It said, "What seems to be a young man doing' here in this dark and silent alley?"
Seyla froze. He slowly turned around until he saw an old figure.
"Carlos…Smith…?" Seyla remembered and said.
Carlos looked at him and said, "Seyla?That handsome young man I saw at the fountain earlier?"
Phew… that almost gave me a heart attack… Seyla put his hand to his chest and gave a sigh of relief. He looked at Carlos and said, "you almost gave me a heart attack, what were you doing here?"
"I'm the one who was supposed to ask you that, what were you doing here?" Carlos replied and asked the same question.
I can't tell him about the rune resonance… Seyla silently muttered and replied, "I saw a figure earlier in this alley, I tried to follow it but I lost it."
"Is that so…, well I'm here because I saw you. Everyone knows that every dark alley in the market is the most dangerous place. Crime and robbery often happens in the market and their place are the dark alleys, especially when it's dark." Carlos explained it to Seyla.
As they were walking out of the alley, they were talking. Carlos said, "What is a Noble doing here in this small city."
"A business." Seyla replied with a calm tone, he tells himself, "a random Noble walking around a small city, seems really weird. But I don't even know that I'm a Noble. I guess I will need to learn more about history. "
They talk for a while. After a moment, finally reach the entrance to the alley.
They said goodbye to each other and boarded their respective carriages.
I
n the silent and dark alley, moments after Seyla and Carlos had departed, something stirred.
The figure Seyla had seen earlier emerged again from the shadows, stepping slowly into the center of the alley. It stood still for a long moment, eyes fixed on the distant street where the two men had vanished.
Then it began to walk.
Step by step, it moved deeper into the alley until it reached the dead end wall. There, without hesitation, it placed both hands against the rough surface.
A faint glow shimmered around its fingers.
Pale, translucent light rippled across the stone, revealing something hidden—something unnatural. It wasn't a door, or a gate, or a seal. Just a glimmer in the air, as if the world itself was pretending that something wasn't there.
The figure took a breath and began to chant.
Words filled the space, strange and unrecognizable. Each syllable bent the air around it, warping the silence. The language was guttural and ancient, and with every line, the glow on the wall pulsed brighter.
Then it began.
A hairline crack formed in the center of the wall.
It expanded slowly as the incantation continued—first the size of a coin, then a plate, then large enough for a grown man to press an arm through.
The wall split wider.
Beyond the crack was not stone or brick, but space—a deep, churning abyss of endless darkness.
And from within that darkness… eyes opened.
A pair of crimson-red eyes, bright and ancient, peered through the widening rift. They were filled with hunger. Awareness. Malice.
And they were waiting.
The rift, this unnatural hole in space continued to stretch open, but it didn't last. The edges of the tear began to knit back together, slowly healing. The world was trying to reject it.
The figure knew.
With no hesitation, it sliced open its palm and slammed the bleeding hand against the shimmering edge. A sharp gasp escaped its lips as the vortex began to consume it.
Bit by bit, the figure was pulled in—first the arm, then the shoulder, until it was halfway gone.
Its body shuddered, but it held firm.
Then, a scream.
A final cry echoed down the alleyway as the figure disappeared entirely, devoured by the darkness.
The rift pulsed.
The healing slowed.
And then—
A presence stirred within the void.
From the depths of the space beyond, a single shadow began to move. It pushed through the rift, slipping into the world like a whisper, unseen by any who might still walk nearby.
The rift began to fade, slowly concealing itself once more. But something had already passed through.
Something that was never meant to be here.
And with it, the first ripple of an approaching storm.