---
Kev gasped as his eyes snapped open.
He lay beneath a collapsed rooftop, the same broken shelter where he'd last seen the stars… two years ago.
The scent of rust and ash filled his lungs. His body was leaner, sharper, taller — aged by a decade in another world.
But this wasn't the shadow realm.
This was home.
*Noctera.*
And it had changed.
***
The lower districts had grown worse. Cracked streets, silent homes, and more children than ever scavenging for scraps. The Koran Clan had expanded their territory, seizing smaller Gates, choking out the poor.
And Lira...
She wasn't waiting by the fire.
She wasn't smiling.
She was gone.
Kev moved through the streets like a ghost, asking quietly, listening sharply.
And what he learned made his blood boil.
After he "fell asleep," no one knew what happened. People assumed he'd abandoned her.
A girl — nine, alone, starving — was no one's priority.
She was beaten, stolen from, driven out of their shelter. She begged. Slept in alleys. Fought older boys for bread. She vanished into the gutters of the city.
Some said she'd been taken.
Others said worse.
Kev's fists trembled.Two years… she waited for me.*
And he had left her in a world that had never shown them mercy.
***
He climbed the remains of an old gate tower, staring out over Noctera — the city that had once rejected him.
But now?
Now he was different.
His shadow spread beneath him unnaturally — wide, rippling like oil across stone.
And from within it, hundreds of whispers stirred.
*"You are awake."*
*"You are angered."*
*"We feel it too."*
Kev spoke softly. "We're going to tear this city apart… until we find her."
From deep inside his palm, his system pulsed again.
He stepped into the dark.
And Noctera would never be the same.
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