In the distance, Arman saw a man clad in a long, pristine white robe. His face was elegant, almost otherworldly, and he looked so handsome that any girl who saw him would have been in awe. The man floated effortlessly in midair. As Arman drew closer, he noticed that the man was seated in a perfect lotus formation, meditating with serene focus.
Arman tried to approach, to awaken him, but suddenly he felt himself being pulled, sucked inward by some invisible force. When he opened his eyes again, there was nothing only darkness. He felt no sensation, yet a deep, exhausting weariness pressed from within.
'How long have I been here? What am I even supposed to do?'
Then he remembered the dream: the man meditating in the lotus position.
Inspired, Arman lowered himself into the same posture. He shut his mind, mimicking the stranger's stillness. Slowly, he became motionless, sinking into the silence, the emptiness… becoming, in a way, one with the darkness.
***
Days, months, years, he could no longer tell how much time had passed as he remained one with the darkness. Then, one day, he felt something, a distant calling. It wasn't a sound, but a pull, as if something far away was demanding his attention, whispering that this endless stillness had reached its end.
He opened his eyes, staring once again into the same infinite darkness. Yet this time, his mind was no longer chaos. The fear, the confusion all had faded. His thoughts were calm, serene, as if he had become part of the void itself.
And then, somewhere far ahead, he felt it, a presence. It was faint at first, like a flicker in the dark, but unmistakably there. Something… reaching out to him. It felt as though it was asking him to take its hand.
For a long time, he did nothing, simply contemplating what it could be. Days passed in silence before he finally decided to reach out. As he did, the presence drew closer… and closer… until suddenly, it passed through him.
A sharp pain erupted within him. It was as if countless needles tore through his flesh all at once. His body, or whatever remained of , felt like it was shattering into a million fragments. The darkness itself seemed to be entering him, flooding every part of his being.
The pain was unbearable. He wanted to scream, but no sound came out. It was as if thousands of deaths were happening within him all at once.
He lost all sense of time. Days, months, years none of it mattered anymore. Yet he could tell that the darkness around him was no longer endless. It felt… contained, as though he had drawn it all inside himself.
Maybe an eternity had passed. Maybe a millennium. When he thought the agony could no longer continue when even death seemed preferable, his soul finally surrendered. And then, at last, he fell into a deep, silent slumber.
***
In a vast hall made of dark amber, silence reigned supreme. The air was thick and ancient, as though the place had been untouched for thousands of years.
At the center of the hall lay the body of a young boy motionless.
Surrounding him were twenty-four skeletons arranged in a perfect circle. Their empty eye sockets stared eternally forward, locked in a formation whose meaning had long been forgotten. Beneath the boy, intricate runes were etched into the floor, glowing faintly with a dying light.
Each skeleton was positioned differently some bowed low, foreheads touching the ground in reverence; others knelt with hands pressed together in a gesture of prayer. A few faced upward on their knees, arms raised as if offering or beseeching something unseen. The sight was both haunting and solemn, as though the moment of their devotion had been frozen in time.
Then a sound.
A slow, deep breath.
The boy's chest rose. His eyes fluttered open.
It was Arman.
He sat up weakly, confusion written across his face. His body felt heavy, ancient, as though it had slept for centuries.
"Where… am I?" he muttered under his breath.
Around him, the skeletons were draped in tattered black robes and strangely, he was wearing one too. He stood, unsteady at first, and stepped out of the circular formation. The vast hall loomed around him, silent and cold. Ahead, a long staircase rose into darkness, leading upward from the chamber.
He didn't realize it at first, but there wasn't a single trace of light in the vast chamber. And yet, somehow, he could see everything clearly. The darkness didn't blind him; it felt natural, almost familiar, as if his eyes were made for it.
After a while, he began to search the area for clues, but found none. It was only then that the realization truly struck him the hall was completely dark. There were no torches, no lamps, not even a crack for light to seep through. And yet… he could see.
Everything around him the floor, the walls, the skeletons was clear to his eyes, as if faintly illuminated by moonlight. He blinked, confused, glancing around again. The darkness wasn't resisting his sight; it was welcoming it, almost embracing him.
He frowned slightly. "How…?" he whispered to himself. There was no explanation. The thought felt unsettling and yet strangely natural, as if his eyes had always belonged to the dark.
His gaze fell upon the runes beneath his feet. They pulsed weakly, shifting with a rhythm he couldn't quite understand. Arman stared at them for a while, curiosity stirring somewhere deep inside, but in the end, he decided it wasn't worth his time not now. With one last glance, he turned toward the stairs and began to walk away.
After a while, he reached a door. Pushing it open, he found himself facing a cave-like passage. He followed it for some time until, finally, he stepped outside.
Before him stretched a forest vast breathtakingly beautiful. The air was fresh, almost alive, brushing against his face like the first breath after drowning. For the first time since awakening, he felt a strange sense of relief.
He stood there quietly, trying to piece together what had happened so far, but his mind was blank. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't remember anything about himself not his name, his home, nor his past. Only fragments of confusion and the memory of what he had just experienced lingered.
Still, one thing was certain: this body wasn't his. He could feel it. It was younger barely thirteen or fourteen, at most yet light, agile, and unnervingly strong. In his mind, he knew he was older.
He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers slowly. "Whose body is this…?" he murmured. The question hung in the air, unanswered, as the wind whispered through the forest's endless green expanse.
As he ventured farther from the cave into the forest, Arman began to realize something unsettling he wasn't alone. That much was obvious. But more than that, he could feel it a suffocating aura of death that lingered in the air. Every instinct screamed at him to stay quiet, to move slowly, to avoid drawing attention.
Before long, he spotted something in the distance an animal, or perhaps a monster. He couldn't tell. It stood nearly five meters tall, its arms shaped like long, jagged blades. Its face - if it could even be called that was grotesque: a gaping mouth filled with sharp teeth, flaring nostrils, but no eyes. Just massive ears twitching in the silence.
The sight sent shivers racing down his spine. His first instinct was to back away to take another path but before he could react, the creature moved. It leapt toward him, covering twenty meters in a single bound, crashing down where he had stood just moments ago.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Arman gasped, rolling to the side, heart pounding. He barely avoided another lunge, the creature's blade-like arms slicing the air inches from his face. Panic surged through him he knew he'd die if this kept up.
His eyes darted around frantically then he spotted a thick, broken branch on the ground. He grabbed it, clenching it with trembling hands. The monster lunged again. Arman thrust the branch forward, jamming it into the creature's open maw. It barely slowed, but the moment's hesitation was enough. Arman scrambled to his feet and sprinted back the way he came, running with every ounce of strength he had.
He didn't look back not until he was almost five meters from the cave entrance. Then, strangely, the monster stopped. It turned abruptly, retreating into the forest as if afraid of the place. Arman froze, gasping for air.
Cautiously, he tried another direction but the same kind of creature appeared there too much smaller but still he did not take his chances, prowling the shadows. He moved as quietly as he could, heart hammering, trying not to make a sound.
Even though he managed to avoid it, he could sense more of those things deeper in the forest dozens, maybe hundreds, lurking. The air itself seemed thick with death. Realizing he stood no chance alone, Arman turned back toward the cave.
"This is suicide…" he muttered under his breath. "I need to plan properly before I set foot out there again.
"I should check the cave properly this time," Arman muttered. "I just ignored it before… there might be something anything useful in there."
He turned back toward the cave. The passage was narrow and rough, stretching deep into the darkness. He walked for a while, his footsteps echoing faintly against the stone walls, but there wasn't much to it just a long, empty tunnel that eventually led to a single, weathered door.
He sighed. "Nothing useful… typical."
Then a thought struck him the skeletons. The ones that had surrounded him when he first woke up.
"I didn't even check their bodies," he whispered, a hint of irritation in his voice. 'There might be something on them… something important, but it could bring another danger, but i need to check it out anyway.'
***
Once again, he found himself back in the chamber the vast hall expanding endlessly before him. There was nothing else around, only the circle of skeletons at its center, locked forever in their eerie formation.
Arman approached them once more, this time studying the runes more closely. The strange markings pulsed faintly, whispering of something ancient, though he couldn't make any sense of them. All he could feel was that whatever had happened here… had been dangerous. Terribly dangerous.
"These skeletons and runes are probably the reason I'm here," he murmured under his breath. "But still… it's bizarre. Everything about this feels like some twisted fantasy."
Arman stepped closer to the skeleton, his movements cautious, hesitant. The cold, dry bones seemed to stare up at him, empty sockets holding secrets of the past. He reached out slowly, fingers brushing against the brittle ribs. Nothing happened. Heart pounding, he carefully flipped the skeleton over, revealing what had been hidden beneath layers of dust and decay.
There, clasped in the skeletal hand, lay a bracelet, black as obsidian and etched with faint, unreadable symbols. Around the neck hung a delicate ornament, a locket that shimmered faintly in the dim, ambient glow of the runes beneath him. Arman's hands trembled as he snatched them up, feeling an odd warmth radiate through his fingers, as if the objects were alive, pulsing with silent energy.
Then came the voice.
[You have acquired: Bracelet of the Dark Prince]
[You have acquired: Locket of Soul Chamber]
Arman froze. His eyes widened, heart skipping a beat. The voice—it had no source, yet it resonated inside his mind, clear and commanding. Whose voice is this? he wondered, half-shocked, half-awed. It was strange, alien, yet… familiar.
And then, a single word struck him, appearing in his mind as if it had been waiting all along: Codex.
A panel of information shimmered into existence, suspended in the void between the skeletons and the boy.
Name: [Unknown]
Title: [Child of Darkness]
Rank: [Seed]
Pathway: [Undefined ???]
Attributes: [Blessed by Darkness] [......] [???] [???].
.........
.........…..
...............…..
Arman stared, unblinking. The words glowed softly, like some kind of hologram.
"What… is this?" he murmured.