The silence was a living entity, thick as the fog that curled between the abandoned houses. Zack led the group through the village's empty streets, each step echoing like a sacrilege. The putrid stench that had greeted them at the gates now seemed to impregnate every molecule of air, every surface, every thought.
"Stay together," he murmured, his hand never leaving the hilt of the Black Moon. "Something is… wrong here."
Above them, the cosmic eye hovered in the sky like an open wound in reality, its iris of distant galaxies observing every movement with a hungry attention. Orpheus walked just behind Zack, his eyes alert to shadows that seemed to shift of their own accord. K kept a protective hand on the Boy's shoulder, and he glanced around with a morbid curiosity.
"There are no bodies," K observed, her voice a tense whisper. "An entire village doesn't vanish without leaving traces."
"Unless something took them," Orpheus replied, his tone grave with the weight of one who had seen too much to doubt the impossible.
Zack stopped abruptly in front of a house larger than the others, its façade stained by a dark liquid dripping from the windowsills like black tears.
"Let's start here," he decided. "It looks like the village leader's home."
The door creaked in protest as Zack pushed it open, revealing an interior plunged into darkness. The stench intensified, causing K to cover her nose with her sleeve. Inside, the disarray told a story of a hasty escape or a desperate struggle: overturned furniture, broken objects, and scratch marks on the walls.
But what they found on the central table made Zack's blood run cold. A pool of oily black substance—identical to what they had seen on Milos's equipment in the mountains—lay there. Beside it, a partially burned parchment bore symbols he recognized instantly.
"This is Milos's doing," he said, his voice tense. "These symbols… they're the same ones he used in his experiments in Cintra before he was banished."
Orpheus stepped forward, examining the markings with a somber gaze.
"Not just his," he murmured. "Look at this one." He pointed to a specific symbol—a circle bisected by a vertical line. "That's the royal seal. The King is involved."
K searched the rest of the house, opening cupboards and drawers. "I found this," she said, returning with a glass jar containing the remnants of a gray powder. "It looks like the same dust we saw on the destroyed wagon."
The Boy, who had been unusually quiet, approached the window and peered outside. "The other houses have black stains too," he noted. "As if something has… leaked out of them."
They left the first house with more questions than answers. The village, which had seemed merely abandoned at first, was now revealed as an open-air laboratory for something terrible.
The local tavern was their next target. Inside, tables lay broken and bottles were shattered across the floor. The heavy wooden counter bore deep gouges, as if massive claws had torn through it.
"Looks like there was a fight here," K commented, examining the marks.
Orpheus shook his head. "Not a fight. A massacre."
The silence that followed was heavy, almost suffocating. Then the Boy, rummaging behind the counter, held something up in the faint light filtering through grimy windows.
"Look," he said, holding an empty bottle. Inside it, a tiny rat skeleton was perfectly preserved, as though it had died trying to reach the last drop of liquid. "He drank too much."
The comment—so absurd in the face of the horror surrounding them—provoked an unexpected reaction. K let out a nervous, almost hysterical laugh. Orpheus, usually so serious, made a sound that could almost be mistaken for suppressed laughter.
"You and your jokes, boy," he said, reaching out to ruffle the Boy's hair in a surprisingly affectionate gesture. "Stay alert."
The Boy smiled, a brief light illuminating his young face before gravity reclaimed it.
Zack watched their interaction with an enigmatic expression. There was something in the dynamic between Orpheus and the Boy that intrigued him, a familiarity he could not fully explain.
"Let's keep going," he said at last. "We still have a lot to check."
While exploring a modest house on the edge of the main street, K separated from the group for a moment to investigate a room at the back. The door opened to reveal a child's bedroom, with a small bed, scattered toys, and colorful drawings on the walls. But what should have been a space of innocence was stained by the same black liquid they had found throughout the village, and the toys looked as though they had been abandoned mid-play.
K felt a sharp pang in her chest as she took in the scene. Suddenly, a vivid memory surged over her:
She was sitting on the rough wooden floor of the small room she had shared with three other girls in the training complex. Her body ached in places she didn't even know could hurt. That day's training with Zack had been brutal—he had been unusually cold and distant, demanding more than she thought she could give.
Silent tears streamed down her face as she tried to clean the cuts and scratches on her arms. Despair consumed her. Maybe she would never be good enough. Maybe she should just give up.
Then she felt a presence. The Boy—then younger, almost a child—stood in the doorway, his eyes holding whole universes. Without a word, he approached and sat beside her.
From a small leather pouch, he produced a pungent-smelling salve and, with a concentration surprising in one so young, began to apply it carefully to each wound. His small fingers were gentle, precise, almost reverent.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked, confused by the unexpected gesture.
The Boy did not reply right away. When he finished treating the last cut, he looked at her with a seriousness that seemed out of place on such a young face.
"Because you are important to him," he said simply. "Even if he doesn't know how to show it."
The memory faded as K felt a hand on her shoulder. It was the Boy, now nearly her height, looking at her with the same intensity from that distant night.
"Are you okay?" he asked, his concern evident in his voice.
K nodded, unable to trust her own voice for a moment. "Just… memories," she finally managed.
The Boy studied her for a moment as if he could see the memory she had just relived. "He's changed, hasn't he?" he said softly. "He's not as cold as he used to be."
"He's not," K agreed, looking through the doorway toward where Zack and Orpheus examined something together. "He's not anymore."
"Orpheus," the Boy called as they moved toward the next house. "Why did you come back?"
The seemingly simple question made Orpheus pause for a moment. Zack, a few steps ahead, also slowed, clearly interested in the answer.
"What do you mean?" Orpheus asked, his voice carefully neutral.
"After everything that happened in the Polyhedron Realm," the Boy explained. "Why come back to help Zack? You could have stayed away."
A heavy silence settled between them. K glanced from Orpheus to Zack, sensing the almost palpable tension.
"I owe him," Orpheus finally replied, the words sounding as if they were torn from him. "More than you can imagine."
The Boy appeared about to press for more details, but Zack intervened.
"Drop it, Boy," he said, his tone brooking no argument. "Some debts are better left unexplained."
Orpheus gave Zack a look that mixed gratitude with something more complex—a silent communication between two men who shared burdens too heavy to put into words.
"That night in the Polyhedron Realm," the Boy remarked, seemingly changing the subject, "was the first time I drank with you, Orpheus. In that oddly named tavern…"
"The Leaky Mug," Zack completed, a rare smile touching his lips. "They had the best drink on the continent."
"And the worst food," added Orpheus, his usually stern face relaxing slightly. "That stew they served…"
"…seemed made from the owner's boots!" Zack and the Boy finished in unison, drawing a genuinely amused laugh from K.
For a brief moment, the horror of the abandoned village seemed to recede, as if that shared memory created a small bubble of normalcy amid the nightmare. But the illusion did not last long. A distant sound—somewhere between a moan and a whisper—brought them back to the grim reality that surrounded them.
"Let's move on," Zack said, his expression hardening again. "We need to reach the central square."
The village's central square was a broad space paved with old stones, surrounded by buildings that must once have been the community's pride. Now, it lay steeped in an unnatural stillness, as if the very air had been drained of life.
The stench that had trailed them through the village peaked here, nearly unbearable. K and the Boy covered their faces with cloths, but even then, the odor of decay mixed with something ancient and deeply wrong penetrated their nostrils and lodged in their lungs.
In the center of the square, what they saw froze their hearts.
A massive ritual circle had been drawn on the ground, using the same gray dust they had found on the destroyed carriage and in the jar from the village leader's house. The circle was incomplete in places, as if the ritual had been interrupted—or as if it were only a test for something larger.
Inside and around the circle lay broken chains. Drag marks on the ground told the silent story of people being hauled, positioned, sacrificed.
"This is exactly like in my vision," Zack whispered, his voice trembling with anger and horror. "The same circle I saw being prepared in the Lower District."
Orpheus knelt to examine the marks on the ground more closely. "This is a mass-draining ritual," he explained, his knowledge of forbidden arts evident in his precise analysis. "Designed to extract the life energy of dozens, maybe hundreds of people simultaneously."
"For what?" K asked, though her tone suggested she already feared the answer.
"To create something," Zack replied, his eyes fixed on the center of the circle, where a darker stain marked the ritual's focal point. "Something that can be controlled. A living weapon against other realms… and against the Void."
The Boy stepped toward the circle's center, his face a mask of concentration. "There are… echoes," he said, his voice oddly distant. "Screams. Pleas. They didn't understand what was happening."
Zack yanked him away from the circle with a sudden movement. "Don't touch that," he warned, his voice harsher than he intended. Softening, he added, "It's too dangerous."
K circled the square, inspecting the surrounding buildings. "I found something," she called from what appeared to be the local administration building.
The others joined her. On the building's wall, partially hidden by black stains, was a symbol carved into the stone: the same symbol they had seen on Milos's equipment, but larger and more elaborate.
"It's a signature," Orpheus said, tracing the outline with his finger without touching it. "He's bragging."
"Or marking his territory," K suggested darkly.
Zack stepped back, absorbing the entire scene: the ritual circle, the broken chains, the symbol on the wall. Everything matched his vision of the Lower District—not as a warning of what could happen, but as a glimpse of what was already underway.
"This village was a test," he concluded, the realization crashing over him like a crushing weight. "A rehearsal for what Milos and the King are doing in In Medias Res."
"Or have already done," Orpheus added, voicing the fear they all shared.
The silence that followed was broken only by the distant sound of something moving in the shadows of the streets leading to the square. Something large. Something that should not exist.
"We need to get out of here," Zack said, his hand instinctively reaching for the Black Moon. "Now."
But as they turned to flee, the cosmic eye in the sky seemed to fixate on them, its attention now undeniably focused on their every movement. The sensation of being watched grew so intense it felt almost physical, a weight pressing down on their bodies.
"He sees us," the Boy whispered, his gaze locked on the sky. "And he's calling others to see us too."
In response to his words, the horizon beyond the village began to darken—not with the approaching night, but with something denser, more alive. The Void's fog was moving, converging on the village as though answering a silent call.
They were trapped in a contaminated place, under the unrelenting gaze of the Void, with Skull's threat looming in the air and the shadow of Milos's experiments stretching everywhere. And now, the horrifying realization: their home—the Lower District, In Medias Res—could already be suffering the same fate as this ghostly village.
Time was running out.