The Taste of RustThe rain never stopped in the outskirts. It fell in thin, hissing sheets, carrying the faint tang of acid that ate through cheap fabric and cheaper skin alike. Every drop left a tiny sting, a reminder that even the sky hated you here.
Levi sat hunched beneath the rusted overhang of a half-collapsed hab-block, knees drawn to his chest, watching the water run pink down the cracked concrete.Pink because of the body.The kid couldn't have been more than twelve. Scrawny, like all of them, with ribs showing through the tears in his coat.
He'd tried to run when the scavenger pack cornered him. Hadn't made it far. Now he lay face-down in the alley mouth, one arm twisted at an angle that made Levi's stomach turn—not from pity, but from the waste of it. Good boots on the corpse, almost new. Someone would strip them soon.Kai waited. Patience was the only thing the outskirts gave you for free.The pack—four older teens with makeshift blades and hungry eyes—finished rummaging through the kid's pockets.
One of them laughed, a wet, barking sound, and kicked the body for good measure. Then they moved on, boots splashing through puddles, voices fading into the maze of ruins.Only then did Levi move.
He slipped from his hiding spot like a shadow detaching from the wall. The rain soaked him instantly, cold fingers sliding under his collar, but he ignored it. Years of practice. He crouched beside the corpse, eyes scanning the alley in both directions. Clear.The boots first. Synth-leather, government surplus, the kind handed out at shelters before the funding dried up. Still warm.
Levi pulled them off with quick, economical motions, not looking at the face. Faces made it harder. Not because of guilt—he'd buried that particular weakness long ago—but because faces reminded you that the dead had once been competition. Alive, breathing, taking up space and food.Next, the coat. Threadbare in places, but better than the rags he wore.
He stripped it carefully, avoiding the blood. The knife came last: a short, chipped thing with a taped handle. Better than nothing.He left the body naked in the rain.One less mouth, he thought, sliding back into the shadows. One more meal for the rats.The outskirts taught simple arithmetic. Subtract before you're subtracted.
Levi made his way through the labyrinth of crumbling towers and flooded basements that had once been a shining district. No one remembered its name anymore. The maps called it Sector 17-B, but the people who lived here just called it the Grave. High above, the shielded spires of the inner city glittered like distant stars—clean, bright, untouchable.
Down here, everything was rust and rot.He moved carefully, avoiding the main paths where gangs claimed territory. The rain muffled sound, but it also hid ambushes. He kept one hand on the new knife, thumb testing the edge.
Dull, but serviceable. Better than the shard of glass he'd carried yesterday.Home—if you could call it that—was a drainage pipe beneath an old maglev track. Wide enough to crawl into, high enough to sit upright if you didn't mind the curve of your spine.
He'd lined the floor with scavenged plastic sheets to keep the damp out. A cracked glow-stick provided faint blue light. Luxury.
Levi stripped off his soaked clothes and hung them to drip. The new coat fit well enough. The boots were half a size too big, but he stuffed the toes with rags. Practicality over comfort. Always.
He ate half the nutrition bar he'd found in the kid's pocket. Synthetic protein, chalky, with a faint chemical aftertaste. It would keep him alive another day. Maybe two.While he chewed, he stared at the far end of the pipe where he'd scratched tally marks into the concrete. One for every year he could remember. Sixteen now. Or seventeen. Time blurred down here.
He didn't think about parents. Didn't think about the orphanage that had burned when he was six, or the "caretakers" who'd sold kids to labor gangs when supplies ran low. Didn't think about the first time he'd killed—another orphan, bigger, who'd tried to take his food portion.
The memory was there, sharp and clear, but he kept it locked behind a wall. Regret was a luxury. Guilt was suicide.The world had rules. The strong ate. The weak fed them. The Spell took whoever it wanted, whenever it wanted.Everyone knew the stories. One day you're scraping by, the next you're burning from the inside out as the Nightmare Spell drags you into hell.
Most didn't come back. Those who did came back changed—Awakened, with powers and scars and eyes that didn't look human anymore.Kai had seen one once. A woman who'd returned from her First Nightmare with shadows writhing under her skin. She'd walked through the Grave like she owned it, and no one had challenged her.
Three days later, she'd vanished again—into the Dream Realm this time. Permanent.He didn't envy the Awakened. Power came with a leash. The government drafted them, the corporations bought them, the clans collected them like trophies. Freedom was the first thing you lost.Better to stay a nobody. Live quiet. Die quiet.
The rain drummed on the pipe above him, a steady hollow rhythm. Kai leaned back against the curved wall, eyes half-closed. The glow-stick flickered. He should conserve it, but darkness made thinking harder.
He thought about tomorrow. There was a derelict warehouse two sectors over where supply drops sometimes fell—government aid meant for the shelters, but half of it always ended up in the Grave. If he left before dawn,
he might beat the bigger gangs there.Risky. But hunger was riskier.His eyelids grew heavy. The protein bar sat like lead in his stomach. Sleep tugged at him, persistent.He fought it for a while. Sleep was dangerous.
You woke up missing things—boots, fingers, life. But exhaustion won eventually. It always did.Just before he slipped under, a warmth bloomed in his chest.Not the comforting kind.This was deeper. Hotter. Like swallowing embers.Kai's eyes snapped open.The warmth spread, slow and inexorable, threading through veins like liquid fire. Not painful—not yet. But wrong. Alien.
He knew what it was before the words formed in his mind.The Nightmare Spell.It had chosen him.Panic tried to rise, instinctive and animal. He crushed it. Panic wasted energy. Instead, he focused on breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. The heat climbed his throat, pooling behind his eyes.
The drainage pipe began to fade, colors bleeding away into gray.So this is it, he thought. No fear. Only a cold, crystalline clarity. No more scavenging. No more rain. Just whatever hell waits on the other side.
He almost smiled.The heat reached a crescendo, and the world dissolved.Words bloomed in the darkness, glowing letters that hung suspended in void.
[You have been chosen by the Nightmare Spell.]
[Aspirant Levi… prepare for your First Nightmare.]
The void pulsed, like a heart beating. Levi felt himself falling—or rising. Direction lost meaning.Then came the description, slow and deliberate, as if the Spell itself savored the revelation.
[First Nightmare: You are a forgotten prisoner in the Black Temple, condemned for crimes unremembered. Shadows hunger for your flesh. Light is a lie. Mercy is death. Survive until the dawn bell tolls… or become one with the dark forever.]
The words faded.Silence.Then sensation returned all at once.Cold stone under his bare feet. The stench of mold and old blood. Chains around his wrists—heavy iron, biting into skin. Darkness so complete it pressed against his eyeballs. Levi stood very still.He listened.Distant dripping. Echoes that suggested vast space. And beneath it all… something else.
A faint skittering, like claws on stone. Many claws.His heart beat steady. Not fast. He'd expected terror, but what filled him instead was a strange calm. Almost relief.No more hunger. No more rain. Just survival, pure and simple.The chains clanked as he tested them. Solid. Anchored to the wall behind him. He explored with his fingers—rough stone, pitted with age. A ringbolt driven deep. No give.He cataloged what he had.Bare feet. No clothes beyond ragged loincloth. No weapons. No light.But he had his mind.
And he had time—until whatever dawn bell the Spell mentioned.First things first: escape the chains.Kai felt along the wall, mapping his prison. The stone was uneven, cracked in places. He found a sharp flake protruding near shoulder height. Good.He began sawing the chain links against it. Slow, methodical.
Metal on stone made a faint grinding sound. He paused often to listen.The skittering paused too, as if listening back.Hours passed—or minutes. Time stretched strangely here.Sweat beaded on his skin despite the cold.
His arms ached from the awkward angle. But the first link weakened, then parted with a soft snap.One wrist free.The second took longer. When it finally gave, he rubbed circulation back into his hands, flexing fingers.
Pins and needles, but functional.Now: orientation.He moved forward carefully, arms outstretched. Three steps and his fingers brushed bars—iron, widely spaced.
A cell door. Locked, of course.Beyond the bars: nothing but darkness and echoes.Kai pressed his face to the gap between bars, straining to see. Useless. The blackness was absolute.But he could smell. Mold, blood, and something acrid—urine? Fear-sweat? Hard to tell.He could hear better now without the chains. The dripping came from his left, steady.
The skittering… scattered. Multiple sources. Some close, some far.Whatever lived here hunted by sound.Kai lowered himself to the floor, feeling for anything useful. Straw, brittle and foul. Bones—small, picked clean. A rat? Human finger? No way to know.Then his fingers closed around something smooth and hard.
A tooth? No—larger. A fragment of pottery, sharp-edged.A weapon. Primitive, but better than fists.He gripped it tightly.Think.The Spell had called this the Black Temple. Temples had altars, halls, exits.
Prisoners had guards—or in this case, shadow things. There would be a way out. There always was. The Nightmare Spell didn't kill you immediately. It played with you first.He needed light. Or a way to move without sound.Bare feet were an advantage. Stone was cold, but silent.
Levi began to explore his cell systematically. Back wall, side walls, front bars. He found an inscription carved into the stone near the door—letters in a language he didn't know, but the grooves were deep. Someone had spent a long time carving them. Boredom? Hope? Madness?He traced the letters with his fingers, committing the shape to memory. Pointless, perhaps.
But information was ammunition.The skittering grew closer. Levi froze.It came from the corridor beyond the bars. Soft, multiple legs brushing stone. A pause. Then a sniffing sound—wet, inquisitive.He held his breath.
The thing moved past his cell. Slowly. He caught a faint charnel whiff as it passed. Rot and hunger.It continued down the corridor.Kai exhaled silently.First contact. Not engaged. Good.
He needed to move.The cell door's lock was a simple bar on the outside—he could feel the slot through the bars. No key. But perhaps leverage.He searched the floor again, more urgently. Found a thin bone—rib, maybe. Strong enough?He fed it through the bars, angling for the bar lift. Missed.
Tried again.On the fifth attempt, the bone caught. He lifted carefully.The bar scraped. Loud in the silence.Everything stopped.Even the dripping seemed to pause.Then chaos.Skittering exploded from multiple directions. Fast. Too fast.Kai yanked the bar up and shoved the door. It swung outward with a screech of rusted hinges.
He dove through, rolling to his feet in the corridor.Darkness. But now he could run.He chose a direction at random—away from the closest sounds—and sprinted barefoot down the stone passage.Behind him, things poured into the corridor. Claws clicking, bodies slithering, a chorus of wet chittering. Levi ran blind, one hand trailing the wall for guidance.
The passage curved, branched. He took turns without thinking, instinct driving him.
His breath burned in his lungs. Bare feet slapped stone, leaving bloody prints where sharp edges cut.The hunters followed. Closer.A junction. He veered left—and slammed into a dead end.Panic flickered, quickly smothered.
Backtrack? No time.He pressed against the wall, pottery shard ready.The first creature rounded the corner.He couldn't see it, but he felt the rush of air, smelled the rot.It lunged.
Levi sidestepped and struck.The shard sank into something soft. Hot fluid sprayed his arm. The thing shrieked—a sound like tearing metal—and thrashed.He twisted the shard deeper, riding the creature down. Claws raked his side, fire across ribs.
He ignored it.More came.He fought in the dark, a dance of guesswork and desperation. Stab, twist, dodge. Something bit his calf. He stomped its skull against stone until it stopped moving.Blood slicked his hands—his, theirs.Eventually, the chittering faded.
The survivors dragged wounded away. Levi leaned against the wall, gasping.Pain everywhere. Side torn open. Calf throbbing. But alive.He laughed once—short, sharp, humorless.
Welcome to hell, he thought. Population: me.Dawn bell, the Spell had said.He had to find it. Levi straightened, wiped the shard on his thigh, and started walking.The darkness waited ahead, patient and endless.He walked into it without hesitation.Mercy was for the dead.And he wasn't dead yet.