By day, the narrow alleys reeked of sweat, smoke, and boiling bones from the stew stalls that choked the streets. By night, the same alleys belonged to thieves and hungry dogs.To Arin, it was all the same.
He sat with his back to a ruined wall, knees up to his chest, one thin arm draped over his crippled leg. His right leg had been twisted , caused by the accident that almost claimed his life when he was just a baby, crooked at the knee, frail at the ankle. Slum children had a term for him: Cripple.
He hated the word. But hating it did not change fact.
Arin had never run a race, never climbed the walls like the other boys, never chased the smell of fresh bread through the market. He survived on scraps. Stealing what no one else noticed. Being small, fast with his hands, and unseen when it mattered.
Unseen, unless they were looking for someone to taunt.
A shout came: "Oi, Cripple!"
Arin did not flinch. He knew the voice, as I was a routine call for him, where ever he goes.
A stone flew and landed inches from his feet, raising dust. The kids who'd done it—three of them, larger and older—taunted from the safety of the shadows in the alley."You hear, Cripple? Tonight's the night! Don't fall asleep, or the Abyss will take you first!"
Their laughter dispersed as they ran off down the street.
Arin's fists tightened. Not at their insults—he'd grown used to those—but at the hunger that gnawed in his stomach. He hadn't eaten since yesterday morning. Hunger pained more than insults. Not that he had the strength to fight back.
But what was more painful still, was the sting in his head as a result of a voice in his head.
It stirred now, as gentle as a whisper in his ear.
Arin...
He froze. His heart pounded. He glanced around, but the street was empty except for a scavenging dog rooting through trash.
He had heard that voice few times since he was a child. Always when he was alone, always in the dark, always soft and compelling. The first time had been the night his parents died to a fire incident.
He barely remembered them—just warmth, woodsmoke smell, his mother's humming sound. Then fire. Screams. Collapsing roof. He'd crawled out alone, his twisted leg burned and bleeding, and that voice had spoken to him in the flames:
You will live. You are mine.
He had lived. But nothing remained of his parents. No body could find their remains, which still confused him till date.
He had told no one about this voice, because he knew no one would have believed him?
But tonight was different. The whole slum felt it. And the call of the voice sounded more urgent.
The elders were whispering warnings throughout the day. The old woman who sat by the well, the blind priest who rattled his charms—they all said the same thing
The abyss will open tonight .
Some claimed to feel it in their bones, as though the world itself was holding its breath in anticipation. Others swore the crows had departed the city at dawn and never returned.
The bravest children had dared each other not to sleep. The merchants had closed their stalls early, praying under their breath as they barred the doors.
It all started few decades ago when the sky split open and people from age 17 are taken away by what remains a mystery. Some people believe they were taken while they slept, many believed they disappeared but none of the people who he knew that were taken had returned.
And now, as night grew darker, the air itself seemed wrong—too heavy, too chill, with a stillness that even the dogs would not break.
Arin huddled against the wall, shaking. His stomach hurt with emptiness, but something deeper churned inside his chest. He knew that he might be among the people taken as he was already 17.
While still clutching his stomach because of hunger, he felt a touch on his shoulder and then it came.
The ground trembled. A low growl, thunder in the earth. Arin clutched at his chest, his heart racing.
The voice increased with it.
Arin… it begins.
The skies tore open.
A rifted crack split the sky apart, black light spilling out like blood from a wound. The stars vanished. Dark flowed through the breach, a wave of smoke seeping down like a shroud.
There were cries throughout the slums. People fell to their knees, clutching their heads. Some tried to flee, but there was nowhere to flee to. The darkness devoured all.
Arin cried out as his body convulsed, his vision blurring. He clawed at the ground, but the world warped in on itself, his breath ripped from his lungs.And then—silence.
When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in Gloomspire.
The air here was bitter, cold enough to sting his throat. The earth beneath him was barren stone, black and dead. The sky above was wrong—a sea of gray cloud, stabbed by a pale moon that rode too low, its light cold and sickly.
Others appeared around him. Dozens. Men, women, and young people like himself. Some carried sticks, some with bare feet, some carrying tools or knives. Their faces, ashen with fear.
"What… where is this?" a voice whispered.
"Is this the Abyss?" another voice muttered.
"No… no, this is a dream. A nightmare—"
They were cut off by a sound. A howl, low, guttural, hungry. It tolled over the wasteland, rattling Arin's bones.
Red eyes glowed in the mist outside the ruins. Dozens of them.
Arin's breath caught. He had to move, to run—but his leg collapsed under him, weak, useless. His chest burned. He could only stand and wait as the first shadow resolved out of the mist, its shape twisted, its jaws filled with shards of glass for teeth.
The hunt had begun.