Chapter 2: A Quiet Place to Die
Five Years Earlier
Sylas was ten—and dying.
He lay curled beneath a rusted sheet of corrugated metal, hidden behind an abandoned vending stall. A soft drizzle fell, the rain too acidic to drink. His body barely registered the cold anymore.
His ribs pressed sharply through pale, paper-thin skin. His lips were cracked, and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. His eyes, sunken deep into their sockets, stared blankly at the flickering lights across the ruined plaza.
The world above didn't see him.
Trucks rumbled by, their engines thrumming with condensed lifeforce. Glowing pipes curled along their sides like veins. Pedestrians walked like ghosts—hunched over, hollow-eyed, avoiding each other's gaze. No one noticed the boy starving beneath their feet.
Sylas wasn't even a street rat anymore.
He was a shadow in the dirt.
A breath away from being forgotten.
🌒 The Ritual
Night came early in places like this.
The storm clouds above thickened. A copper-colored dusk fell over the alleyway like a funeral shroud.
Sylas felt himself slipping. His body had stopped aching hours ago, and that scared him. He knew what that meant.
He closed his eyes. It's okay. It's just sleep. Just rest.
But a voice broke the stillness.
"You're dying."
Sylas opened his eyes. A figure stood over him, cloaked in black robes, the fabric stitched with runes that shimmered like oil. The hood cast a deeper darkness than the shadows around it. No face—just a void.
Sylas blinked slowly. His voice came out cracked. "Yeah. I figured."
"You're alone."
"That too."
The voice shifted—like metal grinding against bone. "But you're not empty."
Sylas furrowed his brow weakly. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You still have wants, boy. I can smell it. You want to live."
He didn't argue.
"What if I offered you something more than survival?" the figure asked. "Would you trade your death… for power?"
Sylas coughed. It hurt. His ribs twitched.
"Why would you care?"
"I don't," the figure said. "But you're useful."
Sylas looked up again. "Useful for what?"
"To become something greater. Or something worse. That choice is up to you."
He could've asked for more details — could've even asked about the price.
But he was ten. And he was dying.
"What do I have to do?" he whispered.
"Take my hand."
Sylas hesitated.
Then reached up.
"I don't want to die."
The figure's hand was cold as ice and smooth as stone. When Sylas touched it, pain shot through his arm—but it was pain that reminded him he was still alive.
"Then come," the figure rasped. "We'll make you eternal."
🔻 The Cathedral Below
They carried him through underground passages no sane person would tread. Moldy tunnels lined with bones. Rusted train tracks swallowed by the earth. Forgotten sewer lines echoing with whispers.
The deeper they went, the less Sylas understood the world around him.
At last, they reached a set of massive doors—tall, ancient, and marked with carvings older than writing.
They creaked open to reveal a cathedral carved into the stone of the earth itself. Stained glass windows glowed without light. Candles lined the chamber walls, flickering in an unnatural rhythm. Every surface was painted with symbols—some etched in ink, others… darker.
Twelve robed cultists stood in a circle. They didn't speak. They didn't move.
Sylas was placed gently in the center. His legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees, trembling.
Above him loomed a ceiling mural—an enormous horned figure with a mouth stretched impossibly wide, swallowing stars.
The high priest raised both arms.
And began to chant.
🩸 The Breaking
The words weren't words.
They were wrong. They bypassed the ears and cut straight into Sylas' skull. His teeth ached. His eyes bled. Time staggered. The candles blew out.
A black fissure tore open in the air above him.
From it came the voices.
Not one.
Thousands.
"Free!"
"Finally—flesh!"
"He bleeds. He breaks. He becomes."
Sylas tried to scream. No sound came out.
His spine arched backward. His veins turned black. His skin cracked like porcelain under pressure.
They were inside him.
Each voice a weight behind his ribs. Each presence a claw in his mind.
"Ten, Twenty"
"Eighty, One hundred thirty"
"Seven hundred, Eight hundred fifty"
They have counted from just ten demon souls to fifty each time then suddenly, thousands altogether.
Finally, "Five thousand and fifty."
"We have waited."
The priests screamed.
The high priest stumbled back. "No—no, this isn't—he's not the conduit—he's the vessel!"
Sylas' mouth opened.
And something else spoke through him.
"You opened the wrong door."
An explosion of lifeforce tore through the room.
The cultists were vaporized—ashes before their screams finished.
The mural on the ceiling cracked down the middle. Flames burst from the earth. The cathedral shook like it had been cursed by the gods themselves.
Sylas' body went still.
His heart stopped.
Then—started again.
⚫ Aftermath
He emerged three days later, crawling through the rubble on elbows and knees.
Covered in dust. Blood. Ash.
Not a child.
Not anymore.
His eyes were different. No longer brown, but shadows laced with faint flickers of red.
He stared up at the morning light, eyes narrowing.
And the voices greeted him again.
"Let us out."
"We will burn the world for you."
"You are our king."
Sylas sat there for a long time.
Then, he whispered, with more strength than any ten-year-old should've had:
"No."
"I didn't survive hell just to become it."