In the beginning of all things, before language even shaped the gods and the laws, there existed the Primordial Essence—a pure, intangible force, uncreated and uncrafted by any other. It was neither good nor evil, for it transcends such human dichotomies. It was—and is—the invisible compass that governs the pulse of the world.
Every leaf that dances in the wind, every drop that dissolves into the sea, every star that burns in the abyss... all resonate with the Essence. It does not impose, but permeates. It does not command, but impels. And throughout the millennia, it has become an inseparable part of existence.
In this world, living beings do not merely coexist with the Primordial Essence; they anchor it.
They commune with it as one breathes. Men and women, beasts and trees, even the rocks and the rivers—all partake, to a greater or lesser degree, in this energetic symphony. Society flourished through this communion: cities suspended upon pillars of wind, fields illuminated by soils that sing to the earth, academies where knowledge is interwoven with the very fabric of the world.
And for a long time, there was balance.
Not an immaculate balance, free from conflict, but a tacit pact between civilization and nature, between soul and power. A world where the Primordial Essence was not a weapon, but a bridge; not dominion, but a mirror. The very concept of progress was entwined with harmony with this force. People learned to listen to the whisper of the Essence before imposing their will. It was a time of clarity, of order.
But all prolonged light casts a shadow.
For the Primordial Essence... can also bring chaos.
And sometimes, it arrives not as a forewarned storm… but as silence.
* * *
The house was a tomb, frozen in a silence so deep it felt sacred.
Time had stopped there. The floor, varnished by cold, was coated in a thin skin of ice that lazily reflected the weak pre-dawn light. The bed was still damp, abandoned mid-nightmare. The air: gelid, thick. Clung to the room like an invisible prison. Everything was stillness. Everything was static.
And then, he walked.
His bare feet whispered against the icy floorboards as he moved, hesitant, toward the next room. The doorknob turned under his trembling hand. The door opened with a muffled groan.
What he found couldn't be named—only felt.
The air there was denser. Deader. In the center of the room, two bodies lay, unrecognizable. Carbonized. Reduced to grotesque, blackened forms like broken sculptures. The walls around them were scarred by an abnormal electrical discharge. The smell of burned flesh persisted, even within the dream.
But it wasn't just the smell. It was the dread. The guilt.
He knew.
It had come from him.
He didn't understand how, or why. But something terrible had happened. Something that had split him in two—before and after. Something that had left marks deeper than any burn. Because in that instant, staring at the ashes of those he once called parents, his childhood ended.
He woke up.
He jolted awake, gasping, skin sheathed in a cold sweat. His eyes, blurred by tears, searched for nothing—just tried to escape what they had seen. His hands trembled. His body ached.
He pushed himself up and ran.
He stumbled into the bathroom and fell to his knees before the toilet. He vomited, a violent, wrenching heave as if his very stomach was rejecting the memory. He coughed, choked, tears mixing with the acidic burn in his throat. When it finally stopped, he dragged himself to the sink. He washed his face. Then his hands.
But his hands… Ah, his hands.
He scrubbed them with an obsessive urgency, scraping skin against skin as if he could erase the memory with water. Once, twice, ten, twenty times. The skin was already reddening, raw. He didn't stop.
"It won't come out," he whispered through his teeth. "It won't… No matter how much I wash…"
The tears fell silently, as if crying for him.
When the repetitive motion finally ceased, his eyes lifted to his reflection—pale, drained, with dark circles that betrayed sleepless nights and worse days. He returned to his room without a word. He lay down again, body curled on its side, arms wrapped around his own chest in a desperate attempt to shield himself from something invisible. Something internal.
Sleep did not return.
Sleep was a trap.
The hours dragged like long shadows in a narrow hall. Until, finally, the first ray of sun bled through the window, staining the room a pale gold. The alarm clock rang, its sound cutting the silence like a rusty blade.
He flinched. Curled tighter.
"I don't want to go," he murmured, a thread of sound.
But life wouldn't wait for him. It never had.
He rose, eyes still wet, body heavy, his soul heavier. He allowed himself a moment of complete inertia. Rising was not an act of animation, but of surrender. His bare feet met the cold wood. He walked to the old mirror, its frame chipped and glass fogged by decades. He studied his reflection. His hair, long and well-kept, fell in dark, delicate curls to his neck—the only part of him that seemed truly alive. It contrasted sharply with his skin tone, a hue common in his distant ancestry but visibly dissonant in this metropolis.
He stared into his own sunken eyes, ringed by soft but persistent shadows. It wasn't age; it was wear. His frame was too thin, as if his body were slowly yielding to the lightness of existence. His shoulders slouched, his neck slender. He sighed—a breath that sought no relief, only confirmed the repetition of the gesture. He dressed simply: a dark blue shirt, black pants, discreet shoes. It was enough. Nothing more.
In the kitchen, the opened cabinet revealed a desolate landscape of stacked instant noodle packages, energy bars, and cereal. His fingers brushed against the wrappers as if touching memories, or the absence of them.
"I should go shopping today," he murmured, without conviction. He ate a bowl of cereal slowly, not to savor it, but from a lack of urgency. He had time. Too much time. He left the bowl in the sink without a second glance.
Outside, the world pulsed. The metallic ring of molds being filled, the snap of glass forming on spiral nozzles, the mineral scent of mortar being manipulated by hands that commanded the Primordial Essence. He walked among them; People who, with a simple touch or gesture, shaped matter with the aid of that mysterious, omnipresent gift that had become the axis of civilization.
The Primordial Essence, or just PE, was what remained of ancient metaphysics, transfigured into science. Channelable, visible under certain conditions, it allowed reality to be altered in small and grand acts. Society had adapted, building its structure upon those who carried this gift. The others... well, they lived on the margins of the great dance.
As he walked through streets still damp with night dew, he passed a group of youthful Elves heading toward the neighboring school. Their clothes were elegant and impeccable, their laughter bright and easy, and their pointed ears were an unmistakable mark of a distinct lineage. He didn't look for long. There was something in their perfect features that unsettled him.
The school loomed, a gray stone archway inscribed with delicate filigrees of blue light, marks left by ancient masters who had fused PE into the very architecture. Inside, the familiar, subtle silence of the place was broken only by hurried footsteps and youthful whispers.
He climbed the steps calmly. Upon reaching the classroom, he pushed the door open lightly. The moment the wood creaked, the sharp sound of an object cutting the air was followed by a crack against the wall next to his head, where a piece of chalk exploded into dust.
"Oswin Thornwell, you're late again!" the teacher barked, her eyes narrowed and one eyebrow arched in calculated exasperation.
Oswin raised his hands in a gesture of comic surrender, fingers splayed and palms visible, as if baring his heart. The smile that bloomed on his lips was light, almost sincere, like a timid sunbeam breaking through a heavy cloud.
"A thousand apologies, Professor. Time got away from me," he said, his voice dancing between respect and resignation.
She sighed loudly, crossing her arms.
"Very well. Get in. But don't test me again, or you'll be writing a dissertation on discipline... in cursive."
Oswin crossed the threshold with the step of one carrying an unseen weight and took his seat by the window. The sun was rising outside, but for him, everything remained in shadow. The world turned out there. Inside, time stagnated—as it always did.
And he... carried on.
* * *
Finally, the chimes of the last bell announced the end of classes. Without fanfare, Oswin gathered his belongings—a worn book, a notebook whose cover was stained with ink—and headed for the school gate. It was always the same route: quiet streets, facades modestly lit by the setting sun, and, deep inside, the certainty that the day was not yet over.
He had learned to fend for himself from a very young age. No one had wanted him: his mother was a mirage of care, his father, an unkept promise. Abandoned to the whims of fate, he grew up in an orphanage, where solace came in crumbs of affection. At fourteen, he left the place, armed only with wounded memories, a few good ones and a will as hard as stone.
The following year, at fifteen, he started at the café on a well known street: it was there that he had earned his living ever since. His salary, set at 2,450 dollars a month, was more than enough to cover simple expenses.
Enough to keep him alive, intact.
At the entrance of the establishment, he slipped the apron over his slender shoulders, adjusted the front pockets, and, without hesitation, approached his colleagues. He waved at them, curving his lips into a mild, almost reverent smile. But instead of warm responses, he received cold, averse looks. One of them, with a furrowed brow, dared to utter in a whispered, but audible tone:
"Devil's spawn."
Oswin felt the blow, sudden and sharp. Still, he squared his chest in an almost imperceptible movement and, with a tremulous voice, asked:
"So you found out, then?"
Silence descended like a thick fog. The colleagues moved away, ciphering the room in careful back-and-forth, while Oswin's eyes wandered over the walls, the white tiles, the coffee machine emitting steam. There was no possible escape; only the echo of his own name, whispered like a curse.
He took a deep breath, letting the icy air fill his lungs. He ran his hands through his long curls, as if dismissing an old lament, and murmured to himself:
"I just have to work."
And that's what he did. He attended to every customer with silent readiness, his posture impeccable, his spirit contained. His gaze, though distant, remained fixed on his task. He placed cups on the tray with the delicacy of a ritual, set steaming coffees on marble counters, noted orders with the precision of a scribe. All to the cadenced sound of the grinder, the clinking of spoons at the bottom of mugs, the gentle creak of the boiler.
Then, while serving a new order, he stopped. His eyes met those of the man waiting at the far end of the room. There was something there that captivated him immediately.
The visitor wore formal attire: a well-tailored suit, an immaculate shirt, black gloves—as if he sensed the silent cold of the world. A sturdy leather briefcase rested beside him, hinting at secrets held within. But what truly held Oswin's gaze was the man's hair: long, brown, and meticulously cared for, it was braided back but would easily reach his back if loose. He had deep purple eyes. And, most notably, pointed ears, marking him as an Elf.
The man noticed the scrutiny and, lifting his chin, offered a polite smile. He inclined his head in a courteous gesture and, with a velvety voice that carried the weight of countless quiet evenings, asked:
"May I help you?"
Oswin, embarrassed, averted his gaze, gave a restrained nod, and recited the order with the same rehearsed ease as every other day. The man, unbothered, said that everything was fine.
Then, he retrieved a generous fifty-dollar tip from his jacket pocket. He placed it on the metal tray with a serene gravity and wished him a good day.
Oswin felt warmth flood his chest. He smiled, this time genuinely, and thanked him, pocketing the tip. As the cool coin disappeared into his apron, he shuddered, touching his own ear in a nervous gesture, and murmured almost inaudibly:
"Th-thank you. You have a good day too."
Around three o'clock, the grinder's final clatter announced the end of the daily shift. Oswin removed his apron—that dark fabric that wrapped his torso like a second skin—and went to put it away in his locker. It was then that a coworker's gruff voice called out, announcing that the boss was waiting for him in his office.
His eyes widened slightly. He sighed in resignation and walked without resistance to the administration room. Sitting in the chair opposite his employer, he lifted his gaze with contained deference and, in a polite tone, asked the reason for the summons.
The boss, mincing no words, informed him that the $2,450 for the month's salary had been transferred and then declared Oswin dismissed. The young man remained in absolute silence, contemplating the white ceiling as one watching a cloud disperse. He accepted the sentence with a crystalline calm, rose with a slow, silent movement, and headed for the door. As he left, the boss muttered something about the need to preserve the establishment's "image," but it was too late:
Oswin had already gone.
Devoid of direction, he walked through the fine rain beginning to fall on the streets. He clutched a worn-out umbrella, its ribs squeaking with each gust of damp wind. He passed families laughing under colorful raincoats, couples entwined in romantic devotion, and felt himself a strange spectator to a joy he had never had a right to. Every stranger's smile awoke in him the memory of a happiness forever denied—but he didn't dare stop, his steps still driven by an ancient, indecipherable dread.
Then, the city sky, once so ubiquitous, tore open with a dull roar. The clouds parted like a divine veil, revealing a portal of unstable contours. From this portal, a bizarre creature plummeted, crashed into the street, and rose with a shudder of disjointed forms. At that instant, a notification vibrated in Oswin's pocket:
'Véracité detected a few meters from your location.'
His heart raced.
He knew he needed to run.