Shadowbound: Awakening in the City of Veils
Chapter 1: The Awakening
The rain hadn't let up all night, and the city smelled of wet asphalt, smoke, and something faintly metallic. Kairo Dusk's eyelids felt like lead, but when they finally opened, the world seemed… wrong. Neon lights fractured across puddles, stretching and twisting like reflections in broken glass. His head throbbed, a steady, punishing beat that made him grip the edge of the cold brick wall behind him.
Then he noticed the marks.
His skin itched, burned even, but not in a way that would normally make him scratch. Across his arms, his neck, and the back of his hands were symbols — intricate, almost tattoo-like, glowing faintly in the dim alley light. They pulsed slowly, like something breathing just beneath the surface of his skin.
Kairo swallowed, his throat tight. "What the hell…?" His voice cracked, bouncing off the alley walls, swallowed by the night.
Shadows flickered at the corners of his vision. Not the ordinary kind, creeping from the streetlights or buildings. These shadows moved like they had purpose, stretching, curling, watching him. Every instinct screamed to run, but his feet felt glued to the wet pavement.
And then came the whisper.
"The seal has chosen you… and they are coming."
It wasn't loud. It was just there, slipping between his thoughts, brushing against his skull like a hand he couldn't shake. Kairo jerked his head from side to side. Nothing. The alley was empty. Except it wasn't. The shadows were closer now, quivering, coiling around trash bins and puddles.
He tried to breathe, deep, slow. The city felt different — heavier, sharper, like someone had turned the volume up on life itself. His neighborhood, the streets he had walked a thousand times, now loomed with hidden angles, shadows where there should be none, whispers in every gust of wind.
Then a noise — sharp, metallic, and too deliberate to be coincidence. A figure stepped from the darkness, tall and featureless, moving like it didn't belong to the world Kairo knew. Panic surged. His heart slammed against his ribs, but somewhere beneath the fear, something else stirred.
Instinctively, Kairo raised his hands. Dark tendrils erupted from the marks on his skin, writhing, twisting, forming shapes he couldn't control. They lashed out before he even thought about it. The figure collided with them, stumbling backward into a stack of crates with a thud that rattled through the alley.
Kairo staggered, trembling. He had done that. He had moved the shadows.
The silence that followed was worse than the attack. The alley was still. The rain fell harder. And the marks… they glowed brighter now, impatient, hungry.
A whisper again. Clearer this time. Familiar. His voice. "You cannot hide. You are already part of this world… whether you like it or not."
He sank to the wet pavement, knees slick with rainwater. His fingers traced the glowing symbols on his arms as if touching them could make them vanish. But they wouldn't. They weren't just there. They were part of him.
Kairo closed his eyes. He remembered the ordinary life he had — school, homework, his cramped apartment, the smell of his mom's cooking on weekends. All of it felt like a dream now, fragile and distant.
Something had awakened in him tonight. Something old, something dangerous. And the city — the entire city — seemed to know it.
He didn't know what came next. He only knew one thing: nothing would ever be normal again.