In the cold heart of Russia, particularly in the ever-grey expanse of Moscow, lived a man named Lendro Ankon.
Lendro's life was, by all definitions, painfully ordinary. Not bad, not good—just... tepid. His parents had passed away some time ago, leaving behind a dull ache rather than a wound. After their death, his older sister and her husband had cleared out a spare room in their apartment for him, conveniently close to the university he attended.
He wasn't exactly the type to light up a room. Quiet. Disconnected. Boring, even—by his own admission. Lendro hated reading, had no appetite for books or stories, and wasn't particularly social either. His existence was stitched together by a monotonous routine and fleeting moments with the only two people he spent time with: Shotaro Hitomi and his twin sister, Shotaro Suki.
Most days, the three would drift through time like leaves on a still river. Watching television, walking without purpose, existing without urgency. But Suki—ever the gentle flame—persistently encouraged Lendro to pick up a book, to feel something, learn something, become something. After much prodding, he reluctantly began to read. To his surprise, he didn't hate it. Some stories even stirred faint embers of curiosity in him.
One cold, colorless morning, Lendro finished his bitter coffee and straightened his hair in the mirror before heading out to the university. When he arrived, he found the lecture already in progress. The professor didn't even bother to look up before denying him entry.
With nowhere to be and nothing urgent to do, Lendro wandered.
That was when he noticed it. A bookstore—one he'd never seen before despite having passed that street countless times. It was narrow and shadowed, squeezed between two larger buildings like something that didn't quite belong. Its sign was faded, its windows fogged from the inside. Something about it felt... misaligned with the rest of the world.
Curiosity—or perhaps boredom—pulled him inside.
The bookstore was cramped, packed wall to wall with towering shelves and a musky scent that smelled of forgotten years. He wandered between the aisles, fingers grazing the worn spines of books that whispered secrets in dead languages. But nothing called to him. Nothing until—
—there it was.
A single book. It sat crooked on the lowest shelf, half-buried beneath a mess of other titles. Its cover was bound in something that looked like skin, but surely wasn't. The surface was covered in strange, ancient-looking symbols that pulsed faintly when touched, like veins beneath translucent flesh. The pattern was intricate—too intricate—and the more Lendro looked at it, the less he wanted to.
And yet, he picked it up.
At the counter stood an old cashier with pale eyes and a permanent smirk that felt painted on. His teeth were too perfect, too white, and his gaze didn't blink.
When Lendro placed the book on the counter, the man didn't scan it. Didn't even check the price.
Instead, he stared directly into Lendro's eyes and said in a voice too calm, too cold:
"You may take this one... no charge."
Lendro blinked. "What?"
The man smiled wider. It didn't reach his eyes.
"It's already yours."
Uneasy but unwilling to argue, Lendro took the book and left the store, the bell above the door giving off a dull, distorted chime behind him.
When he turned to glance back at the store—
—it wasn't there.
He blinked again. Nothing but a brick wall.
He walked home quickly, heart ticking a little faster now. He didn't tell his sister. Didn't message Suki or Shotaro. He just went to his room, locked the door, and sat on the edge of his bed.
The book was still in his hands.
And it was warm.
That night, Lendro lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling like it was hiding answers he couldn't quite hear. His room was silent—too silent. The kind of silence that isn't peaceful but thick, like it's waiting for something to break it.
He remembered the book.
His chest tightened with a kind of instinctive resistance, but boredom—or maybe something deeper, darker—urged him to move. He sat up slowly, the mattress creaking beneath him like it resented being disturbed. He opened the drawer of his desk. The book was still there, quiet and still, as if it had been watching him this whole time.
There was a weight to it that hadn't been there before.
Lendro reached out and picked it up. It was warm again. Not the warmth of sun or life, but something... biological. The kind of warmth a dying animal might give off—too subtle, too wrong.
He returned to his bed and opened the book.
At first, the pages seemed surprisingly legible. The sentences made grammatical sense, though the content was odd, contradictory. Descriptions looped in on themselves. Events occurred out of order. Names changed mid-sentence, and then changed back again. The longer he read, the more the language seemed to shift—not just in structure, but in nature.
Letters began to blur, to twist. Words collapsed into symbols he didn't recognize—shapes that felt older than language itself, etched deep into some primitive part of his mind that screamed against them. They weren't just hard to read—they felt wrong to perceive. As if the human mind wasn't meant to process them.
Then something shifted.
A phrase—he couldn't explain how he understood it, because it wasn't in any language he knew—pointed him toward a place. No map. No directions. Just knowledge, like a memory from a dream he never had.
A place no one had visited for centuries. A place with no name, no recorded coordinates, but a long, echoing reputation of discomfort. Of disappearances. Of people coming back different. If they came back at all.
Lendro scoffed under his breath. "What kind of idiot would go there?"
And yet… that question echoed oddly in his head, as if it wasn't his voice saying it.
This place—it wasn't cursed, not in the traditional sense. It was… infected. And that infection watched. Every culture, every religion, every generation had tried to confront it. Saints and shamans, priests and monks, scientists and cynics—they all approached it with theories and rituals and prayers.
But none of them could stand in its presence without feeling it.
That sensation.
You are not alone.
That unbearable awareness that something was watching you—not from the shadows, but from inside the room. Inside your thoughts. A presence without sound, without form, but with intent.
Lendro's stomach twisted. He knew that feeling. He felt it now.
The room, once his quiet sanctuary, suddenly felt too open. Like something else was breathing in it. The air was too still. The walls too close.
A chill crawled up his spine.
In a small, panicked motion, Lendro dropped the book. It landed on the floor with a soft, heavy thud—far louder than it should've been. He didn't bother returning it to the drawer. Didn't dare look at it again.
He pulled the blanket over himself, clutching it like armor.
And though his eyes closed, and though exhaustion begged him to sleep, the feeling remained.
That he was not alone in the room.
That something… was waiting.
The next day, Lendro awoke with an absence—not of sleep, but of purpose. There was no reason to rise, no reason to eat, no reason to smile, speak, or exist. Everything he did yesterday felt distant, laughable. He sat at the edge of his bed for hours without blinking, without moving, simply being—an empty shell filled with static.
There was only one thought, slow and thick and constant.
"I could go there."
Not because it made sense. Not because it would help. Just... because.
He skipped all his lectures that day. He didn't reply to texts or answer any calls. His phone buzzed like a trapped insect until the battery died, but Lendro didn't even glance at it. He passed his sister in the hallway without looking at her. She asked if he was okay—he didn't even hear her. His body moved mechanically, like it was following a signal only he could feel.
The night fell fast, like someone had cut the sky.
There was a name people whispered, barely audible over the rustling of leaves or the flickering of broken streetlights:
"The Nowhere."
It wasn't on any map. It had no coordinates. But everyone in Moscow—especially those who read too much or listened too closely—knew what it meant. They had all heard stories. About people who went and never came back. About people who came back and weren't themselves.
Still, Lendro went.
He didn't remember the walk, only the arriving. One moment he was staring at a streetlight, and the next… he was there. An empty, unnatural clearing on the edge of the city that shouldn't have existed. The air was thicker here. Every sound was muffled, like someone had thrown a blanket over the world. Even his own breath sounded wrong, delayed, artificial.
And then he saw... Hitomi.
Just standing there.
Frozen, like he'd been waiting.
Lendro blinked. "What are you doing here?"
Hitomi didn't smile. His face looked strange—too still, too calm. "I felt like someone told me to come. Maybe... the same voice that told you."
Lendro wanted to laugh it off. He wanted to say it was stupid, absurd. But his tongue felt heavy. His mouth dry. And that feeling—that awful, creeping sense of being watched—clung to his spine like cold oil.
He nodded slowly. Not because he agreed. Because it was easier than asking questions.
They didn't talk much after that.
They just wandered.
Not because they were exploring. But because standing still felt worse.
There was nothing around. Just dead trees that didn't move, shadows that didn't fall right, and a sky that looked a little too flat, like a poorly rendered background in a cheap simulation. And under it all—behind it all—there was a hum.
Soft. Constant. Like an ancient engine buried beneath the soil, dreaming.
Then, without warning, Hitomi slipped.
Not tripped. Not stumbled. Just... vanished, sliding down into a fold in the ground that hadn't been there a moment ago. There was no scream. No panic. He didn't even try to resist.
It was like he wanted to fall.
Lendro froze.
He stared at the opening—a jagged, pulsating hole in the earth that throbbed like a wound. He felt no wind, no pull. But there was an urge.
Something inside him said:
"Follow."
He took a step forward, hesitated. He could turn back. He could leave now. Forget this place. Let the world return to its dull hum and familiar emptiness.
But he didn't.
He jumped.
Something was off.
Lendro woke up with a weight on his chest — not physical, but emotional. The air felt thick, like it hadn't moved in hours. His eyes fluttered open to a dimly lit room, unfamiliar and eerily silent. The ceiling was high, cracked in places. The smell was sterile… too clean. Too forced.
It wasn't a bedroom. Not a hospital either. Something in between — a cold, forgotten building repurposed for something else.
He sat up slowly. His body ached, not from injury, but from exhaustion — the kind you feel in your bones. He glanced around. The room was tidy, almost meticulously so. And then he saw it — a man, sitting silently in the corner.
Lendro's breath caught in his throat. The man hadn't moved, hadn't blinked. Just stared forward with half-lidded eyes like he was there, but not really present.
Lendro's voice cracked as he whispered, "Where… am I?"
No answer.
He squinted, trying to focus. The man looked worn — long green hair that fell past his shoulders, a faint beard, and dark circles under his dull brown eyes. His clothes were plain, faded, as if he hadn't changed in days.
Minutes passed. Dozens of them. The man didn't move. The silence was suffocating.
An hour might have slipped by — or more — before the man finally stirred. Slowly, deliberately, like someone trying not to wake a ghost, he rose to his feet. In his hands was a tray with a metal plate. Food.
A smile — faint, tired, almost apologetic — tugged at the corners of his lips.
"Welcome," the man said, voice hoarse but oddly calm. "We're honored to have you. Your friend is outside."
Lendro flinched. Friend? He leaned forward. "Where… where am I? What is this place?"
The man paused. Something flickered in his eyes — recognition, maybe. Or regret.
He set the plate down gently, then looked Lendro in the eye.
"Since I've never seen you here before," he said softly, "allow me to tell you where you are."
He took a breath.
"You're in Shenzo."