I didn't think cities could smell. Turns out they can.
The air below the streets is heavy and metallic, like blood and rust. The staircase of bone creaks with every step as I'm escorted — dragged, really — by the three robed figures. Clipboard floats beside me, annoyingly calm, scribbling notes like this is a school field trip.
"Any chance you'll tell me where we're going?" I ask.
Clipboard doesn't look up. "To meet the Heart. Try not to embarrass yourself."
"Define 'embarrass.'"
"Plead. Scream. Cry. Defecate."
"Comforting."
The stairs open into a massive cavern. And I mean massive — big enough to swallow skyscrapers whole. In the center sits… it.
The Heart.
A towering, pulsating mass of black flesh and glowing veins. Its surface shifts like it's breathing. Thousands — no, millions — of eyes open across its form, each one swiveling to look directly at me.
My legs lock. My brain wants to scream.
"Approach," one of the robed figures says.
"I'm good right here," I manage.
The ground pulses beneath my feet. Once. Twice. And suddenly I'm not standing still anymore. I'm being pulled forward, dragged toward it by some invisible force.
Then the Heart speaks.
Not in sound. In my head.
"Kael Idiran."
Hearing your name spoken by something older than time itself? Not fun.
"You do not belong here. Yet you do. You are dead. Yet you are not. You are a glitch."
"Glitch?" I croak.
Clipboard clears its throat. "Translation: you weren't supposed to arrive."
"Wait—what does that mean?"
But the Heart ignores me. Its eyes close, then open again, sharper now.
"You will serve. Or you will be undone."
That's when the ground splits beside me, revealing a pit of writhing shadows. I don't know what's down there, but I know I don't want to find out.
"So… serving sounds great," I say, hands up.
The Heart's voice vibrates inside my skull. "Good. Then your purpose begins now."
And then everything goes black.