The dawn was gray, lifeless, as though the sun itself feared to rise over the massacre.Kairen walked the streets in a haze, his eyes hollow, the blood of his family still staining his clothes.The world around him continued as if nothing had happened—vendors set up their stalls, children ran barefoot in the rain, and guards patrolled lazily.
But everywhere he looked, he saw only ash.The ash of his home, his life, his family.
Turning a corner, he saw it.A sigil.
It pulsed faintly against the stone, carved into the wall with a precision that spoke of ritual, not vandalism. The pattern was wrong, alien, its lines curling in directions that made his stomach churn. When he stared too long, the whispers began again—names scratching into his skull: Bael. Agares. Paimon.
Kairen stumbled, clutching his head, trying to force them out. But the whispers only grew louder until his gaze fell upon a dagger half-buried in the mud. Its hilt bore the same sigil, and as his fingers wrapped around the blackened steel… silence.
For the first time since the massacre, the voices stopped.But it was not peace. It was the silence of something holding its breath. Something waiting.