CHAPTER ONE: The Boy Who Collects loose Shadows
On the morning the sun forgot to rise, everyone blamed the weather.
Except Kairo.
Kairo knew the sky was lying.
He stood barefoot on the roof of his grandmother's crooked house, staring at the horizon. It wasn't dark like night. It wasn't light like morning. It was… paused. As if the world had taken a breath and refused to release it.
The birds hadn't sung.
The ocean beyond the cliffs hadn't moved.
Even the wind seemed folded away somewhere.
Behind him, the town bell rang once.
Then cracked.
Not rang twice.
Cracked.
Like metal splitting.
Kairo felt it in his chest — that strange pull again. The same feeling he got whenever he found them.
Shadows.
Not ordinary shadows. Not the kind cast by trees or people.
These were loose.
Unattached.
And Kairo could see them.
He always had.
He climbed down from the roof and slipped into the narrow streets. The town of Marrow's End was built from pale stone that glowed faintly at night — but today it glowed in the wrong direction, as if light was trying to escape instead of shine.
People whispered nervously.
"It's an eclipse."
"It's a storm."
"It's punishment."
Kairo ignored them.
He saw it near the bakery.
A shadow peeling itself off the wall.
It slid along the ground like spilled ink, thin and twitching.
No one else noticed.
They never did.
Kairo knelt and gently placed his hand over it.
The shadow stilled.
It felt cold — not temperature cold — memory cold.
Shadows held memories. That was something Kairo had learned young. Lost arguments. Forgotten promises. Secrets never spoken aloud. When shadows detached, it meant something had broken in the world.
And today, too many were coming loose.
He pulled a small glass jar from his satchel. Inside were dozens of thin, folded scraps of darkness — each one carefully sealed.
"I'll keep you safe," he whispered.
The loose shadow slid into the jar willingly.
Click.
Sealed.
The ground trembled.
This time everyone felt it.
The sea roared — not like waves, but like something waking up beneath them.
A scream split the air.
Kairo's head snapped toward the sound.
At the center of town, the statue of the First Watcher — a towering stone figure that had stood for centuries — was moving.
Stone fingers grinding.
Stone eyes opening.
Cracks spidered down its face.
And from within the cracks…
Light poured out.
Not warm light.
Blinding white.
People ran.
Shouted.
Prayed.
The statue's head tilted slowly, mechanically, until its glowing eyes locked onto Kairo.
Not the crowd.
Not the mayor.
Him.
The jars in his satchel rattled violently.
Every shadow inside began to whisper at once.
Find the Door.
Find the Door.
Find the Door.
The statue's stone mouth split open.
And in a voice like mountains collapsing, it spoke:
"You have been stealing what belongs to the Dark."
The sky flickered.
For a split second, Kairo saw something impossible — a massive shape coiled above the clouds, vast and winged, stitched from night itself.
Watching.
Waiting.
"I wasn't stealing," Kairo whispered, though his knees shook. "I was saving them."
The statue took one thunderous step forward.
The ground shattered beneath its weight.
"Return them," it demanded.
The jars grew hot.
The whispers grew louder.
Find the Door.
Kairo made a decision.
He ran.
Through screaming crowds.
Through falling stone.
Through streets splitting apart like cracked glass.
The statue followed.
Each step shaking the town closer to ruin.
Kairo reached the cliffside.
The sea below was no longer water.
It was black.
Moving wrong.
Alive.
The whispers became a scream inside his skull.
FIND THE DOOR.
And then—
The air beside him tore open.
Not like cloth.
Like reality had been unzipped.
A thin vertical slit of silver light hovered there, humming softly.
The Door.
The statue raised its arm to strike.
Kairo didn't think.
He jumped.
The last thing he heard before the world disappeared was the statue's voice cracking with something almost like fear:
"If he crosses, the Night will wake."
The Door snapped shut.
The sun returned.
And the town of Marrow's End pretended nothing had happened.
Except the shadows were still missing.
And somewhere beyond the sky, something ancient had just marked Kairo's name.