The neon lights shattered against the wet asphalt like lightning, casting red and blue reflections across chrome skyscrapers. Kael walked alone through Sector-9 alley, hands shoved deep in his jacket, his mind split between vigilance and boredom. The city breathed to the rhythm of surveillance drones and holographic billboards that blinked endlessly—watching, evaluating, recording.
Since his sister's death three years ago, Kael had lived in the shadows, hacking data streams to survive, stealing information, manipulating AIs to his advantage. But tonight, something vibrated in the air, something not human.
At the corner of an alley, he saw movement: Elyra. Her eyes glowed with a supernatural green light that pierced the darkness. She stared at a surveillance camera as if she could see through it, and in her hands, a small crystal pulsed, capturing fragments of a soul. Kael understood immediately: she was an Echo.
"You shouldn't be here," she murmured, never taking her gaze off him.
"I could say the same to you," Kael replied, instinct pushing him to step back, curiosity holding him in place.
Elyra stepped forward, her motion silent, almost ethereal. "What you're looking for here… it's not human."
A sound behind them made Kael turn. A corporate patrol—drones and armed soldiers—was coming straight at them. Elyra moved with supernatural speed, dodging fire, and her crystal flared, absorbing a drifting shadow that approached. Kael felt a vertigo he couldn't explain: the energy wasn't just magic—it was alive.
"Come," she said, pulling him into a network of alleys and tunnels, each step sinking him deeper into a world invisible to ordinary eyes.
They reached an abandoned subway. Elyra stopped, breathless, and held the crystal out toward him. "If you want to survive here, you need to understand this. Every soul we touch changes us… sometimes for the better, often for worse."
Kael felt the truth in her words. He had never believed in the supernatural, but under the dying neon lights, his reality was already cracking.