"When you begin to doubt yourself… know that something inside you has awakened."
⸻
Luin walked through the market… not to buy anything, but as if his feet were dragging him toward the sounds.
Everything around him felt familiar… far too familiar.
The faces. The voices. Even the smell of burnt bread.
It was as if the city had started repeating itself.
⸻
He passed a man selling wooden lanterns,
his voice hoarse, his gaze… not selling, just watching.
Without looking at Luin, he said:
"Light does not reveal the path… it reveals what you try to hide."
⸻
Luin stopped.
He stared at the vendor, but saw nothing… no awareness, no intent, just a frozen expression.
"Did you say something?"
The man said nothing.
Luin continued… each step heavier than the last.
⸻
As he moved deeper into the market, he felt something strange…
as if the air had changed.
As if an eye, behind every shadow, was watching him without blinking.
⸻
He entered a narrow alley to escape the market's noise,
and found himself before a small, grimy window in what seemed an abandoned building.
He was about to continue…
but stopped.
⸻
Behind the glass… a shadow.
Still. Unmoving.
Then… gone.
⸻
Luin stared, eyes wide.
He swore someone had been watching him through the window,
but now, nothing remained but a tattered gray curtain, moving slightly… though the air was still.
⸻
"This is not my imagination."
"I can feel it."
⸻
A voice whispered inside him:
"The church does not look immediately… but it never closes its eyes."
⸻
He kept walking, but his steps were no longer confident.
Doubt… was unraveling him, stone by stone.
⸻
The shadow followed him, even as he entered the side square of the old city.
The merchants' voices dimmed, people became fewer… and quieter.
There, at the corner, a man in tattered clothes crouched, muttering words no one could understand.
Everyone ignored him… but Luin stopped.
Something in the man's voice stirred something ancient inside him.
⸻
He approached.
The man didn't lift his head, but suddenly said:
"Blood screams where skin is silent."
⸻
Luin froze.
This was no delirium.
⸻
"What did you say?"
The man slowly raised his face.
His eyes were sunken, yet glimmered strangely… as if they weren't looking at the present.
"The first seal… bleeds when you try to deny it."
⸻
Luin gasped.
He stepped closer.
"Who are you? Who sent you?"
The man smiled.
A torn, unsettling smile.
"Don't you know yet? You sent yourself… to us."
⸻
Then he laughed.
A dry, painful laugh… and spat black blood onto the ground.
⸻
Luin reached out, but the beggar recoiled, voice tense:
"Do not come closer. You are still raw."
"And what lies within your skin… has not fully awakened."
Then he glanced behind Luin.
⸻
Luin turned instinctively.
No one.
Yet the air had shifted again, as if something had stood there… and vanished the moment he looked.
⸻
When he faced the beggar again…
he was gone.
⸻
"…How?"
He looked around. No trace.
As if the man had never been there.
⸻
The inner voice returned:
"Not all whispers are madness."
"Some are… warnings."
⸻
Luin stood alone, shadows longer than usual.
He felt that every corner of the city… hid more than it revealed.
And something—inside or outside—had begun to stir.
⸻
He returned to his room before midnight.
The silence was suffocating…
as if everything waited for a scream that hadn't come.
⸻
He closed the door, leaning his back against it.
A strange weight pressed on him—not fatigue… but from within.
Something nameless.
⸻
He sat, whispering to himself:
"I didn't ask for this…"
"Nor did I seek it."
"Everything that happened… was coincidence, right?"
But he didn't convince himself.
⸻
He looked at his hand… the one that had struck the man in the market.
Then at his forearm… the place of the mark.
"And if it was coincidence… why did the symbol return?"
"Why do I hear a voice inside me… whenever I calm down?"
"As if… I am less than my body."
"As if… I am not me."
⸻
Suddenly, he moved to the cracked mirror beside the bed.
He stared at his reflection.
"Luin…?"
"Is this really my name?"
"Or was I named after… what disappeared from me?"
⸻
His eyes looked strange in the glass.
As if they held a color he couldn't recall.
He leaned closer.
"You resemble me… but you are not me."
⸻
Then he heard it again.
The whisper.
"The mirror is just another skin…"
"…and something inside you has been trying to escape for years."
⸻
Luin recoiled, as if the voice pushed him.
He fell to the ground, gasping.
"I am cracking from the inside… and no one notices."
"Not even me."
⸻
Gradually, his breath steadied.
He remained seated, as if the floor held him from falling deeper.
But the calm… did not last.
⸻
Crreeaaak…
A slow sound… from the window.
He turned slowly.
It opened on its own.
⸻
The wind carried more than cold—
it brought a strange scent… like burnt incense,
and a small torn piece of paper fell to the floor.
⸻
He crawled to it and picked it up.
No words…
but it bore the same symbol as his forearm.
A black circle, curved with delicate lines, like living ink.
⸻
He whispered:
"This is no coincidence…"
"Someone… is watching me."
⸻
He approached the window slowly…
No one.
But at the far end of the alley,
a man in a long gray cloak stood, hood covering his face.
He did not move. He did not look at him.
Yet Luin felt his gaze.
Piercing. Splitting him.
⸻
The man vanished suddenly, swallowed by the fog.
⸻
Luin closed the window quickly, locking it.
His back pressed to the wall, chest rising and falling as if he had run miles.
⸻
He whispered:
"The church…?"
"Or something older?"
"Who knows about me… before I even knew myself?"
⸻
And the voice… returned from the depths.
"Those who watch… do not want you to awaken."
"But the first seal… opened the door."
⸻
That night, he did not sleep.
He could not.
Even silence… was not silent.
⸻
He lay in bed, eyes on the slanted ceiling,
heart pounding as if someone knocked from within.
⸻
"Every time I try to calm down, something awakens."
"Not just memory… as if someone is trapped inside me… screaming."
He squeezed his eyes shut.
But inside was not dark.
He saw…
⸻
Bodies hanging, swaying in the darkness.
Children's cries… muffled by old rags.
Symbols carved into the walls… moving.
⸻
Then… he saw his own face.
But it was not his.
An older, colder, hollow-eyed version.
⸻
That face said:
"You are not you."
"But what remains."
⸻
He opened his eyes suddenly.
Sweat pouring down.
As if his body didn't know if it was alive… or something else.
⸻
He sat slowly, wiping his trembling face.
"This… is not a dream."
"This… is a door."
⸻
He spoke aloud for the first time:
"The seal… did not release power."
"It released… something different inside me."
⸻
He turned to the closed window.
And in the glass… he did not see his reflection clearly.
But he saw a shadow behind him.
⸻
He spun quickly…
No one.
But the feeling remained.
⸻
End of Chapter Six