They said magic was dead. I used to believe that, like everyone else. Now I'm not so sure anymore…
There's something about being alone in a ruined city that makes you feel like you're trespassing in time. Not just space — time. Every step Caelum took kicked up a bit of dust, and for some reason, he felt like he should whisper an apology for disturbing it.
The Outer Sectors had been abandoned for decades. Maybe longer. Most people wouldn't even come near them — too dangerous, too unstable, too haunted with stories the Dominion said were lies.
But Caelum came anyway.
He didn't even know what he was looking for. He just… kept ending up here. Like the ruins were calling him, or maybe, maybe, remembering him.
The statue at the center of the square was almost gone now. Just a hunk of stone with two feet sticking out the bottom and a broken plaque at its base.
"...light... the arc... end..."
He ran his fingers across the carved letters. They were worn down, half-erased by time and weather. He wasn't even sure why he kept reading them. They didn't make any sense.
Still, something about them felt important. Like a clue, just one step ahead of his understanding.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled it out — the book.
Small. Leather-bound. No title. The first time he touched it, it had been behind a broken brick wall in the old records hall where he was stuck doing clean-up shifts. He didn't know why he opened it. Or why he kept it.
Maybe he wasn't supposed to.
But once he touched it, things started to change.
He opened it now, even though he'd already flipped through it at least a hundred times.
The pages didn't have normal writing. The script swirled and twisted in strange shapes. Yet somehow, lately, he'd begun to understand it — not fully, but enough to feel like the words were sinking into his skin.
One page in particular had started showing up in his dreams. Over and over again.
"Flame to breath. Light to hand. Let the spark remember you."
Caelum said the words softly, without thinking. His voice sounded small in the open air.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then…
His palm tingled. Just slightly.
Then the dust in the air — the same dust he'd kicked up minutes ago — shimmered. No, glowed.
Just for a second.
Then it vanished.
He blinked.
His heart stopped. Then slammed.
"What… was that?"
His fingers tightened around the book. He looked at his hand. Nothing.
But he'd felt it.
He knew he had.
That warmth — like static, but deeper. Not skin-deep. Inside. In his chest. His spine.
He took a step back, stumbling into the stone base of the statue. That's when he heard it.
"Stop right there. Don't move."
A voice. Sharp. Mechanical. Dominion-issued.
Caelum turned fast.
Two Enforcers were already there. Black armor. Masked faces. Red optics. Rifles raised. Unblinking.
"Identify yourself," the taller one said. "What are you doing in a Restricted Sector?"
Caelum couldn't speak.
He didn't even try to lie.
He just stared at the book.
The one still glowing faintly between his fingers.
"Drop the item," the second Enforcer said, stepping forward. "Now."
And before he knew what he was doing — he turned and ran.
The shout behind him was drowned out by the thunder of his own footsteps. Gravel slipped under his boots. His breath caught in his throat. A warning shot cracked the air behind him, close enough to sting his ears.
He veered left — through a broken archway, over the remains of a rusted scaffold — and ducked into a building that smelled like wet stone and rot. A library, maybe, once. Or some kind of office.
He dropped behind a shelf and pressed himself flat against the floor.
He couldn't hear the Enforcers anymore.
Just his heart.
Slamming.
Too fast.
He looked at the book again.
The glow was gone now.
Of course it was.
Had he imagined it?
No.
He remembered the feeling. The warmth. The way the dust had shimmered like stars.
He hadn't made that up.
He couldn't have.
He sat there for a long time. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. The silence pressed in from all sides, broken only by the occasional creak of metal or wind scraping through the cracks.
Finally, he whispered to no one:"I think this book is... magic."
He winced at the word. It felt wrong to say. Like saying it out loud might summon someone to drag him away.
The Dominion said magic caused the Collapse. Said it was unnatural. Dangerous. Forbidden.
But then why did it feel so... right?
He flipped to the back of the book. The same phrase stared up at him.
Let the spark remember you.
He closed his eyes and whispered it again.
Something stirred.
Not outside this time — inside him.
It wasn't heat, exactly. It was something older than that. Familiar. Like a song you haven't heard since childhood, but when it plays, you remember every word.
Then it was gone.
Caelum looked up at the ruined ceiling. Stars blinked through holes in the stone like tiny eyes watching from far above.
"I don't know what you are," he said to the book. "Or why I have you."
No answer.
Of course not.
Still, he felt it again — that strange certainty.
He wasn't just some Enclave orphan with dirt on his boots.
He was something else.
Something more.
And the world… the real world — the one buried beneath ruins and lies — was waiting to be remembered.