Episode 01: The Weight of Empty Days
The rain had stopped, but the sky remained heavy and gray over Westbridge. Alok Fanando sat by his cracked bedroom window, the silver crescent moon pendant still resting against his chest beneath his shirt. It pulsed faintly — a quiet reminder of the strange night that had changed everything.
His mind drifted back to the day he found the pendant, to the antique shop's dusty shelves and the old man who said it was "waiting." At the time, it felt like just another forgotten trinket. Now, it felt like a chain pulling him deeper into a world he didn't understand.
Life in Westbridge was a slow erosion.
Alok's days blurred together — wake, work, eat, sleep. His job at the factory was a never-ending hum of machinery and tired faces. No one noticed the quiet young man who kept to himself, no one asked about the shadows that had begun following him.
At lunch, while others filled the diner with laughter and noise, Alok preferred the silence of the fire escape. He would watch pigeons fighting over scraps of bread, thinking of his family.
His mother, Liana, was the heart of their small home. She woke before dawn to bake bread at the town bakery, her hands cracked but steady. His father, Ruvin, once a soldier, had grown quiet and distant after the war, his eyes often lost in memories no one dared ask about.
And Mina, his little sister, still young enough to dream. She ran through the streets with the bright energy Alok wished he could recapture.
That night, alone in his room, Alok held the pendant. It felt alive, warm against his skin. He remembered the woman from his vision white hair, violet eyes the goddess who had betrayed him.
He didn't understand what it meant. But the fear that it was only the beginning settled deep in his bones.
Outside, the city lights flickered in puddles. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rumbled faintly. Alok's fate was no longer tied to the dull rhythms of Westbridge.
The world he knew was unraveling, and beyond the veil of rain and neon, a darker realm was watching waiting to claim him.