The church was no longer silent.
Unlike the nights before, time itself seemed to crack inside the sacred hall. A breeze slid through a broken windowpane, carrying a faint voice—was it a whisper, or a scream buried by time?
Kael sat alone on a wooden bench, its frame brittle with age. In front of him, an old cross hung still. The candles burned low, casting flickering shadows that danced on the walls. Those shadows... moved.
He stared at his trembling hands—not from the cold, but from something else. Something inside him wanted to escape, yet it had no form.
> "This world... is empty," he whispered.
"Or... am I the hollow one?"
Footsteps echoed. Not one. Not two. Many.
Kael turned slowly. No one was there.
But the smell... the scent of wet flesh and dried blood. Unfamiliar, yet disturbingly known—like from his dreams.
---
"Kael."
A voice called. It didn't sound human.
He stood, frozen. His mind rejected what it had just heard.
Then...
The mirror behind the altar cracked.
No one touched it.
The cracks spread like nerves, forming a strange, complex pattern—like a sigil.
The same as... the First Mark.
---
"Why... why now?" Kael murmured. He reached for the pendant around his neck, the old trinket he'd carried since childhood. It vibrated.
A voice again, from behind the pews:
> "You have seen, but not known."
"You are marked, but not yet chosen."
Kael rushed toward the sound. Nothing there. But the floor beneath him felt different. Soft. Like flesh.
Then... the floor gave way.
---
...And Kael fell.
Darkness.
But not ordinary darkness. It felt like he was falling through time. Memories not his own flashed: wars, worship, betrayal, and symbols spinning in flame.
An ancient voice—like it came from inside bone—whispered:
> "The shards of you are parts of the Mirror.
The shards of this world belong to you.
You are the Unspoken Mark."
---
Kael woke up.
He was beneath the church. A place sealed for decades. The walls were etched with ancient sigils. At the center stood a headless statue.
And at its base, written in dried blood:
> "The First Rung has cracked."