Kael woke to silence.
Not the soft, morning kind — the heavy, wrong silence that followed screams.
The sky was still black. No sunrise. Just a faint violet haze where the moon should have been, pulsing like an old wound.
The city's skyline was jagged — towers burned at the edges, a few still glowing like candles running out of wick.
He sat up, breath fogging in the cold air, trying to remember how long it had been since the lights died.
Hours?
A day?
His shirt was stiff with dried blood. Not all of it his.
The woman with the stroller — gone.
The baby, the creatures, the street — gone.
He was alone again.
Except for the whisper.
> "You slept."
Kael's head snapped toward the sound. No one. The voice came from behind his ribs — quiet, measured, like something learning how to use words.
> "You dreamt of warmth. I waited."
"...Ashveil," Kael muttered. Saying the name still felt like dragging a knife through his throat.
> "That's what you called me."
The voice was amused now — faintly human, faintly not.
Kael rubbed the mark at his neck. It pulsed under his skin like a second heartbeat.
"Are you real?" he asked.
> "You made me real. You remembered me."
Kael laughed under his breath. "Then that makes both of us mistakes."
> "All creation is a mistake," Ashveil murmured. "But some mistakes learn faster than others."
---
He pushed himself up and started walking. The streets were swollen with fog. Half-collapsed cars glistened with frost. A tram hung from its wire like a corpse on a noose.
Signs of life — but not the kind he wanted.
Someone had drawn symbols on the walls in black paint. Spirals, eyes, and crescents. Beneath one, words written in blood:
> "LIGHT IS THE LIE."
Kael's skin prickled. The words were still wet.
Ashveil stirred. "They are waking. More of them."
"Dormants?"
> "Not like me. Hungrier. Simpler. The ones who screamed before they thought."
Kael slowed. He could feel it now too — that faint hum under the concrete, like a swarm of wasps under glass. Dormants, half-formed, feeding on fear and movement.
And one, nearby, awake.
He slipped into an alley. The air smelled like copper and rot. A figure hunched beside a dumpster — twitching, muttering. The man's shadow stretched on its own, long and jagged, like it was trying to peel itself off the wall.
Kael's voice caught. "Hey—"
The figure turned. The eyes weren't eyes. Just black pits that swallowed light.
It lunged.
Kael stumbled back, hitting the ground. The thing was fast — bones cracking, flesh bending wrong. Its hand brushed his arm, and a freezing pain shot through his veins.
> "Say it." Ashveil whispered.
"What?"
> "The name."
Kael hesitated. The thing was on him now, shrieking like metal on glass.
He felt Ashveil's pulse in his spine, waiting.
He screamed it.
"Ashveil!"
The shadow behind him erupted like smoke under pressure. For an instant, Kael's body wasn't his — he was the smoke, the claws, the hunger.
The creature froze mid-lunge, its skin blistering, its shadow writhing.
Ashveil's voice slid through him like ice through water.
> "We are hollow things, Kael. Let us feed on the empty."
Kael's hand thrust forward — or maybe the shadow's did — and the creature's chest caved inward silently. Its body folded into itself, collapsing into dust.
When it was over, the air smelled like burnt paper.
Kael collapsed to his knees, shaking.
His hands were clean.
His shadow wasn't.
Ashveil's voice softened. "You are learning."
"Learning to what? Kill?"
> "Learning to survive."
Kael looked up at the black sky. The violet shimmer was brighter now — pulsing faster, like a heartbeat spreading across the horizon.
And in the faint distance, something answered it — another light, faintly gold, burning where the city's center used to be.
"What's that?"
> "The ones who refused the dark," Ashveil said. "They think light will save them."
"And will it?"
> "Nothing saves. Everything consumes. Even hope."
Kael stood, clutching his jacket tighter, eyes fixed on the distant glow.
"Then let's find out what eats first."
He started walking. Behind him, his shadow followed — slower, wider, breathing.
---