A boy with the look of a slum rat was dragged through the dark streets of the city along with several other children. Black ash still drifted down from the sky like it always did.
A few people watched with pity in their eyes but most didn't care. This kind of thing happened all the time so what's the different this timee. Kids between ten and fifteen, taken by city soldiers. No one bothered to stop it. Because they need them to go, and come back.
The boy's name was Elian Gray.
He glanced around with dull and lifeless eyes. He hadn't cared much about dying before this. Life in the slums of District 13 wasn't worth clinging to anyway.
But as he kept hearing more about the Ashbourne Trial, about the horrors outside the city, in the place people now called the Grave Realm, something began to stir in him.
It was none other than feelings of fear.
Not the fear of dying because that would have been simple. It was the fear of meeting something worse than death as his fate.
Elian was just like the others. A child of the slums with no family and no future. He had done many things to survive over the years. Things that hardened his body and mind. At sixteen he was already far from innocent.
He had known for a while that the day would come. This day they would call him. That was why he started training his body when he was ten. Everyone around him did it as well.
It was the only thing they could do. He just hoped it would be enough when he finally faced the monsters beyond the wall.
There were thirty-three children in total. All of them marched by the soldiers through the wide streets until they reached the massive gate.
This was the last barrier of the city. The line between safety and death.
A senior soldier stepped in front of them. His eyes showed no emotion. He looked like he had seen this same scene a hundred times.
"This could be your last day alive. Try your best," he said flatly. "Keep your crystal light intact. Find a Relic as fast as you can. Don't try to be a hero. Let your friend die if they run into something that looks too dangerous. And if you're smart, run first and fight later when you find the Relic."
After that, the giant metal gate with a shimmer of enchantment ran across its surface creaked open. Beyond it was only darkness. The kind of darkness that seemed ready to swallow them whole.
Elian felt a chill creep down his spine. His heart pounded hard.
"This is it," he thought while gripping the cheap sword given by the soldiers at his waist. "I got one chance. If I mess this up, then I will meet something worse than death!"
"Go."
With that word from the leader, the soldiers shoved the children forward. Some resisted, some cried. But none of it mattered. They were pushed anyway.
Elian didn't fight it because he knew that would be useless. He took a deep breath, swallowed hard, and stepped into the dark.
Darkness swallowed him. For a moment it felt like his breath was being crushed out of his lungs. Then just as quickly he could breathe again.
The pressure vanished and his feet touched solid ground.
He opened his eyes and looked around.
Black ash rained from above, falling in slow motion over a wasteland of jagged stone and twisted trees. The gate behind him was gone and sealed shut. There were no way of going back before tomorrow.
The sky above churned with unnatural colors. Swirls of violet, deep blue, searing gold, and the others rolled across the clouds like the dream he sees when his fever is high, or when he consumes a high dose of drugs.
Lightning cracked in silence every few seconds, flashing across the sky in red and green. It was like a dream but the kind that made your heart racing.
This was the real world now.
After the event recorded in history as the Ashfall that happened three thousand years ago, everything had changed. The world never recovered. Ash had rained ever since and the sky never returned to what it was. This broken world was all that remained.
Most of humanity lived inside massive strongholds called Citadels and can only see the dark world and colorful nauseating skies. Except for the rich and powerful who lived inside the Sanctuary which was a pocket dimension with much better quality of life.
Within each one of the Citadels was a core Relic.
A Relic was an artifact, a spell, or a fragment of a long-dead god or goddess that was buried deep and locked in place. That was the only reason the horrors of the outside world couldn't breach the walls.
Beyond the safety of the Citadels, this land had another name. The Grave Realms.
A place where the world itself had died and stayed in this wrong state. A place where nothing who died stayed dead and monsters of various kinds walked without reason or mercy except for blood.
Elian took another step forward. Ash clung to his skin. His heart was still pounding. His hand stayed close to the hilt of his sword.
This was just the beginning of his nightmare.
Elian looked at the other children around him. His mind was already made up. He wouldn't bother trying to work with anyone.
The moment danger came they'd throw someone like him at the monsters and run. It was better to move alone. If he died-or worse-then so be it.
He tightened his grip on the sword and chose not to light the crystal strapped to his chest. Light would only attract attention for now. Better to stay in the dark for now and use the others' lights around him to navigate.
Soft yellow glows began to bloom around him as the others activated their crystals. Some grouped up, whispering plans in shaky voices. Others, like Elian, moved alone.
A slithering sound slid over the ashen ground.
Elian froze. His muscles tensed. He turned his head slowly and scanning the shadows. Sharp and scared shouts rang out nearby. A few lights wavered as their owners panicked.
And then he saw it.
Not far ahead, sliding between broken rocks, he saw a shadow with smooth motion. The glow from someone's crystal caught it for a moment and Elian saw the truth.
It was a snake's body with a human face. The monster was called the Human-Headed Snake.
Everyone knew the monster from their little education. It was one of the more common monsters found just outside the wall. A creature formed from corpses that died in the Grave Realms who warped into something unnatural by the forces here.
This was what Elian meant by a fate worse than death.
The monster lunged from the shadows and Elian saw its face clearly as it sprang toward him. A human head with empty eyes and stretched mouth. Its jaw opening wider than it should, ready to bite down on his throat.
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