Rain hammered the city like it was trying to wash something away.
Kaia sat on the edge of her bed, hoodie sleeves pulled over trembling hands, staring at Raiden's contact name glowing on her cracked phone screen. His last message was three days old. Short. Rushed. Wrong.
"Kaia. Don't come looking for me."
She had typed a dozen replies, deleted them all.
Nothing felt enough.
Her chest tightened with a sudden, inexplicable dread—like part of her soul was standing too close to a cliff she couldn't see. She pressed a hand to her heart.
"Raiden… where are you?"
The rain answered for him.
Raiden woke to the metallic taste of blood.
Not red.
Black.
Thick droplets crawled from his nose like they were alive, clinging to his skin even when he wiped them away. They whispered against his fingertips, soft, hungry sounds that echoed inside his skull.
His shadow stretched across the concrete floor, detached from his movements, trembling like something caged.
"You're stabilizing," a voice said.
Raiden turned.
The trench coat man stood at the edge of the dim chamber, arms folded, silver eye glinting.
"Stabilizing?" Raiden rasped.
"For now."
The man stepped closer, boots echoing in the vast, humming dark.
"The Hollow Flame has begun shaping you."
Raiden swallowed. "Shaping me into what?"
The man smiled, pitying, almost gentle.
"What you were always meant to be."
The walls around them pulsed with faint symbols, circles, spirals, masks etched into stone far older than the city above. Faint vibrations passed through Raiden's bones.
"The others are waiting," the man said.
Three cloaked figures stood in a half-circle around a cracked stone table.
Their shadows moved slower than their bodies.
Raiden could feel them studying him from beneath their hoods, measuring him like a weapon being weighed.
One stepped forward. A woman's voice, cold and sharp.
"You blacked out. The Flame took control."
"Control of what?" Raiden asked.
"Your eyes, your instincts… your hunger."
Raiden's jaw clenched. "I didn't want it to."
"You didn't have a choice."
The second figure tilted their head.
"Tonight, you hunt."
Raiden stiffened. "Hunt?"
"A Failed Vessel," the woman said. "One who couldn't contain what you now carry."
Images flickered through Raiden's mind, ripped stone, torn flesh, a scream swallowed by shadows.
"What happens if I refuse?"
The room dimmed.
The third figure spoke, voice soft but crawling with something ancient.
"The Flame inside you will not."
His shadow behind him twitched in agreement.
Kaia stepped out of the bus into the washed-out morning, clutching her dripping jacket tight. She shouldn't have come.
She 'had' to come.
She climbed the stairwell to Raiden's apartment, each step heavier than the last. The hallway smelled like dust and someone else's secrets.
His door was half-open.
"Raiden…?" she whispered.
The room inside was wrecked.
The mattress torn open.
Deep scratches carved into the walls, circles, jagged lines she didn't recognize.
The flickering TV cast a sickly glow over the floor.
And then she saw it.
His phone.
Cracked.
On the ground beside smeared black stains she didn't want to identify.
Kaia picked it up, heart slamming.
On the screen was a half-typed message:
Kaia don't come here. I'm losing... I can't stop...someone's "
The rest was blank.
Her breath hitched. Tears blurred her vision.
Something creaked behind her.
She looked up
The mirror on the wall, fractured and dirty, reflected the room behind her.
Except
A figure stood in the reflection.
White mask.
No eyes.
No face.
Breathing slowly behind her shoulder.
Kaia gasped, spun around
No one there.
But in the mirror, the mask tilted.
And whispered:
"He's waking up."
Deep within the old industrial tunnel, the air cold enough to sting, Raiden felt the creature before he saw it.
The Failed Vessel crawled along the ceiling with bones that bent the wrong way, its body spasming with each movement. Its skin was stretched and torn like something inside had outgrown it.
Its eyes were hollow pits filled with trembling static.
It hissed.
Then spoke in a strangled, human voice:
"H e l p… m e…"
Raiden stepped back, breath fogging.
"I don't want to hurt you."
The creature slammed its head against a pipe, shrieking.
"GIVE IT BACK!
THEY TOOK IT
YOU HAVE IT
YOU HAVE WHAT THEY STOLE FROM ME"
It launched.
Raiden raised his arms too slow
And then the world blurred.
A black wave burst from Raiden's spine, shadow teeth forming in the air, ripping through the creature with surgical hunger. Symbols carved themselves into its flesh as it writhed, screaming.
Raiden didn't remember doing it.
He only remembered the voice:
"This is what you are."
When Raiden came to, the Failed Vessel was split open, trembling, dying,but reaching toward him like a terrified child.
"You… will… b e c o m e…"
Its voice snapped.
Silence.
Raiden stared at his hands,skin stained black where the Flame had seeped through.
"I didn't want to do this," he whispered.
In his mind, the voice exhaled warmly.
"You will."
Raiden emerged from the tunnel, drenched in cold air and moonlight.
The trench coat man waited.
"You passed."
Raiden shook his head. "I lost control."
"You didn't lose it," the man said.
"You shared it."
Raiden stared at the sky.
It looked smaller than he remembered.
Behind his eyes, something shifted,stretching like a beast waking from hopeful slumber.
The voice inside him smiled.
"The first fracture has begun."