"Haaagh!"
Ludwin gasped, the sound tearing from his throat as if he were trying to force his very lungs out of his chest. He scanned his surroundings: a narrow, suffocating alleyway where the stench of rot clung to every shadow.
Above, the sky was a bruised void, flickering with silent lightning that illuminated the clouds but refused to thunder.
"Did I… sleep in the street?"
His voice was laced with dry irony. It was a defense mechanism against the damp, cold reality of the cobblestones.
"Heh. I must have overdone it last night. Drank so much I forgot where I lived."
As he tried to steady himself, a heavy weight pinned his legs. He looked down slowly. Resting across him was a headless corpse.
His breath hitched.
His lips trembled, failing to form words. He lifted his hands; they were slick, stained a deep, visceral crimson. It looked as though he had stepped out of a bath of fresh blood.
He scrambled backward, away from the body, his heart hammering against his ribs. Sweat beaded on his forehead, but as he wiped it away, he realized it wasn't just sweat. The sky had finally broken. Rain began to lash down, cold and indifferent.
Ludwin looked up, the droplets stinging his eyes as if the sky were trying to whisper a
secret he wasn't yet ready to hear.
"I need to… I have to…"
He tried to string a sentence together, but a jagged spike of pain lanced through his skull. He collapsed to his knees, clutching his head. Shards of memory flickered—broken, distorted—unable to reach his amygdala.
He caught his reflection in a dark puddle. He froze.
"Who the hell is this?"
The man in the reflection was in his mid-twenties, with chaotic black hair and haunting grey eyes. He wore a white shirt—now ruined by gore—and a dark waistcoat.
He stood up again, his mind reeling. The architecture surrounding him was wrong. The buildings were jagged, alien, yet familiar in a way that made his skin crawl.
"This isn't me. This isn't my city."
He gripped his face, a silent scream building in his throat.
"The important thing is… I didn't kill him. I'm not a murderer."
A violent flash of lightning tore through the sky, turning the pale night into a momentary, ghostly noon. In that flash, Ludwin's eyes didn't look grey—they glowed with a terrified, rhythmic crimson.
"Did I cross over? Is this another world? Or—"
He cut himself off, digging his fingers into his skin.
"That puzzle. That old man and his cards. I never should have drawn from that deck."
Panic gave way to a cold realization.
"I can't stay here."
He turned to bolt, but a shadow dropped from the roof above. A tall figure in a long black coat and a wide-brimmed hat landed silently. His face was a void—featureless and smooth.
Ludwin tried to pivot, but another figure emerged from the darkness behind him, cutting off his escape.
The first "Faceless" raised a single finger. His voice was a heavy, gravelly weight:
"Sinner."
Ludwin held up his blood-stained hands, his voice shaking.
"Whatever you think happened, I didn't do it! I just woke up under that thing!"
The other Faceless drew a blade, the steel gleaming with a lethal edge, and pressed it against Ludwin's throat.
"The fool would believe you…"
the entity rasped.
"The Faceless do not."
Ludwin didn't wait. He ducked under the blade and sprinted with every ounce of adrenaline he had, bursting out of the alleyway in a desperate bid for freedom.
The first Faceless looked at his companion. "Swine."
He paused before giving chase.
"Even the Cathedral will not grant you mercy. And if they do, I shall burn the Cathedral down myself."
Ludwin ran. The city was a nightmare of Victorian design—jagged spires and European aesthetics draped in a thick, suffocating fog. It felt like a place where crime was the only currency.
The sky was the worst part. It seemed to breathe. The moon hung shattered in the sky, its fragments glowing despite the ruin, while strange pillars descended from the heavens in the far distance.
"It's like a fractured timeline."
Ludwin hissed, his lungs burning.
Suddenly, a Faceless appeared directly in his path. He tried to double back, but the other was already there. A massive hand gripped his throat, slamming him into a brick wall with bone-shattering force.
"Aggh!"
He tried to stand, but the Faceless hoisted him
up by the neck.
"Foolishness…"
Ludwin struggled, his vision blurring. He didn't know who these monsters were or why they were hunting him.
"You… bastards…"
A heavy blow to his stomach silenced him. He crumpled, spitting blood onto the wet pavement.
The Faceless didn't finish him. Instead, he hoisted Ludwin's limp body over his shoulder. One of them let out a sharp whistle, and from the shadows emerged a horse—or a nightmare shaped like one—with eyes that burned like crimson embers.
They rode through the city at a terrifying pace. The rain felt like a solid wall, washing the trail of Ludwin's blood from the stones.
Ludwin drifted in and out of consciousness. He looked at the creature carrying them.
'Is that a horse, or a description of a demon?'
Then, a sound like two massive bells colliding shook the very air.
[Even the Cathedral will not save you.]
[You are no fool; you are no hero.]
[A Saint is not necessarily holy.]
Glitching, broken text flickered before his eyes like a dying monitor. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, the ride had stopped. He was grabbed by the collar and hurled against a stone wall.
"Damn it…"
He looked up, pushing his hair out of his eyes. "You didn't have to hit me that hard, you thugs."
He tried to muster a provocative smirk, but a kick to the ribs sent him reeling. He caught the next strike with gritted teeth, but the second Faceless stepped in, delivering a blow that sent him crashing through a set of heavy wooden doors.
Ludwin lay among the splinters and debris. He looked up to see a group of shadowed figures. A man sat on a high-backed, ruined chair, his features obscured.
Beside him stood a woman in a long black robe, wearing a crimson mask that depicted a weeping, laughing face.
The man stood and approached. The two Faceless bowed deeply. Ludwin, pinned to the floor, gave them a defiant, bloody grin.
In a blur of movement, the man vanished and reappeared, hoisting Ludwin by the collar and shoving him into the wall of a grand, dilapidated hall.
A massive table stretched across the room. Rain fell from the ceiling but vanished before it hit the floor, and haunting, low music drifted through the air.
The man sat back down in his broken throne. Ludwin was forced into a chair opposite him.
'The silence is worse than the beating,'
Ludwin thought. His left eye was bleeding, the copper tang of blood filling his mouth.
'I've lost too much blood. I'm fading.'
"Will you confess?" the man asked.
He wiped his hand across his face, revealing sharp features, cold grey eyes, and chaotic blonde hair. Before Ludwin could speak, the man's fist clenched.
"Do not lie to me."
Ludwin spat blood onto the floor.
"I don't need to lie. I didn't kill anyone."
"And the blood on your clothes? Is it merely pigment?"
Ludwin stood up unsteadily, gesturing to the Faceless guards.
"If I were the killer, their heads would be the ones decorating this table."
"That is true,"
a sharp, feminine voice rang out.
A black shadow emerged, tossing four severed heads of Faceless guards onto the floor. A wide, jagged grin—as if carved by a knife—split the shadow's face.
"Captain Abraham, I expected more from you,"
the shadow hissed.
"But it seems we are steps ahead. The Kingdom of Oedxn will suffer under a fool like you."
The shadow vanished, leaving its voice echoing in the rafters.
Abraham smiled thinly, pacing the floor. He leaned over Ludwin, their eyes locking in a silent, psychic battle.
'I can't ask questions now,'
Ludwin realized.
'If I act like a victim, they'll crush me. I have to play the part.'
His own eyes began to glow with that same ominous crimson.
"You're a mongrel" Abraham said, his grip tightening on Ludwin's shoulder.
"I know a dynamic and I know a heretic, but you... you are hard to read. You need to prove yourself."
"I don't need to prove anything," Ludwin shot back.
"It's obvious I'm innocent. And if I don't? What then?"
"Then your head becomes a permanent decoration for this hall," Abraham replied coldly.
"Have you seen me before, Captain?"
"I don't take notice of every ant I step on."
"Funny,"
Ludwin smiled, his voice cutting like a blade.
"I've never heard of an idiot like you, either."
"Watch your tongue, rat."
"I'm not aiming for anything,"
Ludwin said, glancing at the severed heads.
"But why should I wager my life on the abyss?"
"Because the abyss might be your only path to survival."
The woman in the crimson mask leaned over the table, turning his chair to face her.
"And if there is no path? What will you do then?"
"The world is vast," Ludwin said.
"All roads lead to the destination I choose."
As he spoke, the Faceless guards leveled their pistols at his head, while others held cold steel to his throat. It was an executioner's tableau.
'All this for a man you aren't even sure is a killer? Idiots.'
"You should go,"
the masked woman whispered.
"Because you won't find another way out."
Ludwin took a long breath. One wrong move and it's over.
"Prove to me," Abraham barked,
"that you are not a traitor."
Ludwin stood up, facing the Captain directly. The guards moved to intervene, but Abraham signaled them to stand down.
"I don't care about proving my loyalty," Ludwin said.
"But I do have a motive. Everyone follows their own interests. I have mine."
Abraham's grin widened.
"Quite the philosopher, aren't you?"
He reached into the air and pulled out a long-barreled, silver Victorian pistol, handing it to Ludwin.
"What is your name?"
Ludwin felt the weight of the cold metal. It hummed with a dark, bloodthirsty aura that made his pulse quicken.
"Ludwin."
Abraham struck the air, tearing a horizontal rift into a crimson portal. The air around it felt wrong, as if invisible hands were reaching out from the void.
"Then go, Ludwin. Show me your prey."
Ludwin stepped toward the rift. Crying and questions won't save me now.
As he stepped through, his internal voice settled on one goal: I will find out why I am here.
The portal snapped shut behind him, sounding like a dark laugh. The masked woman touched Abraham's shoulder.
"What is your plan, Seeker of Truth?"
Abraham's expression turned grim.
"I manipulate until the truth surfaces. Ludwin might be the heretic himself, for all we know. Watch him closely. If he falters... end him."
In the void, a flickering, glitched screen appeared before Ludwin's eyes:
[Find the truth in the Kingdom of Oedxn, drowned in the plague, you lost fool.]
[Fear the Old Plague.]