The Rift let out a living scream—an old monster that rattled the bones of the world. Air around Alex vibrated, thick with tension, as the red blade in his hand vibrated, humming like a tuning fork before bad weather.
He wasn't sure how long they'd been getting ready for this—but now was the time.
Taking a steady breath, Alex moved ahead. The blade hummed in his hand as its edge cut through the stuff of the Rift, space before him distorting, writhing into impossible shapes.
A burst of sheer, unyielding power crashed through him—a force beyond containment, beyond understanding.
His Hollow's Bargain Mark, once inscribed steady on his shoulder, thrashed wildly, its lines twisting with every beat of the Rift's unnatural pulse.
Reality splintered. Time warped, cracked, and shattered like shattered glass. The stars—if there were still any—twinkled and disappeared as the power of the Rift tore the very fabric of the universe apart.
Before them lay a void infinite and alive, an ocean of nothing that breathed with hunger.
Crow's wings flailed around him, struggling against the turbulence to remain airborne.
"We have to get out of here!" Crow's voice was nearly drowned by the howling wind. "The pressure of the Rift is too great—too much for us to endure!"
Alex gripped the blade harder, its heaviness now suffocating. This was their way out—their way forward. But as the Rift expanded, tension grew to a breaking point.
His Mark slid from off his shoulder, curling over his chest like a serpent. The connection between him and the blade weakened, its power leaking, ebbing, as though the Rift consumed him.
The red light dimmed.
Panic clawed at Alex's chest. What is going on? He strained forward, but his limbs were heavy, unconnected. The power of the blade was fading, and he could no longer sense the Mark's guidance. Instead, something deeper, colder, was wrenching it from him.
The Rift bellowed louder. The wind turned into a cyclone, tearing at his clothes, bearing down on his bones like an invisible vice.
"I can't. hold on anymore!" Crow yelled, wings hammered by turbulence.
Alex saw it now—the churning blackness around them, a maelstrom of energy and distortion. Time shattered with each beat of their hearts. Shapes fluttered at the periphery of vision, materializing and disappearing like shreds of forgotten dreams.
"Alex—!" Crow's call was a crack.
But too late.
The pull grew stronger.
The Rift consumed them.
Everything spiralled. Space unraveled into madness. Time folded inward.
Alex's eyes opened onto nothing but black—a limitless, crushing void.
His head reeled in a dazed spin. No floor. No air. No sky—only the endless emptiness that stretched out in all directions.
He outstretched his hand; it encountered nothing but cold emptiness. No weight. No anchor. Only the empty grasp of loneliness.
Is this. the Rift?
A shiver crawled over him as loneliness enveloped his chest in cold fingers, constricting his lungs. He attempted to scream—flung open his mouth—but no voice came. He was weightless. He was nothing.
Where was Crow?
Glimmers of recollection—faces, voices, the red blade's weight—stuttered through his mind.
Crow…
A far-off screech pierced the quiet, a dying wingbeat. It was so faint, yet he knew it.
He strained himself to call, to reach towards the noise—but there was no up, no down, no space. Just suffocating black.
And then he knew it: motion. Not in him, but around him. He was being pulled—yanked into darkness by a gravity that doesn't exist. His limbs were imaginary, unconnected; only the inexorable pull was left.
The emptiness was alive, breathing. A pulse pounded at the periphery of his mind—a presence waiting, watching.
And whispers arose.
The blackness hummed with faraway voices, mangled echoes crashing within his head. He couldn't decipher their words, until one syllable pierced the noise:
"Not yet."
Gentle. Childlike. Laden with meaning just out of reach.
"Who…?" Alex's throat constricted, but his voice disappeared.
Another whisper: "You are not ready to bear us… yet."
His heart thudded. An omen, a warning. Prepared for what? What do I need to bear?
The pressure built. The emptiness pulsed, constricting around him. He sensed eyes on him.
The whispers ceased. The tug grew stronger.
And then—suddenly—the darkness broke.
Alex's breathing was in ragged gasps—though there was no air in his lungs.
He opened his eyes to a transformed emptiness. The black nothingness had retreated, and something… else took its place.
Before him lay an infinite space—not darkness, but a void emptiness he could not identify. It seemed like reality naked to the hilt: a grayish-whitish sky churning with tiny, trembling forms, and a ground of unknown material that still supported him.
Before him stood five dark figures on thrones of glassy reflection. Their shapes indistinct and changing, like half-remembered images of creatures that never were—each unique, yet bound together by an aura of unimaginable power.
At the heart of that impossible tableau, a second presence awakened—a voice, unseen but felt, cold and deep, as if it touched his very soul.
You seek answers, Everborn…" it sang, a woman's voice both soft and commanding. "But not all truths are yours to claim. Not yet."
Alex's heart pounded. Everborn. He'd heard the name before—somewhere deep in his memory—but its meaning slipped him.
"Who… are you?" His voice was rough, shaking. He could feel his Mark under his skin, but its strength was lost—he was bereft of power.
And then the voice spoke up after a moment, its tone low: "I am of the Paradox," it whispered, "and so are they." A wave of power flashed off the thrones. "And you… you are a shard of what would have been whole."
Alex's brow furrowed. Shard of what?
Reality itself seemed to distort without warning. The thrones didn't shift, but the air that surrounded them stretched and warped, bending the image like a fractured reflection.
His head spun, suspended between dream and nightmare. A crushing weight bore down upon him, as if gravity were redefining itself.
"You may not use the scarlet blade in the same way," the voice went on. "Not until you are powerful enough to accept its price."
His hand flew to his side—no blade. Nothing but air.
"Why?" he shouted. "What do I have to do? Where is Crow?"
The numbers did not speak. The woman's voice came back, icier than ice: "The crow will not aid you… not in the way you wish.
But he is not lost. You will find him. You need to be strong. The Fractured Light waits."
The words resonated within him—Fractured Light, a term weighted with peril.
"Where is it? How do I get there?" Alex's voice broke as the beat of his Mark grew weaker.".
Softly, the voice replied: "When you are ready, when the pieces align. First awaken what is lost. And find the crow."
The thrones glimmered, then disappeared. Silence descended.
His sight blurred as a piercing tug grasped his chest—something pulled him away. His body convulsed, breath quickening.
Then the empty space collapsed.
Far from Velis Solara. Far from Caelum.
The alley was black, thin, and reeked of spoiled metal and oil. A flaring neon sign hummed overhead, throwing an unhealthy green light that moved nervously across the filth-encrusted cobblestones. The darkness moved like unwinking eyes, fidgeting and famished.
The rumble of far-off engines pulsed through the ruined city's skeletal framework, interrupted by sharp cries and the snap of unseen guns. But here, in this abandoned corner, there was silence—except for the ragged gasps of those who hid too long.
A limp form hit the wet pavement.
Alex's body hung in the chill, his weight as an unconscious man forcing him into the mud. His tunic was rent, blood crust on his temple, and his once-blazing Mark dulled to a flat scar under bruised flesh. The journey through the Rift had left more than bodily scars—it had drained him. Empty of life. He did not move.
A distant sheen of power clung to him—bizarre, formless—but none of the men in the room knew what it was. Not yet.
A boot prodded his ribs.
"They said they were searching for anomalies," grumbled one of the men. "This one looks like it."
Another of the mercenaries bent, examining Alex's hardly-breathing body. "He's alive. Just. Scathed, too. Could get a price for him."
"Or be trouble," spoke up a third. "Children like this don't appear for nothing."
They surrounded Alex like vultures, calculating possibilities. None of them understood what he really was, or the old name that breathed beneath his flesh—Everborn. They perceived only merchandise, not prophecy.
"Either junk or marketable," one grumbled. "Boss'll decide."
Little ceremony, they lifted him up and disappeared into the city's underworld.
They navigated broken walls splattered with old graffiti, cable bridges corroded to the point of falling apart, and bone-and-wire-repaired towers. Sunlight never found its way to these streets—only artificial light and the perpetually pungent smell of something dead under the stone.
At last, they came to the edge of the sector—a battered tower standing like a broken tooth against the skyline. Rusted gates swung creakingly open, and in the compound lay smoke, din, and blood. This was their nest.
Inside, Alex was dumped onto a cold stone floor, his body lifeless. The gang leader emerged from the darkness. A man sculpted from muscle and cruelty, with one shining eye and a wide scar cutting across his mouth.
"Where did you find the trash?" he growled, voice like faraway thunder.
"In the alley, Sector 6. He's got some kinda signature. Weird, but quiet."
The gang leader crouched beside Alex. He didn't speak for a while, simply staring. Something about the boy unsettled him, though he couldn't say why.
"We'll keep him. Could be useful," he finally said. "If he dies, toss him. If he wakes, chain him."
And so they did.
Down in the tower's underlevels—beneath rusty beams and leaking pipes—they shackled him to the wall of a cell where no light reached. Cold water trickled from above. The stone floor was slick with blood and moss. And in the dark, Alex lay there—silent, still, half-alive.
But something moved under the bruises. Something old. Something not yet awakened.
In a different world altogether, somewhere past the deserts and spires of steel, Crow wheezed as he sat up.
He reclined on the edge of a cliff overlooking an endless violet dunescape, wind shrieking through the shifting sands. Sand whipped at his wings as he struggled to sit, his heart pounding in his chest. He recalled the Rift—the tug, the breakdown, the screaming of reality itself.
And then—not a thing.
He grasped at his chest, panting. "Alex?" he muttered.
Nothing.
He attempted to rise off the ground, shaking wings, but fell to his knees.
The sky overhead glittered with twin moons and shattered stars. The wind bore but a single sound, far and distorted, as if through time itself.
"Alex…"
The crow shivered.
And somewhere in the darkness, Alex's Mark weakly pulsed.