SFX: SHHHHHT—SHHHHHHT
The rain in Neon Graves never asked permission before it entered your lungs.
It fell black and chemical, sizzling on contact, carrying the taste of burnt circuits and old corpses. Every drop that touched skin left behind a faint scar shaped like a memory you never lived. The doctors called it terminal corrosion.
Rhaen val Asteria called it Tuesday.
He stood on the ledge of the ninety-seventh floor, long coat flapping like a wounded crow. Below him, the city choked on its own neon—kanji bleeding across puddles that reflected nothing at all. Above him, the sky wore a bruise that never healed.
Twenty-three years old.
Seventeen confirmed kills.
Three days left to live.
The knife in his hand was beautiful: mirror-forged obsidian, monomolecular edge, its grip wrapped in the hair of the first girl who ever told him she loved him. Rain hissed across the blade, making the metal shiver in his palm.
His reflection showed a man too pale, too sharp, too empty.
Eyes the color of winter graves.
He laughed once—SFX: KHHK——and it dissolved into a wet cough that painted the rooftop red.
"Any last requests, body?" he murmured. "No? Good. Me neither."
Then the sky tore open.
Not a storm.
Not lightning.
A wound.
A vertical fissure of perfect black, its edges writhing like serpents of smoke. No thunder. No wind. Only pressure—the pressure of something ancient stooping to inspect its favorite broken toy.
Words bloomed inside his skull, not heard but remembered, as though carved there ages ago.
[You are dying.]
[Do you want to live?]
Rhaen tilted his head. Rain slid down his cheek like tears he'd never learned how to shed.
"Define live," he muttered.
The fissure widened.
Something on the far side smiled with too many teeth.
[Then come. One more nightmare. One last game.]
He stepped forward—off the ledge.
SFX: FWMP—
The fall lasted less than a heartbeat.
The rain reversed direction.
The city inverted.
Rhaen val Asteria died smiling.
He awakened kneeling in silence.
No rain.
No city.
Only void—black so complete it had texture, like velvet drowned in ink.
Three thrones floated in the darkness, carved from the shattered crowns of forgotten kings. Between them drifted an obsidian stele taller than any man, its surface etched in letters that hurt to look at.
Two others were already present.
To his left:
A woman in white robes, the shade of moonlight on polished bone. Hair like spilled mercury. Eyes pale as frostbite. She knelt with inhuman grace, fingertips brushing the void as though greeting a lover older than time. Her smile was gentle and devastating.
To his right:
A woman armored in charred black, crimson cape snapping though no wind existed. Midnight hair. Eyes molten ruby. Blood still steamed across the joints of her gauntlets. The air around her smelled of incense and burning gods.
They were not human.
They were answers to prayers no sane worshipper would utter.
The stele pulsed.
[Welcome, nameless ones.]
[The Dream Gate is broken.]
[The Nameless Monarch is dead.]
[His corpse is scattered across the Endless Night.]
[Thirteen Divine Fragments remain.]
[Collect them.]
[Rebuild the throne.]
[Or let the nightmares devour every world that still remembers light.]
A pause. Something softer—like a lullaby with teeth.
[Only one may sit.]
Rhaen rose. No pain in his lungs. No holes in his chest. Someone—or something—had sewn him back together with thread colder than death.
He glanced at the two women. The old itch danced between his shoulder blades. The itch that always preceded killing someone beautiful.
The white-haired one spoke first, voice chiming like glass knives falling in slow motion.
"My, my. Two pretty corpses and one still-warm murderer. How delicious," she added.
The armored woman rolled her shoulders; metal snarled.
"Save the poetry, ghost. I'm here to break something divine, not listen to you flirt with entropy," she scolded.
Rhaen wiped his mouth.
No blood.
Interesting.
"Ladies," he explained, tone cultured, soft, malicious, "before we decide who gets to murder whom, let us acknowledge that introductions are a pointless luxury we no longer possess."
He drew the obsidian knife.
It drank the void and returned nothing.
The stele blazed.
[Covenant of Three enforced.]
[Your souls are bound by the Broken Chain.]
[If one falls forever, all three cease.]
[Betrayal is permitted. Mercy is optional.]
[First Nightmare begins in three breaths.]
The white-haired woman—Seere, a name his mind recognized without learning—tilted her head.
"Oh. We're going to be such good friends," she murmured, almost fond.
The armored woman—Asha—cracked her neck, grinning like a wolf who'd swallowed scripture.
"Try not to die too early, pretty corpses. I want to enjoy this," she laughed.
Rhaen twirled the knife, caught it by the tip, and dropped into a low, mocking assassin's bow.
"Then let's not keep the nightmare waiting," he announced.
Reality shattered.
SFX: CRRRRK—SKREEEEEE—
The void folded.
The thrones screamed.
And the three plummeted sideways into a city that cried upward.
Black rain rose from the ground in perfect reverse. Buildings grew downward from a sky of wet asphalt. Streetlights dripped illumination like blood. Farewell lingered in the air like perfume.
Above, new words carved themselves into the heavens.
[FIRST NIGHTMARE]
[Name: The City That Weeps Upward]
[Rank: Flawed (First Trial)]
[Objective: Survive until the rain stops falling in reverse.]
[Warning: Everything here lies—ground, sky, reflection, name.]
[Hidden Condition: █████ ██████ ███]
Rhaen landed in a crouch on a street that was also a ceiling. Reverse rain struck his face, and for an instant he saw his mother's smile inside a droplet before it flew upward and vanished.
Seere drifted down like a fallen angel, robes untouched by the inverted storm.
Asha slammed into the false pavement—SFX: KRAK-SHH——laughing with feral delight.
Somewhere distant, something wearing a child's face began to scream with its mother's voice.
Rhaen straightened.
The knife felt heavier. Hungrier.
He glanced at the two women—his chain, his curse, his future lovers or victims or both.
"I've always wanted to know who bleeds prettier: a ghost, a saint-killer, or me," he blurted.
Seere's laugh was soft, affectionate, and pitiless.
Asha summoned a great crimson blade from nothing and rested it on her shoulder.
"Then let's find out, shall we?" she cheered.
The city screamed.
The rain lied.
And the First Nightmare began.