The train hummed with stolen motion—metal screeching over tracks that sliced through endless dark.
Noctis sat by the window, one hand twirling an old timepiece, the other tangled with hers.
Her name was Asenya.
Her head rested gently against his shoulder, black hair spilling like oil across his coat. Her fingers, laced with his, were loose—familiar. Her eyes were closed. But if they opened… they'd be black. Like his. Like all of theirs.
No sclera. No shine. Just abyss.
The Black-Eyed State—Stage Three of Miasma Infection. No pain. Just inevitability.
In front of them, Kairn leaned against the opposite seat, blond hair dulled by the flickering carriage lights. One black eye cracked open, watching the door with predator tension.
They'd all taken their suppression pills—but too late.
"Another three hours before the dose wears off," muttered Serro from the back, hunched over a hacked terminal's dying screen. "Then we either kill each other… or the bloom of the trial does it for us."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," replied Miri, crouched in the luggage rack like a spider, black irises gleaming beneath stolen silver rings that he twirled across his fingers. "I wouldn't mind sinking into the Void with you freaks."
The laughter that followed was dry. Cracked. Carefully measured.
They were five—Noctis, Asenya, Kairn, Serro, Miri.
All infected. All marked. All supposed to report for Trial before the Nether dug too deep.
They didn't. They ran.
And now… a city bled behind them. Hijacked rails. Military-grade suppressants bought off the black market. And the unspoken truth—they weren't running from infection.
They were running from what the Trials did to those who survived them— if they survived.
"Think the city'll send Awakens after us?" Kairn asked, tapping his foot like a fuse itching to burn.
"Of course they will," Noctis murmured, eyes still fixed on the blur outside.
Beyond the windows— nothing but dark. But above the smeared treetops, a cold curve of sunless light crept upward, Dawn was coming. And so were the hounds of the government.
"Don't worry," Miri said, dropping from the rack with inhuman grace, landing on all fours. He slithered toward a black bag and unzipped it with a flourish. "Noctis and I packed extras."
Inside the bag— syringes—dozens of them. Thick black fluid rolled sluggishly within each like sentient tar.
"What the hell—how did you two get these?" Kairn stepped closer, peering at the vials.
"The usual, people run mad when the see money not checking to see if it's legit," Noctis said, voice cold. "The fake credits Serro made did their job." A sharp grin split across his face.
"You weren't hurt… right?" Asenya's voice, soft and warm, brushed his ear.
He turned toward her—eyes locking on the soft curve of her face and those pure black orbs. She looked so adorable, so close—he couldn't help himself. He playfully bit her slender nose.
"Of course not," he whispered. "Your Noctis moved in and out unseen."His cold mask melted into a sweet smile. Asenya giggled softly, hiding her face in his neck.
"You two should get a room," Kairn muttered, grimacing.
"Don't be such a buzzkill. You're the one who said girls would just slow you down," Miri teased, eyes glinting.
"Doesn't mean I wanna get blue balls watching this," Kairn then muttered under his breath. "You guys have been together for a long time, why the sudden clingy ness".
They were all orphans—at least, most of them. Noctis wasn't. Not technically.
But he considered himself one.
How could he not, when the only words his father ever gave him were—
"Don't take it personal, but you were a mistake. I was just being a simp who couldn't go through with a vasectomy. So… congratulations. You exist."
His mother didn't even look up.
That was the day he walked out, found his friends, and orchestrated a heist that left his family's estate empty. And that's how life in the slums started— a fight for survivor in this cursed world.
It began at the tail end of human hope—during the Great Depression that followed the Seventh World War.
Nuclear fallout. Collapsed nations. Broken skies. The Earth was bleeding. But humanity's true undoing wasn't war.
It was Miasma.
Corrupted Anima—the soulstuff of life—twisted into something ravenous. It didn't spread through air or water. It traveled through despair.
It infected dreams, thoughts, memories. What was once essence became erasure.
People called it Miasma.
And it always followed a pattern. Three phases.
The Three Phases of Miasma Infection
Phase I – The Dimming Subtle psychological shifts. A loss of color in the world. Exhaustion. A sense of emotional detachment.
Phase II – The Escalation Physical degradation begins. The infected feel no warmth. Skin becomes clammy, pale, nearly corpse-like.
Phase III – The Black-Eyed State The sclera vanish. Eyes become void—pure black, no pupil, no white.
If left untreated… the body transforms, not into a person but into a Miasma creature.
Relentless. Thoughtless. Driven by a need to consume and corrupt.
Just when all seemed lost… it appeared.
Not a savior. Not a god. A book.
A tome of living ink and impossible angles. It called itself— The Warden.
The first infected who dared touch it vanished in a flare of light they returned seven days later, hanged, cleansed, powerful.
They claimed to have survived a Trial Realm—a world of pain, magic, and testing. A place where the soul was reshaped or destroyed.
Thus, the Trial System was born.
Now, anyone diagnosed with Phase 1 must report to the Authority. Failure to comply is a crime—punishable by forced extraction or death.
But not everyone obeys, some rebel, some vanish.
Some, like Noctis and his crew, run.
The lucky or the cowardly opt for a darker option—the Suppression Pill.
An illegal drug, manufactured by underground chemists, it dulls the resonance of the soul. It doesn't cure Nether. It simply delays its effects.
But for those too afraid of the Trial… delay is enough.
Even if it means staring down your friends across a train cabin, wondering which of you will turn first.