"When the curtain rises, all men must play their roles.
Some are actors. Some are audience.
And some… are the forgotten."
The clock ticked past midnight.
In the city that never truly slept, Elias Vale walked alone, the glow of neon signs painting his shadow across the slick asphalt. His shoes slapped against shallow puddles, each step echoing hollowly in the silence between car horns and drunken laughter.
A twenty-six-year-old office worker. A nobody.
No power, no wealth, no glory—just paperwork, caffeine, and the gnawing ache of wasted years.
Elias tilted his head toward the blurred sky above. Rain misted down, gentle yet unrelenting, turning the air heavy. The taste of iron lingered faintly on his tongue.
"If life is a play… then what am I?" He whispered, a crooked smile twitching at his lips. "An actor? The audience? Or just the fool who showed up late?"
The answer arrived violently.
Headlights flared. A truck swerved on the rain-slick road. Metal screamed. Brakes failed.
Impact.
Then, silence.
But death did not embrace him with peace.
Elias opened his eyes.
The world was gone.
He stood in a vast, hollow theater of shadows. Empty seats stretched into infinity, each one occupied not by people, but by presence. Silent, watching, breathing without breath. Curtains hung torn and heavy, dripping with an ink-like blackness that devoured light.
And on the stage… sat a figure.
Its body was smoke. Its face blurred, as though reality itself refused to capture it. Yet Elias felt its gaze pierce him with absolute clarity.
"The world you knew is ash," it said, voice both distant and intimate. "The world you enter is fire."
At Elias' feet lay a book. Its leather cover was cracked and ancient, its pages torn out, leaving nothing but jagged stubs. And yet, words burned across the cover like scars:
"The Veil of Lies"
Beside it, a card floated in the air. Its painted Fool grinned mockingly, a jester balancing on the edge of a cliff, as though daring Elias to push him.
He crouched slowly, hand trembling as he reached for the card.
The moment his skin brushed its edge—
Visions tore into him.
Men and women writhing in ritual circles, their bodies combusting into screaming fire. Priests clawing their own eyes out as whispers burrowed into their skulls. Masked figures collapsing into gibbering beasts, their minds drowning in madness.
Each image stabbed into his brain like shards of glass. His heart thundered. His breath ragged.
But even then… even in that storm of terror—
He laughed.
It was quiet, broken, almost hysterical. But it was laughter nonetheless.
"So this is it," Elias muttered, pressing a hand to his pounding chest. "In this world, to grow is to gamble. To climb is to burn. Advance too far… and you combust. Act too poorly… and you lose yourself."
The shadowed figure tilted its head, as though amused.
"Observer or Performer. Trickster or Pawn."
Its words slid across the theater like knives.
"Play your role well, Elias Vale. Or be consumed by the play."
The torn book snapped shut. The Fool card vanished, slipping into the darkness of his soul.
And Elias fell.
Down.
Down into a city of fog, secrets, and blood.
---
"The curtain does not ask if you are ready.
It rises.
And you… must perform."