They say the world ended quietly.
Not with fire or floods, not with thunder or war. But with fear, small, creeping, infectious fear that spread like a whisper in the dark.
What remained of Earth was a divided world, split down the middle like a broken mirror.
In the age of curses, humanity had carved itself into two separate realities. The first was the Sanctuary Sectors, nine gleaming towers of power and privilege, wrapped in shimmering barriers that pushed cursed energy away like invisible shields. Glass spires stretched toward artificial clouds that glowed with soft blue light. Sleek hovercrafts glided between neon-bright buildings like silver fish through water. The rich, the powerful, and the sorcerers lived here, safe from rot and horror. Advanced machines cleaned cursed energy from the air they breathed. Robot drones with glowing eyes patrolled the sky day and night. Peace wasn't something they earned, it was something they bought.
Then there were the Deadlands.
These were the places the world forgot, cities with their guts ripped out, buildings that leaned against each other like tired old men, shadows that moved when no one was there to cast them. Here, curses weren't some distant threat you heard about on the news. They were the air you breathed, the water you drank, the walls that surrounded you while you slept. No barriers. No drones. Just you, your wits, and whatever luck you had left.
Curses didn't show up on a schedule like some twisted mailman. They appeared when fear got too thick, too heavy, sudden and hungry. A whispered doubt in the dark. A buried trauma that wouldn't stay buried. A sleepless night filled with what-ifs. That was all it took. Sometimes two spawned in a single day. Sometimes none at all. But always, like death and taxes, they came.
In one forgotten corner of the Deadlands, half-buried under twisted metal and vines that grew where they shouldn't, stood the bones of what had once been a church. Its stone walls were spider-webbed with cracks, green moss creeping through them like nature's graffiti. The bell tower had given up years ago and crashed to the ground in a pile of rubble. But children's laughter still echoed through the courtyard, bright bursts of joy that cut through the gloom like sunlight through storm clouds.
This was the Star Orphanage.
To anyone passing by, it looked like a relic. An old shelter run by some crazy idealist who hadn't gotten the memo that hope was dead. To those who lived within its broken walls, it was something else entirely, home, school, and fortress all rolled into one.
Ten children called those cracked stones home, cared for by a single man who had chosen to stay when everyone else had run: Ezra Blackveil.
The courtyard was a patchwork of grass and concrete, uneven as a gap-toothed smile. In the pale afternoon light, children darted back and forth, barefoot, laughing, hollering like they owned the world.
"Tama, catch!"
A worn rubber ball, more patches than original material, bounced off the crumbling wall and rolled toward a tall girl with hair cropped short as a boy's. She snatched it up with one hand, grinning like she'd just won a prize.
"Try aiming next time, Milo. Unless you were throwing at the wall on purpose?"
The others burst into laughter. Milo planted his hands on his hips and puffed out his chest. "I totally meant to do that! I was testing your reflexes, see? And you... uh... passed!"
"Sure you were," Tama said, tossing the ball up and catching it. "Just like when you 'tested' my reflexes yesterday by throwing your soup at me?"
More laughter. Milo's face turned pink.
Kenji and Kai, the twins who moved like they shared one brain between them, raced along the edge of the courtyard, leaping over chunks of broken stone and tagging each other mid-air. Their feet barely seemed to touch the ground. Irie sat cross-legged on the cracked steps, sketching in a notebook held together with tape and prayers. Her tongue poked out the corner of her mouth as she worked. Sera watched from the shadows near the wall, knees pulled up to her chest, arms wrapped around them tight. Her eyes were always somewhere else, like she was listening to music only she could hear.
And in the middle of it all, quiet as a grave, stood Nox.
He leaned against the base of the old stone altar, watching everything with the kind of stillness that made you forget he was there. His eyes, pale as winter sky, took in every movement, every laugh, every stumble. At fifteen, he was already tall and lean, built like a blade that hadn't been drawn yet. The wind caught the edge of his dark coat and made it flutter like broken wings.
High above them all, Ezra watched from a window that had lost its glass years ago.
The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite a smile, more like the memory of one.
"I don't have time anymore," he whispered to the empty air. His voice was rough, worn thin by years of carrying weight that wasn't his to bear. "The world is crumbling faster than we can patch it together... I need someone to carry this burden. Someone to inherit the Black Star."
His reflection in the broken window looked older than his years, marked by choices that had cost him more than sleep.
He turned away, his boots heavy on the spiral staircase that groaned and creaked like old bones.
By the time he stepped into the courtyard, the children had gathered without being called. They always knew when something serious was coming, it was a skill you learned quick in the Deadlands. Nox remained where he was, unmoved as a statue.
Ezra's long coat shifted in the breeze. He looked over them all, his face unreadable as weathered stone.
"You've all felt it," he began, his voice carrying across the broken space. "Haven't you?"
The laughter died. Even the twins stopped their endless motion.
"The air's getting thicker. Heavier. Like trying to breathe through wet cloth. The shadows are moving faster, staying darker longer. Curses are popping up more often, no warning, no pattern. We can't predict them anymore." He paused, letting his words sink in like stones in deep water. "One showed up near the south corner yesterday. Big as a house and twice as ugly. The day before that, another one sprouted right outside the market ruins like some twisted flower. It's not a matter of if anymore... it's a matter of when."
He let that hang in the air like smoke.
"I want everyone inside before the sun touches the horizon. No exceptions. No arguments. No 'but Ezra, we can handle it' speeches."
Milo's hand shot up like he was in school. "But we've handled strays before! Remember that little shadow-thing last month? Tama punched it so hard it…"
Ezra raised his hand, and Milo's mouth snapped shut. "You're not invincible, no matter what your fifteen-year-old brain tells you. And this isn't some game where you get to respawn if you mess up. Fear breeds curses like flies breed on garbage. And fear..." He looked around at the cracked walls, the broken windows, the world beyond their little sanctuary. "Fear is everywhere these days."
Nyla muttered something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like a curse word. Yuri clutched her sleeves so tight her knuckles went white. Sera stared at the ground like it might have answers written in the cracks.
Ezra's eyes found Nox one more time. The boy met his gaze for a heartbeat, then looked away toward the darkening sky.
---
As the sun bled orange behind the hollow skeleton of the city, the orphanage settled into its evening rhythm. Lanterns flickered to life like fireflies, casting dancing shadows on the walls. Dinner was simple, rice that had seen better days and canned meat that might have been chicken once upon a time. The usual chatter was muted, subdued. The storm brewing in the world outside was seeping through their walls like cold draft.
Later that evening, when the others had gone to bed, Nox sat alone on the rooftop with his legs dangling over the edge. The air up here was thinner, cleaner somehow. He stared at the stars, what few he could see through the blanket of clouds that never seemed to lift anymore.
He remembered the first day, the day Ezra had saved him. He was eight years old, covered in dirt, silent as death itself. He'd been sitting next to a body, buried under a pile of concrete and twisted metal, waiting for something, maybe death, maybe rescue, maybe just an end to the waiting.
Ezra hadn't asked questions. Hadn't demanded explanations or tried to make him talk about feelings.
He had simply knelt down in the rubble and said, "You're not broken, kid. Just waiting to be put back together."
From that day forward, Nox had trained harder than the others. Learned faster. Hit harder. His cursed energy was... different. Strange. It didn't pulse and glow like the others did. It was quiet, dark.
Ezra called it potential.
Nox called it emptiness.
"What am I supposed to become?" he whispered to the stars.
The stars, as usual, had nothing to say.
---
Three floors below, in one of the back rooms where the walls were thin and the shadows thick, Sera whimpered in her sleep. Her breathing came quick and shallow, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Her small fingers dug into the blanket, clutching it like a lifeline.
The fear leaked out of her like steam from a kettle, invisible but real.
It pooled under her bed, dark and hungry.
A sound split the silence, soft but sharp, like glass cracking under pressure.
A shadow peeled away from beneath her mattress, taking shape in the darkness. It twisted and writhed, finding form in the space between nightmare and reality. A mouth appeared, too wide, split in a grin that had too many teeth. Then came the eye, slit like a cat's but glowing red as fresh blood.
The curse had no name.
But it had purpose.
And it was very, very hungry.
Down the hall, Nox sat up in his bed. His pale eyes opened in the dark, and for just a moment, they seemed to glow with their own cold light.
Something was wrong.
Something was here.