The tires of the sedan crunched over the gravel pull-out just beyond the iron gates of the cemetery. Inside the air-conditioned cabin, the quiet hum of the engine was briefly interrupted by the car radio.
A polished cinematic voice cut through the static, carrying the dramatic cadence of a modern promotional trailer.
"Bring Aegon, the usurper, to me."
The words faded beneath the rising sound of cellos and the enthusiastic announcement of the newest episode of House of the Dragon on HBO Max.
Marco reached over and lowered the volume until the roar of dragons and distant wars disappeared into silence.
For most people his age, those words would have sparked excitement. They would have felt the thrill of political betrayal, ancient bloodlines, and silver-haired rulers fighting over a throne. Marco, however, felt only a passing curiosity. The stories of Westeros had never held the same place in his heart.
If it did not involve midnight releases, wands, Hogwarts robes, and the familiar magic of the wizarding world, it never truly captured his imagination. He had always been a Potterhead. Those were the books that shaped his childhood, the stories that stayed with him long after he had turned the final page.
His best friend had always been different.
If he were sitting beside Marco, he would have been completely absorbed. He would have replayed the trailer scene by scene, analyzing every character, every symbol, and every possible hidden meaning until Marco eventually told him to stop.
The memory brought a faint smile.
Marco turned off the ignition, and the sudden silence inside the car felt heavier than before. The July heat pressed against the windows, turning the parked vehicle into a quiet furnace.
On the passenger seat rested a bouquet of white lilies and blue irises. They were simple flowers, chosen without extravagance, but they looked strangely out of place against the corporate world Marco had spent the last decade living in.
He stared at them for a moment before picking them up.
Then he stepped outside.
The cemetery stretched beneath the unforgiving afternoon sun, a carefully maintained landscape of marble and granite surrounded by old trees and quiet paths. Marco walked along the familiar gravel trail, his dress shoes making soft sounds against the stones.
He no longer needed to search for the grave.
His feet already knew where to go.
After several minutes, he stopped before a modest gray headstone. The surface was weathered but clean, with tiny silver flecks catching the sunlight whenever he moved.
Marco knelt and placed the flowers at its base.
"Ten years, bro," he whispered.
The words felt painfully small.
Ten years of achievements without someone to share them with. Ten years of turning toward his right side out of habit, only to find empty space where his closest friend should have been.
The regret never disappeared. Time had not erased it. It had only taught him how to carry it.
The memory remained as clear as the day it happened.
It had been a Tuesday. A miserable, rainy Tuesday when Marco had refused to accept that his friend was too exhausted to go out. The IMAX tickets had been bought weeks in advance, and Marco had been determined not to waste them.
His friend had wanted to stay home.
He had wanted takeout, a quiet apartment, and a night of sleep after a long shift.
Marco had insisted anyway.
He joked. He teased. He convinced him to leave.
If he had simply allowed his friend to rest, maybe everything would have been different.
The earthquake came without warning.
It began as a faint tremor beneath their feet, the kind most people ignored at first. Then the ground lurched violently, transforming the theater into a nightmare of collapsing walls, shattered glass, and falling debris. The ceiling groaned above them as the structure that had once felt so solid began to break apart.
Marco remembered the screaming, the sudden darkness, and the deafening sound of concrete splitting apart. The world became a blur of dust, panic, and falling stone.
By some cruel twist of fate, Marco survived. A section of the collapsing structure missed him by inches, leaving him injured but alive.
His friend was not so fortunate.
The earthquake took him before Marco could reach him.
"I still think about it," Marco said quietly, his hands resting against his knees.
"Every single day."
His voice weakened.
"If I had just let you sleep... if I hadn't been so damn stubborn about seeing a stupid movie..."
He looked down at the ground.
"You'd still be here. We'd probably be complaining about our backs and knees by now. We'd be old and miserable together."
For a while, he remained silent.
Then he forced a small smile.
"You'd love my kid, though."
His voice softened as he continued.
"He's eight now. And guess what? He didn't inherit anything from me."
Marco laughed quietly.
"No magic. Nothing."
He looked back at the headstone.
"But he loves your stories. He watches Game of Thrones behind his mother's back, and he's already read Fire & Blood twice. I still don't understand how he remembers all those names and family trees. He knows the Targaryen lineage better than his multiplication tables."
The smile on his face became warmer.
"I took him to the midnight premiere for the third season last week. I was standing there surrounded by teenagers, holding a plastic dragon toy like an idiot."
He shook his head.
"You should have been the one explaining everything to him. Telling him who betrayed who. Teaching him about Valyrian steel and all those complicated family names."
Marco slowly stood and brushed the dust from his trousers.
He placed a hand against the top of the stone.
"Keep watching over him, alright?"
He paused.
"Don't let him become too obsessed with dragons."
A small breath escaped him.
"I'll see you around, bro."
The drive back to the city was supposed to be routine.
Marco left the cemetery behind and returned to the familiar rhythm of traffic, billboards, and glass towers rising above the streets. His mind slowly shifted away from memories of the past and toward the responsibilities waiting for him.
Ironically, the loss that had haunted him for ten years had shaped the very career he built.
Marco was now the founder of a mid-sized company specializing in insurance policies for accidental deaths and natural disasters. Every day, he dealt with families preparing for tragedies they hoped would never come. He helped people create safety nets for the moments when life changed without warning.
It was the closest thing he had found to building a shield against the kind of pain that had destroyed his own youth.
The highway grew busier as he approached the financial district. The afternoon sun reflected against the windows of towering buildings, and the steady movement of vehicles surrounded him.
Marco checked his mirrors and signaled before moving into the middle lane.
He never saw the flatbed truck.
There was no warning, no moment where time slowed and gave him a chance to understand what was happening. One moment he was driving toward the city, and the next, the world erupted into chaos.
The heavy commercial vehicle had crossed the median after its exhausted driver lost control. The impact struck the driver's side of Marco's sedan with devastating force, crushing metal and shattering glass in an instant.
The sound was overwhelming.
Twisting steel.
Breaking windows.
The violent impact of a body against a collapsing frame.
Then came the ground.
Marco felt rough pavement against his face as the noise of the highway faded into a distant ringing. His body refused to move. Pain spread through every part of him, and he could feel warmth pooling beneath his chest as blood soaked through his carefully pressed shirt.
He tried to breathe, but every attempt sent another wave of agony through him. The taste of iron filled his mouth as the world around him slowly began to lose focus.
Above him, the bright July sky faded.
The voices of strangers became distant.
The last thing he remembered was the feeling of the world slipping away.
Then there was nothing.
Consciousness returned like a violent storm.
Marco gasped, his body reacting before his mind could understand what had happened. He expected the cold bite of asphalt, the smell of gasoline, and the distant sounds of emergency vehicles.
Instead, his hands struck stone.
The surface beneath him was smooth, freezing, and covered in a thin layer of moisture that felt unnatural beneath his fingers.
He pushed himself upward, but his body immediately betrayed him. His arms trembled violently, his muscles weak and unfamiliar, as though he had spent years trapped inside a body that was not his own.
Then his stomach twisted.
A sudden spasm forced him forward, and he coughed violently. Something thick and foul spilled from his mouth onto the floor.
Marco froze.
It was blood.
But not the blood he remembered from the highway.
This was dark, almost black, with a strange oily sheen that reflected the flickering candlelight around him.
Before he could comprehend what he was seeing, pain exploded through his skull.
The agony was unbearable.
Memories rushed into his mind with the force of a collapsing wave. They were not his memories, but they filled him completely. Faces he had never known. Places he had never visited. Words spoken in languages his tongue had never learned.
He saw dark chambers buried beneath stone.
He smelled burning flesh, ancient incense, and something far worse.
He felt the final moments of another person's life.
A young man.
A stranger.
Someone whose body had been broken by a ritual beyond his understanding.
And in that final moment, there had been only one desperate desire.
To escape.
Marco clenched his teeth as the memories faded.
I died.
The realization came slowly, but there was no denying it.
The truck. The crash. The highway.
I was dead.
Yet his lungs still moved.
His heart still beat.
Whatever had happened, he was alive.
As the pain inside his skull began to fade, Marco slowly lifted his head and forced himself to examine his surroundings.
This was not the darkness of death.
It was something older.
The chamber around him was carved from black stone, illuminated only by rows of flickering candles arranged in a precise pattern. The air was thick with the scent of myrrh, sour wine, and old dust.
Only then did he realize where he was.
He sat in the center of a massive ritual circle.
A pentagram had been carved into the stone floor, its markings filled with a substance that looked disturbingly similar to the blood he had just vomited.
The silence surrounding him did not last.
Fabric shifted in the darkness beyond the candlelight.
Figures emerged from the shadows.
They wore robes as dark as midnight, their clothing swallowing the weak glow of the flames. Strange symbols covered their garments, twisting root patterns that seemed almost alive whenever the candlelight touched them.
They did not look at Marco with fear.
They looked at him with reverence.
One figure stepped forward.
He was taller than the others, his sleeves decorated with strange sigils resembling roots twisting beneath dead earth. His hood concealed most of his face, but Marco could still see the sharp outline of his features and the coldness in his eyes.
The stranger approached the edge of the ritual circle and studied him in silence.
Not as a prisoner.
Not as an enemy.
As something that had finally arrived.
The figure raised two fingers, allowing a drop of dark liquid to fall onto the ancient stone.
Then he spoke.
His voice carried the weight of a language that had never belonged to the western kingdoms, a tongue shaped by forgotten ages and shadows.
"Welcome to Asshai, Chosen."
TBC
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