The city was too quiet tonight.
From her perch atop the half-collapsed building, Kaelen could see the sprawl stretch endlessly, streets glowing with thin ribbons of neon. It wasn't silence in the ordinary sense—distant engines still hummed, and faint electronic chimes drifted from somewhere below—but the city's usual restlessness had dulled. The air carried a hush, as though the metropolis itself was holding its breath.
Kaelen pulled her coat tighter against the wind. Rust and ozone mixed in the air, the familiar scent of decay clinging to the rooftops. She had been here countless times, wandering these forgotten levels, but tonight felt different. Unsteady.
The device in her hand pulsed faintly with light.
It wasn't heavy, yet her grip tightened around it, as if she feared it might slip through her fingers and vanish. A rectangular frame of blackened metal, hollow at the center, humming like a caged heart. From the emptiness inside, faint strands of luminescence spilled outward, unraveling into the night.
She had found it two nights ago in the undercity, buried beneath shattered tiles and dust. At first she mistook it for scrap, another useless relic of the old world. But when she touched it, it had awakened.
And now it wouldn't leave her alone.
The veil it conjured unfurled again—long, weightless sheets of light, rippling as though caught in a current no one else could see. It glowed in shades of indigo and violet, scattering sparks that reminded her of stars. The veil stretched outward, pointing toward the distant horizon where the Spire cut into the sky.
Her breath caught.
The Spire. That monolith of glass and steel, its upper levels still pulsing with light even though no one claimed to live there anymore. She had avoided it for years, ever since—
Kaelen forced the thought away. The past was a wound best left untouched.
But the frame wanted her to go back. She could feel its insistence in the way the light strained forward, trembling, eager to lead her across the city.
A shiver ran down her spine. "Why me?" she murmured. Her voice was nearly swallowed by the wind.
The veil rippled, as though in answer.
Then she heard it.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
A sound carried across the rooftop, steady and deliberate. Not the random clatter of debris, not the skitter of animals. Footsteps.
Kaelen turned, every nerve taut, her free hand brushing the hilt of the blade hidden beneath her coat. The device's light dimmed, as though retreating into itself, but its faint hum grew sharper.
From the shadows, a figure stepped forward.
Tall. Composed. His coat shimmered faintly in the neon glow, stitched with circuitry that glowed like veins under skin. Across his face was a mask—half metal, half shifting glass—that reflected fragments of the city's light.
His voice, when it came, was low and calm. "Kaelen Seris."
Her chest tightened. He knew her name.
The man moved closer, his steps measured, each one echoing faintly on the rooftop's broken surface. His gaze—or what passed for it behind the mask—fixed on the frame in her hands.
"I see you've awakened it," he said. "That makes things simpler."
Kaelen's grip tightened around the device. "Who are you?" she asked.
The mask tilted slightly, catching the glow of the veil. Beneath its shimmer, she glimpsed eyes—unnatural, fractured with shifting lines of light, like glass breaking in slow motion.
"I am what your world left unfinished," he said."What you choose now will decide whether you move forward… or vanish."
The veil between them flickered, caught by the night wind, scattering motes of light across the rooftop. For a heartbeat, Kaelen thought she saw shapes hidden in the glow—tall figures, standing just out of reach, watching.
The device trembled in her hand.The city held its breath.
And Kaelen understood, dimly, that this was not chance.Something had begun.