Tic—Tap.
The sound was faint at first, a rhythmic clicking against the silence of a dying city.
In the obsidian-veined streets of a world that felt far too large for its inhabitants, a few stray droplets fell from the heavens.
They tapped lightly against the cracked pavement, whispering of the arrival of a long-awaited rain.
One of those droplets, cold and indifferent, landed on the shoulder of a young man walking alone beneath the hollow belly of the night.
He stopped.
Slowly, as if his neck were made of rusted gears, he raised his head and looked up. The sky above was an absolute void, swallowed by thick, suffocating clouds that choked out the light of every star. No moon dared to peer through the gloom.
There was only darkness—heavy, endless, and absolute. His eyes, a shade of gray that matched the city's concrete, reflected that emptiness.
He looked at the sky not with wonder, but with a vacant stare, as though the rain and the darkness were merely old acquaintances he no longer cared to greet.
He let out a quiet, jagged sigh.
"Haizz…"
The sound was fragile, disappearing almost instantly as the night devoured it.
Ashfei continued his aimless trek. The streets were ghosts of their former selves. No cars cut through the gloom with their artificial eyes; no human voices echoed between the towering, skeletal buildings.
From time to time, the sickly yellow glow of a flickering streetlight revealed a few stray cats.
Their thin, starved bodies slipped silently through the shadows like feline specters before vanishing back into the deep gloom.
With no destination in mind, Ash moved forward, one heavy step after another.
'I wonder why I'm even here,' he thought, his mind drifting like the mist.
'Walking around like a phantom in the middle of the night... someone as suspicious as me might even get stopped by the police.'
He certainly looked the part of a vagrant or a criminal. A thin, frayed jacket clung loosely to his lean frame, its edges already dark and heavy with moisture.
Beneath it, he wore a simple black shirt, paired with charcoal jeans and worn-out sneakers that had seen too many miles.
Under the dim streetlights, his appearance alone was enough to invite suspicion.
But he had no choice. This was the only complete outfit he had left in a world that had stripped him bare.
"Ah... right."
A bitter expression crossed his face as the tidal wave of memory finally caught up with him.
The numbness he had carefully cultivated began to crack.
"Now I remember why I'm here."
He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white, looking up at the sky once more.
The darkness above felt heavier now, pressing down on his chest with the weight of a mountain.
"I just became an orphan... at eighteen."
A weak, humorless smile tugged at the corner of his lips—a jagged scar of an expression.
"Who would've thought? On my eighteenth birthday... the only family I had left... the only person who truly cared for me, who loved me more than her own life..."
His throat tightened, the muscles constricting as if trying to physically block the truth from escaping.
"My mother... she's gone."
Pronouncing those words felt like dragging shards of broken glass through his lungs. His voice came out rough and strained, a fractured sound that resisted him at every turn.
As if responding to the agony in his voice, the sky finally broke. What had begun as scattered droplets quickly surged into a violent downpour.
The roar of the rain striking the asphalt thickened, drowning the city in a deluge of cold water.
Streams of ice-cold rain poured down Ash's face, blending with a warmth he refused to acknowledge—tears that were quickly washed away, hidden by the storm.
Ash didn't wipe them away. He didn't seek shelter.
He let the rain fall freely, soaking his clothes, his hair, and his skin—anything that was still capable of feeling.
His mind drifted back to the house he had called home for eighteen years.
It was a relic of a different era—cracked walls, faded paint, windows that rattled in the wind.
Anyone else would have called it a ruin, a place fit for demolition.
To him, it had been the warmest sanctuary in the world.
That was where his mother had spent her final moments.
She had been gentle, a woman of quiet strength who had been more beautiful than the world deserved.
After his father passed away when Ash was only ten, she had carried the entire world on her shoulders.
She worked too hard, for too many years, in the shadows of the Ash Area.
And in the end, the burden broke her.
The disease was a silent thief, a fatal affliction that no amount of prayer could cure.
The doctors had merely lowered their eyes, offering empty apologies that meant nothing.
There was no miracle waiting for people like them.
In her final hours, she lay on a simple bed, her breathing shallow and uneven, like a bird with a broken wing.
Her once-vibrant eyes were dim, her body frighteningly frail. Her pale face carried the unmistakable weight of someone who was already half-submerged in the afterlife.
Weakly, she had looked at him. Ash stood there, frozen, his heart a block of ice. He knew it. Deep down, he knew she wouldn't be able to stay.
Her voice had been barely louder than the rustle of dry leaves.
"I'm sorry, Ashfei... I can't... walk with you anymore..."
Ash had lowered his head, his hands trembling as he reached out to hold hers. He gripped her fingers with a desperate strength, terrified that if he let go, she would vanish like smoke.
"Ash... listen to me..." she gasped, her strength fading.
"Please... try to live. Even if this world is unfair to you. Even if you never had a happy childhood... even if you suffered more than anyone your age ever should..."
Ash tightened his grip, leaning in to catch every fading syllable.
"But remember... this is only a small part of your journey. This is just the beginning..."
Her breathing grew ragged. He knew. These were her final words.
"So... live well... and..." She paused, a final spark of light returning to her eyes.
"Happy birthday... my dear..."
She smiled. It was a faint, flickering thing, but it carried a warmth that burned itself into his soul.
Tears streamed down Ash's face as he forced himself to smile back—the most beautiful, genuine smile he could muster, a parting gift for the woman who had given him everything.
"Mom... thank you..."
She closed her eyes. Her breathing stopped. Her face relaxed into a mask of peace, that gentle smile remaining frozen in place.
She was gone.
Ash had fallen to his knees beside the bed, still clutching her cooling hand as the world outside went silent.
Tears dripped onto the floor, the only sound in the room. From that moment on, he had made a silent vow: it would be the last time he ever cried.
After the funeral, he sold the house. He sold the furniture, the memories, and every scrap of possession he owned.
All of it was used to build a small, modest grave for her in the Ash Area, right beside his father's. He kept only a pittance—just enough to survive for a few days. If his mother had known, she would have scolded him for being so impractical.
But Ash didn't care. This was the last act of devotion he could offer.
The funeral was small. Only one person attended. Him.
Since then, he had wandered the city like a lost soul. A boy who had lost his father, then his mother, then his home—walking forward with a void behind him.
Ashfei moved at a steady pace.
Water splashed softly beneath his worn shoes, rippling across shallow puddles that reflected the broken fragments of yellow light from the streetlamps.
His clothes were heavy and soaked, the fabric clinging coldly to his body, but his expression remained a slate of stone.
Blank. As if the storm did not exist. As if the cold and the loneliness could no longer penetrate the armor of his grief.
He slipped one hand into his pocket, his fingers brushing against a thin, damp stack of bills. He didn't need to count them; the lack of weight told him everything he needed to know.
'Too light.'
A few days of food, maybe. A week if he starved himself. Tomorrow—if tomorrow even bothered to arrive—he would look for work.
Cleaning gutters. Carrying heavy crates. Anything that paid in scraps. He wasn't picky. Survival was a hungry beast that didn't allow for luxury.
There was no future beyond the next meal. Without a degree or a name, he was a non-entity. He wasn't stupid—he knew his strengths—but intelligence was a useless tool without the opportunity to use it.
"Hah... unstable," he exhaled quietly, his breath fogging briefly in the chill air.
"What else could possibly go wrong?"
Suddenly, a violent shiver raced down his spine. His instincts, honed by years of navigating the dangerous corners of the Ash Area, screamed at him.
Something was wrong. The air felt charged, heavy with an unnatural static.
Ash froze, his eyes darting around the deserted street. He saw nothing but the rain and the shadows, yet the feeling of being watched—of something approaching—was overwhelming.
His gut had never lied to him.
He looked toward the empty road ahead. The sense of dread was radiating from the darkness in front of him.
Ash instinctively wanted to turn back, to run toward the slightly less-threatening shadows behind him.
But then—
A searing pain erupted on the back of his left hand. It felt like a white-hot brand being pressed into his flesh.
"Argh...!"
He hissed, clutching his wrist. On the back of his hand, a mark began to glow through the rain—the intricate, obsidian shape of a black key.
Ash's eyes widened, his breath hitching in his throat.
'N-No... could this be?!'
He looked up.
The air in the middle of the street began to distort. At first, it was subtle, like the shimmering heat rising from a desert road.
But it was wrong. Unnatural. The rain intensified, yet the droplets that passed through the distorted space slowed down, bending and stretching as if time itself were warping.
Dark smoke began to bleed from the center of the air.
It gathered slowly, pulled together by an unseen, gravitational force, weaving itself into a solid frame.
From the base to the lintel, the smoke solidified. When the mist finally cleared, a black wooden door stood alone in the middle of the drenching rain.
It was exactly one meter wide and two meters tall, anchored to nothing but the air itself.
On the center of the door, a single Roman numeral was etched in gold: I.
The First Door.
Under normal circumstances, any sane person would have fled in terror. But Ash was no longer sane, nor was he ordinary.
He stood before the gate of his destiny, his clothes dripping, his heart beating a slow, steady rhythm.
He let out a long, final sigh.
"So... this is the world's gift to me? After taking her, it gives me this?"
His eyes remained calm, but beneath the gray surface, a new flame ignited—a spark of absolute, iron-clad determination.
"Fine. If this is how it's going to be... then come at me, 'First Door.'"
Without a second of hesitation, Ashfei reached out, gripped the cold iron handle, and threw the door wide open.
[The Things Behind The Door are waiting for you.]