SOREN
The first thing he noticed was the sound — a dull ringing in his ears, like a distant bell that refused to stop. Then came the taste: copper and something bitter clinging to the back of his throat.
Pain exploded along the side of his jaw.
His eyes snapped open. Firelight flickered nearby, harsh and popping, throwing long shadows across the stone walls. Smoke curled lazily upward, gathering near the ceiling before thinning into the stale air. His vision swam as shapes drifted in and out of focus. Rough wood pressed against his back, splinters catching through his shirt, and his shoulders ached like they'd been wrenched from their sockets. He tried to move his hands. They didn't move. His fingers felt numb and heavy, like they were wrapped in someone else's skin.
What happened?
His thoughts dragged through thick fog. He remembered walking home. Street lanterns stretched down empty sidewalks. The quiet hum of the city at night. His breath fogging in the air. That uneasy feeling that someone might be behind him — but every time he turned, there was no one there.
Then nothing.
A blank space where memory should have been.
Panic stirred low in his chest as he forced his eyes open wider. The room couldn't have been more than ten paces across. Bare concrete walls. Windowless. Dark stains marked the floor near the far wall, long dried and half hidden in shadow. The air smelled of damp stone, old smoke, and something faintly metallic that clung to the back of his throat. Somewhere in the darkness, water dripped in a slow, steady rhythm.
He was sitting in a wooden chair, his wrists bound behind him with tight ropes that dug into his skin. The fibers creaked softly when he shifted.
His jaw throbbed with every heartbeat. When he tried to adjust his mouth, something shifted wrong and sent a grinding ache toward his ear. Dried blood cracked at the corner of his lips.
He wasn't alone.
A large figure stood a few feet in front of him, just beyond the brightest edge of the firelight. Tall. Broad. Still. The man wore dark clothes, sleeves tight around thick forearms. His hands were bare — scarred, knuckles swollen like they'd been broken more than once. His face was hidden behind a skull-shaped mask, bone-colored and cracked along one side. Inside the eye sockets, a faint orange glow smoldered like coals buried deep in ash.
The man tilted his head, studying him, revealing a trail of old burn scars climbing toward the edge of the mask.
"Tell me," he said, voice low and rough, carrying a strange depth that didn't match the size of the room, "where you hid the Echo."
His brain struggled to process the words. "What…?" His voice came out slurred. His tongue felt thick. "What Echo?"
The man didn't move.
"I don't know what you're talking about," he said. "You've got the wrong person."
Heat rolled off the man in subtle waves. The air between them shimmered slightly, like heat rising off pavement. The masked figure stepped closer and crouched so their faces were level. His boots scraped softly against the stone, slow and deliberate.
"Think," he said.
The fire popped behind Soren, sparks snapping upward, and the smell of smoke thickened in the air.
"I am thinking," he shot back weakly. "Last thing I remember, I was walking home."
A long pause stretched between them. The man searched his face, looking for a lie that wasn't there. Then he stood and turned away, boots echoing softly against the concrete. Confusion twisted tighter with fear.
"Wait," he croaked. "What do you want from me? Why am I here?"
The man stopped at the edge of the light. "We're not doing this because we want to," he said quietly. His voice had changed — less force, more weight. "We're doing it because we need to."
"Need to for what?" Panic sharpened his words. "I don't have anything you want."
A soft sound brushed through the darkness behind him — not a footstep, more like fabric moving through still air. The faint scent of something sharp and clean cut through the dampness for a moment, like cold air before a storm. The hairs along his arms lifted.
Someone else was in the room.
She stepped into the edge of the firelight without a sound. Her movements were smooth and deliberate, like each one had been measured in advance. A long dark coat fell in clean lines to her boots, shadows clinging to the fabric as if the light itself avoided her.
A mask covered the upper half of her face — delicate and sculpted, shaped like the calm, regal features of a queen carved from pale porcelain. Fine etched lines traced along its surface like ancient markings, elegant and precise. Long black hair fell down her back in a smooth, unbroken line, too clean and controlled for a place like this. She wore fitted dark leathers beneath her coat, the material close to her frame and built for movement rather than comfort. Tall boots hugged her legs, silent against the stone floor.
Her eyes burned a radiant blue, almost luminous against the dark tones of her clothing. Not soft. Not warm. Clear, sharp, and piercing — like frost under moonlight.
He should have looked away. Every instinct told him to. But for a second too long, he didn't.
They didn't just look at him.
They saw through him.
She didn't speak. She simply raised one hand slightly.
Nothing touched him. Nothing visible moved.
Then heat ripped through his body.
It started in his chest and spread outward, searing through muscle and bone like liquid fire in his veins. He screamed. The pain made no sense — no weapon, no flame, no contact. Just burning from the inside out.
"What are you doing to me?!" he choked.
Her expression didn't change. Calm. Focused. Clinical.
The heat intensified. His back arched against the chair, the rope restraints biting into his wrists. Tears blurred his vision as his body shook, trying to escape a pain that had no source. Something else was happening beneath the pain — his body was responding as if it recognized the fire burning inside of him.
Then it stopped.
The absence of pain was almost worse. He slumped forward, gasping, sweat dripping down his face. The room felt colder now, the fire crackling softly as if nothing had happened.
She stepped closer, eyes level with his. "Where is the Echo?" she asked.
Rage surged through him, hot and wild. "I DON'T KNOW!" he roared, voice cracking. "I don't know what you're talking about! I don't have anything!"
She studied him for a long moment. Then she spoke, not to him but to the masked man.
"His memory is sealed," she said quietly. "He truly doesn't know."
The masked man didn't respond.
"There are things inside him that were never meant to stay buried," she continued. "He was hidden. A long time ago."
His head swam. The room tilted. "Hidden from what…" he muttered weakly.
Her glowing eyes returned to him. "You wouldn't remember," she said. "That's the point."
Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision. The dripping water sounded farther away now.
"Keep an eye on him," she said calmly. "If he doesn't know, someone else will."
The flickering firelight blurred into a white smear. The last thing he saw before everything went black was the faint blue glow of her eyes watching him fade.
They should have terrified him.
They should have been the last thing he ever wanted to see again.
But as the world slipped away and the pain dissolved into nothing, all he could think was how strangely beautiful they were.