The ceiling leaked again.
The drip, drip, drip of rainwater into the dented bucket was the only sound in Julian's apartment. Each drop echoed like a hammer inside his skull, rhythmic, mocking.
He sat on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, staring at the peeling wallpaper that had once been white but now carried the color of sickness—yellowed, stained, cracked at the corners like brittle skin. His chest felt heavy, the kind of weight that years of disappointment welds into the bones.
This wasn't a life. It was a slow decay.
Julian dragged a hand across his face. He hadn't slept properly in days. Work at the factory paid little more than scraps, enough to keep lights flickering and food barely on the table. What little energy he had left at night he spent staring at his mother's photo on the bedside table.
Her smile. Tired but real.
She had always been the one tether holding him here.
He closed his eyes and remembered the sound of her humming as she cooked. The warmth of soup on cold nights. The way she would touch his hair gently when she thought he was asleep. That small apartment had been hell—but she made it survivable. Without her, he knew he would have broken a long time ago.
The phone rang.
The shrill sound cut through the silence, jolting him upright. At first, he ignored it, assuming it was another scam call, another pointless disturbance. But it kept ringing. Relentless. Urgent.
Finally, with a curse, Julian grabbed the receiver.
"Yeah?"
No answer. Just heavy breathing. Then, a voice, hoarse and strained:
"You need to come. Now. Your mother—"
The line went dead.
Julian froze. The chill that ran down his spine was instant, primal. His hands trembled as he set the receiver down, his pulse hammering in his ears. He didn't stop to think. He grabbed his coat, shoved his feet into worn shoes, and bolted into the storm outside.
The city streets were slick with rain, black rivers cutting through cracked pavement. Streetlights buzzed faintly, halos of yellow struggling against the darkness. Julian's breath misted in the air as he ran, boots splashing through puddles, each step pulling him closer to a truth he already feared.
His mother's apartment building loomed like a corpse at the end of the street—gray, decayed, windows like hollow eyes. He climbed the rusted stairwell two steps at a time, his chest burning, his mind screaming at him to stop, to turn back, to not open the door.
But he did.
The smell hit him first. Metallic. Thick. The unmistakable stench of blood.
The room was too clean. The dishes stacked neatly. Her bed made, the quilt tucked in perfect corners. But on the floor, near the desk, a scarf lay crumpled.
Her scarf.
Julian picked it up with shaking hands. The fabric was stiff, darkened with dried blood. He dropped it immediately, bile rising in his throat. His gaze darted wildly, searching, refusing to believe—until it landed on the smear of crimson across the floorboards.
"No…"
His knees buckled. The world tilted sideways.
He wanted to believe it wasn't real, that maybe she was still alive, that maybe—
The sound of a door creaking behind him snapped his head up.
"Shouldn't have come here, boy."
The voice was slurred but steady enough. Cold. Familiar.
Julian turned slowly, the blood rushing in his ears. His uncle stood in the doorway, shadows curling around him. His broad frame leaned against the wood, a knife gleaming in his hand, the steel catching the pale light from the window.
Julian's throat closed.
"You…" His voice was raw, broken. "It was you."
His uncle smirked, the expression twisted with cruelty.
"She always did talk too much. Thought she could run her mouth without consequence."
Julian's heart slammed against his ribs. His whole body trembled, not from fear but from rage so deep it felt like fire in his veins. He took a step forward.
"You killed her."
His uncle tilted his head, studying him like one might study an insect pinned to a board. Then, without warning, he lunged.
The knife flashed. Julian barely had time to react before the blade punched into his chest.
The pain was blinding. White-hot, tearing. His breath ripped from his lungs as he stumbled back, colliding with the desk. He gasped, hands clutching at the wound, at the warm flood pouring out of him, but the steel twisted deeper.
His uncle's face loomed close, eyes bloodshot, lips pulled back in a snarl.
"You think the world cares about truth? About justice? People like us—we don't get happy endings. We rot. We're forgotten."
Julian's vision blurred. His strength drained away with each heartbeat. The room dimmed, sounds growing muffled, distant.
He thought of his mother. Her smile. Her tired hands. Everything she sacrificed for him. And now she was gone—because of him, because he hadn't stopped this monster sooner.
Tears burned his eyes as the darkness closed in
His uncle leaned in close, whispering, voice dripping with venom:
"Die quiet, boy. Just like her."
The knife tore free. Julian's body slumped to the floor, blood spreading beneath him, soaking into the cracks of the wood. His breaths came shallow, ragged, then weaker still.
As the world slipped away, Julian's last thought wasn't of revenge. It wasn't even of fear. It was failure—crushing, suffocating failure.
He closed his eyes.
And then there was nothing.
The floor was so cold.
Julian's cheek pressed against the wooden planks, the chill sinking into his skin, mixing with the warmth of his blood. His fingers twitched uselessly, reaching for something—anything—that wasn't there.
Every heartbeat was agony. Each throb pumped more of his life away, leaking out in sticky rivers that spread beneath him. The metallic scent grew stronger, overwhelming, burning his nose.
His uncle's boots creaked as he stepped back, the knife scraping against the table before being tucked away. The sound of a cigarette being lit followed, the ember flaring in the dim light.
Julian could barely lift his head, but he saw it—the casual cruelty, the way his uncle leaned against the doorframe, smoke curling from his lips. Not a shred of regret.
The world blurred, smeared by tears.
His chest hitched. He couldn't breathe. Every gasp was shorter, sharper, until breathing itself became a mountain he couldn't climb. His vision flickered at the edges, a vignette of creeping black.
Mom…
Her face appeared in the haze—not as she was at the end, tired and worn, but as she had been when he was a boy. Bright eyes, soft hands, hair tied back with a faded ribbon.
He remembered a night when he was eight. He had woken from a nightmare, heart pounding, cheeks wet with tears. She had come into his room, sat beside him, and whispered:
"Julian… life is cruel. But you're strong, my boy. Stronger than you think. Even if the world turns against you, don't give up on yourself."
Her words wrapped around him now, warm and fragile, just as the cold dragged him under.
His lips trembled.
"I… tried…"
The strength left his limbs. His body felt heavy, distant, like it was no longer his. He was a sinking stone at the bottom of a black ocean.
His uncle's voice echoed faintly, as if from the other end of a tunnel.
"Finally quiet. Should've happened years ago."
Then footsteps. The slam of a door. Silence.
Julian was alone.
The darkness took him.
But it wasn't nothingness.
The pain dulled, then vanished entirely, replaced by a strange sensation—weightless, as though he floated in water without surface or floor. His eyes opened—or did they? There was no body, no blood, only a void stretching into eternity, black yet alive with faint, rippling lights.
Whispers threaded through the dark. Countless voices, layered and distant, speaking languages he didn't know yet somehow understood. They called his name, over and over, each syllable bending, reshaping, warping.
Julian… Julian… Julian…
He wanted to scream, but no sound came. His chest didn't rise or fall. His heart didn't beat. He wasn't alive, but he wasn't gone.
The lights in the void thickened, swirling together, forming patterns like constellations. He reached out, instinctively, and his hand was there—pale, ghostly, trembling.
The lights bent closer, coiling around him.
And then, in a flash, they shattered.
Julian woke on wet grass.
The storm was gone. The air was sharp, clean, heavy with the scent of pine and earth. He gasped, chest heaving, clutching at himself—yet there was no wound, no blood. His hands were whole. His skin unbroken.
He sat up slowly, breath ragged, eyes darting. He wasn't in the city. No buildings, no cars, no buzzing lights. Only forest stretched around him, towering trees swaying in the wind, their trunks dark and ancient.
The night sky above was unlike anything he had ever seen. No haze, no pollution—only a blanket of stars, endless and brilliant, sharper than glass.
Julian's pulse hammered in his ears.
"This… this isn't real…"
But the grass was real beneath his palms. The wind was real on his face. The cold, biting air filled his lungs with each shuddering breath.
And then he heard it.
The distant sound of hooves. Dozens. The rhythmic thunder of horses tearing through the earth, closer with each passing second.
Julian staggered to his feet, heart slamming against his ribs. In the distance, through the trees, firelight flickered. Torches. Shouts carried on the wind—men barking orders, steel clashing against steel.
A warband.
His body screamed at him to run, to hide, to do anything but stand frozen. Yet his legs wouldn't move. He was a moth caught in the glow of a wildfire.
The trees parted.
The torches burned brighter through the trees. Shouts cut sharper, closer. The ground itself seemed to tremble beneath the pounding hooves.
Julian's breath caught in his throat. He wasn't supposed to be here. He wasn't supposed to exist anymore. And yet the world gave him no time to question it. No mercy.
Branches snapped. Steel glinted.
Julian's heart raced—
And then the first soldier broke through the treeline.
The man was armored in iron plates dulled with dirt and blood, his face hidden behind a visor. A spear lowered, aimed straight at Julian's chest.
Julian's body froze. His mind screamed. His hands clenched into fists though he had nothing—no weapon, no armor, no hope.
The soldier roared, charging forward—
And Julian's story in this new world began in blood.