"Are you sure this is the way?" Elara's voice cut through the silence, a blade of sharp skepticism against the still air. "Kael, we've passed this same pile of rubble three times. I swear that dead rat even winked at me the last time."
A restrained smile formed on my lips. Patience, Elara. Just a little more patience. I laughed, a sound muffled by the cold air of the outskirts, and launched myself over a rotten wooden beam, landing with an agility my worn clothes didn't suggest. "It's because you lack an adventurous spirit, Elara. This isn't rubble, these are the ruins of a forgotten age! Maybe an ancient king's castle stood here!"
"Or an ancient king's latrine," she retorted, crossing the beam with resigned caution. Her short, dark hair swayed with the movement, and her practical, sharp eyes scanned the surroundings. "Either way, the smell is the same. What's the point of all this, anyway? We came out here for you to 'breathe,' but all I smell is mold and regret."
"The point is... to breathe." I stopped and opened my arms, inhaling air that, even here, seemed less stale. To breathe air that didn't taste of coal and hopelessness. "To get out of that heap of stone and despair for a few hours. To see something that isn't the face of a corrupt guard or the bottom of an empty mug. Look!" I pointed toward the valley.
The city of Oakhaven stretched out below us, a smear of gray and brown roofs squeezed between the mountains. There was no beauty in its architecture; it was a functional, brutal hive built on the ruins of something grander. Chimneys spat a perennial smoke, an oily veil that mixed with the fog, ensuring the sun rarely touched the lower streets. From there, a constant hum arose: the creaking of carts, the distant hammering of blacksmiths, and the indistinct murmur of thousands of trapped lives. To me, it was an open-air prison.
Elara followed my gaze, her small smile vanishing. "Yeah, I know. But it's our prison, Kael. At least here, we know the bars."
The bars, I thought bitterly. She's resigned to them. I can't be. The resignation in her voice struck me with a pang of loneliness. It was always like this. I dreamed of escaping, she dreamed of surviving. Living in the city was like being perpetually submerged in filthy water. Sometimes, you had to come to the surface just to keep from drowning. Our friendship was the only solid thing in a world that always seemed on the verge of crumbling.
As I leaped over a fissure in the ground, my foot slipped on the damp stone. Before I could lose my balance, Elara's hand shot out and grabbed my wrist, firm and sure. She pulled me back with a grunt. "Idiot," she muttered, but a small smile betrayed her scolding. "Watch your step." I smiled back, a silent thanks she understood perfectly.
We continued our walk, moving further away from the city's silhouette. Here, on the mountainside, nature fought to reclaim its space. Gnarled trees sprouted between stone foundations, and vines covered walls that had once belonged to someone.
That's when I saw it.
"Elara... look."
It wasn't a pile of rubble. It was a structure. Hidden by vegetation and partially buried by time, there was an entrance. Arches of black stone, smooth and seamless, formed a portal that led into the darkness of the mountain. The stones were covered in engravings, complex geometric patterns that seemed to pulse gently in the pale daylight, almost as if they were alive.
"By the gods..." Elara whispered, her eyes wide. "This... is ancient. Older than the city."
A shiver ran down my spine, a mixture of fear and fascination. I knew it. I knew there was something more. It was just as I had imagined. A secret from the "Lost Past" that everyone claimed didn't exist. An intuition, a sixth sense, pulled me forward.
"Let's go inside," I said, my voice low and filled with reverence.
"Have you lost your mind? You've definitely lost it." Elara grabbed my arm, hard. "Kael, places like this... they're not for us. The stories say they were sealed for a reason. Remember what old Aris always says?"
"'There are things in this city older than rust and greed.'" I completed the sentence, impatient. "Stories told by whom? The same people who let us starve? It's just a peek. I promise. When will we get another chance to see something like this?"
Hesitantly, she relented, letting go of my arm. "Five minutes. If I feel anything strange, I'm dragging you out by your hair. And you'll owe me tomorrow's bread. By the gods, Kael, you're impossible."
The air inside the cave was frigid and still, a cold that stole my breath and clung to my skin. The smell of damp earth and stone was overwhelming, but there was something else underneath... a metallic odor, like ozone after a storm, that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. The walls were smooth to the touch, cold as ice, and the engravings continued inward, disappearing into the darkness.
I took a few steps inside, while Elara remained at the entrance, a nervous silhouette against the light.
"There's nothing in here, Kael. It's just an empty ho—"
She was cut off by the sound that came from the depths of the darkness. No, it wasn't a sound. It was a word, whispered directly into my mind. As clear as her voice, but without any sound at all. A cold, precise invasion.
...Ruby...
The word was a key, opening a door in my mind to an abyss of vertigo. The cave spun. The engravings on the walls seemed to writhe, to liquefy. A sharp pain exploded behind my eyes, and the darkness that inhabited the cave swallowed me whole. The last thing I heard was Elara's scream, calling my name.
"Kael! Kael, wake up!"
I blinked, the light from the cave entrance a painful blur in my vision. Elara's face was inches from mine, creased with worry. She was shaking me by the shoulders, her hands small but firm.
"What... what happened?" my voice came out hoarse, my throat dry.
"You fainted!" she exclaimed, her voice a mix of relief and anger. "Just collapsed, like a sack of potatoes! I called you and you didn't answer. I thought..."
She didn't finish the sentence. I sat up, my head throbbing. I looked around. The cave seemed normal again. Just a dark, cold place. The feeling of ancient power had dissipated. But something remained.
"I... I don't know. I think the air in here..." I tried to stand, but I staggered.
"Enough. We're leaving. Now." Elara put my arm over her shoulders, helping me steady myself. "And you're going straight to Doctor Aris. I don't want to hear it. And you still owe me tomorrow's bread."
The walk back was silent. I felt strangely empty, yet at the same time... full. As if something had been poured inside me, an energy I couldn't identify, humming beneath my skin. I didn't remember the whisper, not clearly. It was just an echo, the memory of a sound I might have imagined.
Doctor Aris's office was one of the few places in the lower city that offered any comfort. It smelled of dried herbs and antiseptics, and the old doctor, with his crooked glasses and disheveled white hair, was a calming presence.
"By the gods, what happened to him?" Aris asked as soon as Elara helped me onto a bench.
"He fainted," Elara said, urgency in her voice. "We were on the mountainside, near some old ruins. He went inside and just passed out."
Aris stopped what he was doing, his gaze turning serious. He approached and shone a small lantern into my eyes. "Ruins, you say? The ones of black stone? Stay away from those places, children." His voice, once just hoarse, became tense, and for an instant, his gaze was lost in a distant, painful memory. "There are things in this city older than rust and greed. Things best left dormant. Believe me. Did you touch anything in there, boy? Hear anything out of the ordinary?"
Yes, I thought. I heard a name. I felt... everything. But the words wouldn't come out. How could I explain something I didn't understand myself? I shook my head, the lie feeling weak even to me. "No, sir. I just... felt a chill and then everything went dark."
The doctor continued his examination. He checked my pulse, my breathing, pressed points on my neck and head. Finally, he leaned back in his chair, scratching his stubbled chin.
"Physically, there's nothing wrong with you. Strong pulse, normal breathing. No fever." He leaned forward, his eyes scrutinizing me. "But... how do you feel? Truly."
I hesitated, looking at Elara before answering. "Tired. And a little... confused. Like I'm hearing a very low hum that no one else can hear. It's not in my ears. It's... in my bones. It's like a lute string stretched too tight inside me, about to snap."
The doctor nodded slowly, a dark expression on his face. "Rest. Drink plenty of water. And if that string starts to vibrate harder, or if you start seeing things that shouldn't be there... come back to me. Immediately."
We left the office as night began to fall, painting the sky in shades of purple and dirty orange. The doctor's assessment, instead of reassuring us, only heightened our unease.
"A hum in your bones?" Elara asked, her voice low as we walked through the streets that were growing darker and more hostile. "Kael, what really happened in there?"
"I can't explain it. It's like... electricity. In my blood." I rubbed my arms, though I didn't feel cold. "It's like a part of that cave came with me."
The night in the lower city was a labyrinth of shadows and dangers. We needed a safe place, so we headed for the warehouse district, an area of wood and stone skeletons where the smell of mold and rats was the dominant perfume. It was there, among the carcasses of failed businesses, that fate found us.
Crouched behind a pile of old barrels, we heard the voices. Sergeant Valerius, a man whose belly tested the limits of his guard uniform, was speaking in conspiratorial whispers with a cloaked figure who exuded the stillness of a spider.
"...the grain shipment from the North Docks arrives the day after tomorrow," the cloaked figure said, their voice like a knife scraping on stone. "The Shadow wants it to disappear. A controlled famine in the lower districts for a few weeks, and our own stock will be worth gold."
Gold, I thought with disgust, feeling the hum in my bones pulse with a cold anger. They'll starve people for gold. The same old story. The strong devouring the weak.
Valerius snorted, sweat glistening on his forehead. "Gold of which I expect to see a good share. Silencing those curious dockworkers already cost me dearly. They were starting to ask the wrong questions."
"You'll have your reward when the job is done," the figure promised. "Just ensure there are no more... obstacles."
A misstep. A loose stone rolled under my foot, which still felt unsteady. The sound, though small, was like thunder in the tense silence. The voices stopped.
"Who's there?" Valerius snarled, his hand already on the hilt of his sword.
Panic was an explosion of ice and fire. We ran. The chase began, a nightmare of feet pounding on cobblestones and shouts echoing through the alleys. We knew these streets, but our pursuers owned them. We climbed a rusty fire escape, the metal groaning under our feet. At the top, we ran across uneven rooftops, leaping over dark gaps that promised a fatal fall. Below, the city was a sleeping monster, its faint lights blinking like malevolent eyes.
The air burned in my lungs. We descended into a narrow alley, the stench of a tannery suffocating us. The sound of our pursuers' heavy boots was getting closer. We turned a corner and ran into a wall. A dead end. The end of the line.
Valerius and three of his thugs blocked the only exit, their silhouettes cut against the distant light of a torch. The sergeant was smiling, a cruel, satisfied smile.
"Well, well. What do we have here?" he said, savoring the moment. "Little rats who heard what they shouldn't have. A pity. No witnesses."
Elara placed herself in front of me, her arms outstretched, her body trembling, but the determination in her eyes was steel. "Leave him alone! He's not well, he doesn't know anything!"
"It doesn't matter," Valerius laughed.
One of the thugs advanced, a club in his hand. Elara looked at me over her shoulder, and in that instant, time bent. I didn't just see my friend; I saw the seven-year-old girl who had shared her last piece of bread with me during a harsh winter, her face smudged with soot and a stubborn smile. I saw the teenager who taught me how to tie a knot that wouldn't come loose, and whose laughter echoed in this very district when I tripped and fell into a mud puddle. I saw all of that in her eyes, a glimpse of the entire life we had shared. "Don't let them erase you, Kael."
The sound of the blow was dull, sickening, a wet sound of bone breaking.
For a millisecond, my world went silent. The air in my lungs turned to glass. Every sound, every smell, every tactile sensation of the filthy alley was instantly erased. I saw her body thrown aside, not like a person, but like an object. I saw her fall without a scream, a broken doll on the grimy ground. I saw her eyes, which seconds before had held a universe of stubbornness and loyalty, now empty, fixed on something I couldn't see. I saw the dark blood begin to stain the stones around her head, a growing pool that stole the warmth from the world.
And then the sound returned, not as a wave, but as a stake driven into my ears, and with it, reality crushed me. The hum in my blood exploded into a deafening roar. The alley, the guards, the very air shattered into fragments of dark glass. There was only the void where Elara used to be. Elara. My only... everything. The anchor that tied me to reality had been cut. A vacuum formed in my chest, a ravenous cavity that devoured my own organs, leaving me hollow and weightless. It wasn't pain yet; it was the absence of everything. A silent scream tore through my throat, a pain so deep it had no sound, only the physical pressure of a world collapsing inside my chest.
"Now, your turn, boy," Valerius said, oblivious to the universe that had just crumbled.
As the thugs approached, the void in my chest ignited. The pain arrived, and with it, the fury. The lute string in my bones didn't just vibrate; it snapped.
It wasn't a thought. It was an eruption.
A crimson light, majestic and terrible, exploded from my body. It wasn't fire, nor electricity. It was the very essence of my pain transformed into power. Particles of blood-red danced in the air around me, forming a vortex of pure force. It was beautiful, like a thousand shattered rubies under a blood moon, and it was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen. I wasn't in control; I was a passenger in my own body as the power flowed through me, a violent river that threatened to drown me.
The nearest thug didn't have time to scream. The particles of red light, once dancing in the air, converged on him like a swarm of hungry piranhas. The sound wasn't of an explosion, but of a wet, continuous tearing. The crimson light acted like a million microscopic blades, unmaking the man in a grotesque explosion of violence.
His clothes were the first to shred into tatters, followed instantly by his skin and muscles. A spray of hot, thick blood painted the alley walls, creating a macabre work of art under the hypnotic dance of the lights. Limbs were torn from his torso with the ease of someone plucking petals from a flower. For a horrifying instant, I saw an arm, still clutching the club, fly through the air before slamming against the opposite wall and falling with a dull thud.
What was left of the man collapsed to the ground, not as a body, but as an unrecognizable pile of shredded meat and broken bones, immersed in a rapidly expanding pool of blood. The smell of copper and viscera filled the air, a nauseating contrast to the supernatural beauty of the light that still hovered, now stained a vivid red.
The backlash hit me with force, burning my skin, opening cuts on my arms as if invisible claws had attacked me. I fell to my knees, gasping, the red glow diminishing around me. A metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, and a searing pain, as if my bones were cracking from the inside, made me double over. The power hadn't just exploded from me; it had devoured a piece of me to feed itself, leaving me exhausted and horrified. The horror was twofold: for the carnage I had caused, and for the chilling realization that, during that instant of power, "I" was not there. My rage, my pain, had summoned something, but I was not the one in control. I was merely the gate through which the monster had passed.
It was in that moment of shocked silence that a new figure entered the alley.
He moved with a calm that didn't belong in that place of death and panic. Tall, wearing a dark coat, his face was in shadow, but his eyes seemed to capture every detail of the scene: the dead girl, the pile of flesh and blood, the corrupt officer, and finally, me, kneeling on the ground, my skin scarred and the echo of an incomprehensible power still hovering over me.
The newcomer said nothing. He just watched, his silence heavier and more threatening than any scream. The chapter of my life had ended in blood and ash, and a new, even more uncertain one, was about to begin.