage cutting through the fog like a blade. "You… You're the link. You're the thread binding all of this."
The lead Watcher tilted its head, something almost amused flickering across its too-broken face. "Thread? No, detective… We are the loom."
And then they moved.
All at once.
Surging forward like a tidal wave of flesh and shadow, too fast, too wrong. The Cathedral warped in response—the air folding in on itself, stone bleeding oily shadow. Ancient parchments burst into blue-black flame, disintegrating mid-air. Every rune in the ruin lit up, a chain reaction of collapsing sanity.
Renna fired, bullets tearing through one Watcher, but it kept coming—shattering into pieces that slithered along the floor only to reform again.
The Resonance had begun.
And there was no going back.
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Asher and Renna are caught in the collapsing pocket reality of the Cathedral, surrounded by Watchers who chant their way toward a ritual's climax—one that threatens to twist Arkwick into a living nightmare from which no one can wake.
[End of Chapter 44]
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Preview for Next Chapter:Chapter 45 – "Chant of the Forgotten"Asher faces the raw truth behind the Watchers' ancient chant, unraveling the forgotten history that binds every cursed event in Arkwick together. But knowledge has a price—and in the maze of fractured memories, survival is no longer guaranteed. Expect fractured minds, whispered bargains, unholy sigils, and Renna proving why she's more than just a sidekick.