"Every city is built on bones.
Some whisper.
Some scream."
Elias Vale awoke to the smell of smoke.
Not the sterile, industrial kind of exhaust, but the acrid, choking scent of burning wood and damp fog. His eyelids fluttered open to a ceiling he didn't recognize: cracked plaster, faint mold stains, a flickering lantern dangling by a frayed wire.
He sat up slowly.
The bed creaked beneath him. The room was small, bare, and foreign. A table in the corner held a chipped basin of water, a cracked mirror, and a folded newspaper.
He pressed his palms against his chest, his head still ringing from the visions of fire and madness. But the book… it was there, lying beside him on the mattress.
"The Veil of Lies".
Torn. Silent. Waiting.
And the Fool card? Gone—yet he could feel it, buried somewhere inside his soul, like a laugh he could not quite suppress.
"Not a dream…" Elias whispered. His own voice sounded alien, deeper, older, resonating differently than before. He rose unsteadily and walked to the mirror.
The man staring back was not the one who had died on Earth. His hair was blacker, his face sharper, his eyes carrying an unsettling depth that hadn't existed before. He touched the glass; his reflection smiled a fraction too late.
A shiver raced down his spine.
He turned to the newspaper, unfolding its yellowed pages with stiff fingers.
> "September 2, Year 1345, Dawn Era. The Royal Capital: Fog intensifies, another victim found in the river. Cause of death unknown."
The script was archaic, the letters twisted, but his mind absorbed it effortlessly.
Another world. Another body.
And somewhere beneath his ribs, the book pulsed faintly, as though breathing with him.
The street outside was no kinder.
Gas lamps lined cobbled roads drowned in fog. The city was alive with carriages rattling by, merchants shouting over the clamor, and beggars huddled in alleys. Yet everything felt… hollow. Eyes lingered too long. Shadows moved where they shouldn't. The air was heavy, pressing, filled with the weight of things unseen.
He walked, the book tucked beneath his coat, his thoughts a storm.
Every passerby seemed normal—until one wasn't.
At the mouth of an alley, Elias froze.
A man stood slumped against the wall, muttering to himself. His coat was tattered, his nails bloodied, his face hidden in shadow. Elias should have moved on. But then he noticed the veins beneath the man's skin, glowing faintly like embers, spreading across his body.
The muttering grew into growls. His spine cracked, stretching unnaturally.
Elias stumbled back, horror clawing at his throat—until the book in his coat grew warm.
When he pulled it free, he found a single line scrawled across the once-empty first page:
"Observer's Sight – Sequence 9"
Close your eyes. Open the curtain. Watch the unseen.
Almost instinctively, Elias obeyed.
Darkness swallowed his vision. Then—light.
The world shifted.
He could see beyond the man's twisting flesh: a writhing tide of crimson threads, each thread a whisper, each whisper clawing at sanity. The man wasn't muttering—he was screaming prayers to something beneath the skin of the world.
Elias gasped, tearing his eyes open.
The man turned sharply toward him. His face—half gone, jaw splitting open into a grin far too wide. He lurched forward.
But before Elias could react—
"Stand down!"
A sharp voice cut through the fog. Boots thundered on cobblestone. A figure in a long black coat appeared, raising a silver-engraved revolver. Two more followed, armed with lanterns and daggers etched with runes.
The man—no, the creature—roared and lunged, but a shot rang out. The bullet wasn't lead, but light, piercing straight through its skull. The body convulsed, shrieked in voices not its own, and collapsed into a heap of twitching flesh.
Smoke hissed from the revolver's barrel.
The lead figure turned, his eyes cold and sharp beneath a brimmed hat. He scanned Elias in a heartbeat, gaze lingering on the book clutched tightly in his hand.
"You," the man said flatly. "Name. Now."
Elias' lips curled into the faintest smile despite the tension.
"Elias Vale."
The man's eyes narrowed. Behind him, one of the coat-wearers whispered, "He doesn't look infected, but… that book…"
The leader holstered his weapon, though his hand never left the grip.
"Elias Vale," he repeated. "Congratulations. You just walked into a world you'll never walk out of."
He tipped his hat slightly.
"Welcome to the Watchers' Lodge."
---
"Those who stare too long into the fog…
find the fog staring back."