A cry of blood, a whisper of bones
The three-story rotting house, once the pride of the neighborhood, had now become a battleground.
Sunlight streamed through the broken windows, painting intricate patterns of shadows and dust on the floor. In the center of the ruined room, amidst chunks of crumbling plaster and swirling particles of decay, two figures stood frozen. The air was thick with mold spores, each breath searing their lungs.
Niya straightened her back, feeling sweat trickle down her spine. Short white strands clung to her damp forehead. Her breathing was steady, her gaze—cold as a blade honed for killing.
"You look... delicious," the Dealer drawled, licking his blackened, cracked lips. His tongue was unnaturally long, covered in bumps, and when it slid over his teeth, Niya saw the corrosive slime eating into the enamel.
His body was a living nightmare—patches of still-human skin alternating with rotting flesh that emitted a sickly-sweet stench of decay. Something writhed beneath his skin.
Niya stayed silent, but her fingers trembled slightly—not from fear, no, from anticipation. She could feel chronoparticles condensing around her knuckles, ready to explode into a temporal vortex at any moment.
The first attack came from an unexpected angle.
The Dealer slammed his palm onto the floor. The parquet blackened instantly, turning into quicksand of rot, and a wave of decay surged toward Niya, leaving bubbling black trails in its wake. She leaped back, but the edge of her boot still grazed the disintegrating wood. The material shriveled, darkened, and crumbled to dust.
"Oops," the Dealer chuckled, his laugh like the screech of rusted hinges. "Looks like I caught you..."
"Tch. Shouldn't have worn these today," she grimaced, examining the ruined shoe. Her expression suggested this was a near-tragedy.
Then her gaze turned icy again.
A snap.
The world froze.
Within a three-meter radius around Niya, time compressed into a dense sphere. Dust hung motionless in the air, sounds distorted into a low hum, as if someone had slowed the recording. She took a step—and was suddenly right in front of the Dealer.
His eyes widened. He didn't even have time to blink.
"What the—"
A punch.
Her fist, wreathed in swirling chronoparticles, slammed into his stomach with such force that rotting flesh splattered, exposing ribs. The Dealer flew backward, crashing through the wall and tumbling outside, leaving a silhouette-shaped hole behind.
Time returned to normal.
With a thunderous crash, the building's facade collapsed, bricks and beams crashing down in a cloud of dust. Niya stepped through the breach, her silhouette stark against the devastation. She wasn't rushing—she knew this wasn't over.
The Dealer was already rising from the ground. Fresh rot knitted his stomach back together, but now his eyes held more than rage—it was hatred, ancient and insane.
"You... ha-ha-ha... you'll pay for this, bitch!" His voice had deepened, roughened, as if multiple guttural tones now spoke through him.
He tore his sleeve, revealing an arm that pulsed and swelled, as if dozens of worms squirmed beneath the skin. Flesh split open, releasing black, tentacle-like appendages coated in sticky mucus. They writhed in the air, snapping with microscopic teeth.
Niya just smirked.
"Pathetic."
She snapped her fingers again.
This time, time didn't slow.
It accelerated.
Within three meters of Niya, the passage of time went berserk. The Dealer's body convulsed—his rot tried to regenerate but couldn't keep up. Skin wrinkled, hair turned white and fell out, nails crumbled.
"N-no!" His voice turned hoarse, ancient, as if dredged from centuries past. "Stop!"
But Niya only watched as his flesh withered, bones crumbling to dust.
"You enslaved yourself to your own power," she said coldly. "The rot consumed others... and finally, it consumed you."
The last thing the Dealer saw was her calm gaze before his body disintegrated into ashes.
Silence.
Niya flexed the fingers of her left hand—where her pinky's last joint should've been, there was now empty space.
"The hell... when did I lose this?" she muttered, inspecting the missing digit.
"Ah!" She blinked. "Wait, where's that idiot?"
She glanced around for the Prophet but froze at a faint sound.
A whimper, coming from beneath the rubble.
Frowning, she moved toward the wreckage.
Pushing aside bricks, she found a little girl—no older than six—in a torn, dirty dress, a scratch on her cheek, and eyes wide with terror. The child trembled, clutching a ragged stuffed rabbit with a missing ear.
"Are... are you a monster?" the girl whispered, scooting back.
Niya froze. She hadn't expected this. Not here, in all this chaos. Someone... alive. Real.
"No," she finally answered, kneeling to meet the girl's height. "Just... careless."
The girl hesitantly looked at Niya's outstretched hand, then up at her face, searching for truth. Finally, she took it—small fingers cold and sticky with dust.
"Where are your parents?" Niya asked, scanning the street. No one was looking for her.
"I dunno..." The girl hugged the rabbit tighter. "Andrei was watching me."
"Andrei... right." Niya kept her voice soft. "What's your name?"
"L... Lera."
"Okay, Lera. Let's find you somewhere safe." She lifted the girl, feeling her cling like she was the last solid thing in the world.
Meanwhile...
The Prophet raced up rickety stairs, breath steady but eyes burning with cold fury. The man in the beige coat bolted upward, his silhouette flickering between peeling walls.
"You're not getting away!" The Prophet's voice cut through the air like a blade.
No answer. The stranger lunged for a window—and jumped. Glass shattered, and for a split second, he hung in midair before vanishing below.
The Prophet didn't hesitate. He leaped after, his jacket billowing like wings.
"Damn—" he hissed midair.
Impact, a roll—and he was back on his feet, still sprinting. The stranger darted around a corner, but the Prophet was just steps behind, nearly matching him turn for turn.
The slums greeted them with howling wind and the stench of rusted water. The Prophet didn't know these streets, but experience kept him oriented. The stranger, though, ran like he'd grown up here—dodging, weaving, hurling trash in his face. But the Prophet kept pace.
"Who are you?!" Closing the gap, he grabbed for the coat.
The man twisted away, fabric slipping through his fingers. Then—gone.
When the Prophet rounded the next corner...
"No one..." he muttered, stunned.
He froze.
"He couldn't have just vanished!"
Scanning the area, his thoughts raced.
"He couldn't have gone far. Need to get higher—maybe the roof?"
Then—a crash.
"What—?"
Thirty meters away, a wall of dust erupted, thick as smoke. Stones clattered against metal. It didn't settle—it moved, swallowing everything in its path.
...
The Prophet sprinted toward it, arriving in under a minute.
"Niya!" he shouted, rushing to her. "Nini!"
"Prophet!" she cheered.
Then his expression darkened. "Where's the house?"
"What?" She blinked.
"The. House."
"Oh. That. Well..." She glanced away. "A phoenix flew by and, uh... boom?"
The Prophet took a deep breath.
"You blew up the damn house, Nini!!!"
"Hey, hey! First—it was him," she pointed at the ashes, "and second—"
"Right, right, he leveled it," the Prophet cut in, then reconsidered. "Wait, no—a magic phoenix did this, and you just happened to be here. So nobody's at fault, and I'm the one who'll get chewed out!"
"And where were you?!" Niya gasped dramatically, rolling her eyes like a soap opera heroine. "Ran off! Abandoned me! A fragile! Helpless! Girl!" She hugged herself, putting on a wounded face. "I could've died of boredom! Or hunger! Or that bald freak!"
He slowly raised a brow, debating whether to dignify that with a response.
"I was chasing the other one," he said flatly.
"Where is he?" She spread her hands.
"Well... He got away..."
"Ohhhh. Well... happens to the best of us," she drawled, then exploded: "Then why the hell did you let him escape?!"
"First of all—" he started, but was interrupted.
A small voice piped up behind Niya:
"Why are you fighting?"
Lera peeked out, her big eyes darting between them.
"Oh! No reason!" Niya instantly switched to a soothing tone.
The Prophet frowned. "Who's this?"
"This is Lera! Our new little friend!" Niya beamed, looking like a smug cat. "Right, friend?" she asked Lera.
"Mhm," the girl nodded, rubbing her fists—a nervous habit.
Niya darted to the Prophet, standing on tiptoe to whisper:
"She's an orphan. Can we take her?"
"What? No," he hissed. "We're—"
"Shhh," she clamped a hand over his mouth. "We just have the debrief left. We'll take her, and then I'll figure it out."
"Mmph—Nini!"
"Pleaaaase?" She clasped her hands, eyes going impossibly wide—a trick that usually worked.
The Prophet hesitated, then caved. "Fine."
"Yes! Thank you!" Before he could rethink, she hugged him hard enough to crack ribs, then dashed back to Lera. "So! Wanna be our little sister?"
"Sister?" Lera looked between them. "Really?"
"Really!" Niya was already imagining braiding her hair.
Then—a rough voice:
"Madloba."
"Aah!" Niya yelped, shielding Lera. "What?! No money!"
The Prophet sighed. "He said thank you."
A large, scarred man stepped forward, his eyes a mix of gratitude and sorrow.
"Madlobt, rom ibrdzivit narkotikebis tsinaagmdeg am rayonshi. Am bich'ma chemi dzma narkotikebze daak'ena," he said, pointing at the Dealer's ashes.
"The hell?" Niya squinted.
The Prophet translated: "Thanks for cleaning up the drugs here. That bastard got my brother hooked. Or something like that."
"Since when do you know Georgian?" Niya stared.
"Uh... backgammon. Long story," he muttered, avoiding her gaze.
"Pozhdja," she grinned, butchering the accent.
The Prophet burst out laughing. "You just mashed pozhaluysta with their accent! You think he understood that?!"
"Jerk," she huffed, but her lips twitched.
The Georgian suddenly smiled. "Don't worry, I understood you perfectly."
"What the—?!" Niya recoiled as Lera giggled.
"Niya. We're late," the Prophet said sharply. "The crystal. Where is it?"
"In the ashes..." She waved at the pile.
Kneeling, the Prophet sifted through the dust until his fingers closed around a cracked, faintly glowing crystal.
"Alright... show me your world," he murmured.
And the world around him shifted.