Everything was dark.
Matteo tried to move, but his limbs felt buried in stone. His chest tightened with each shallow breath, like something invisible was pressing down on him. Then—
Thudd.
A metallic echo rippled through the void.
Thudd.
Again, closer this time.
He tried to open his eyes, but they refused. The sound returned—thudd, thudd, thudd—a rhythm that felt alive, like the beating of some monstrous heart hidden deep beneath the earth.
Suddenly, Matteo's eyes snapped open. He gasped violently, dragging in air as though he had been drowning moments ago. His vision blurred, then sharpened—showing him a ceiling, rough and uneven. Not his ceiling. Not his room.
No. It was rock.
Cold moisture dripped from above, tapping against his skin. He sat up too fast, his breathing wild, his wrists instinctively tugging against the chains that were no longer there. His head spun. He blinked hard, trying to remember. The last thing he recalled was his room—the chains on his bed, the dim light of his lamp, the prayer he whispered before forcing himself to sleep.
Now, all that remained was darkness.
He looked around and saw it—a faint, pale glow flickering from somewhere deeper in the cave. He stumbled toward it, every step echoing softly. His bare feet brushed against damp earth and something else—something sticky.
When he lowered his gaze, he froze.
Blood.
It glistened dark and heavy in the dim light, a trail smeared across the rocks as though something had been dragged. His heart hammered. He took another step, and the metallic scent hit him—raw, fresh, wrong.
Matteo's stomach turned. He wanted to look away, but curiosity pulled his eyes forward until he saw it.
A body.
He stumbled back, his hand covering his mouth. But it wasn't human. The thing's limbs were twisted, black as coal and shaped like a mockery of flesh. Its chest was ripped open, ribs curling outward like thorns. Its eyes—or what remained of them—were hollow, and from its mouth hung pieces of what looked like metal chains, snapped and bent.
The sight clawed at Matteo's mind. He wanted to scream, but no sound came out. His throat felt locked, his heart pounding so hard it hurt.
"What the hell…" he whispered, voice trembling. "What the hell is that?"
He stepped back, but his heel struck something hard. He turned, and there—carved into the rock—was a symbol. Faint, glowing faintly red as if breathing. It pulsed once, twice, in time with his heartbeat.
He reached out, almost unconsciously, and the air around him shifted. A low hum filled the cave, and for a moment, the shadows seemed to move—not like flickers of light, but like living shapes that twisted and coiled.
Then he heard it.
A voice.
Faint at first, whispering like wind brushing through cracks in stone.
"ahhh…"
Matteo froze. The creepp cold voice slithered into his ears, deep and cold. He spun around, but there was no one. Only darkness.
"Who's there?" he shouted, his voice breaking. "Where am I?!"
No answer only the sound of dripping water, and the whisper again, clearer this time.
"You cannot chain what is cursed."
His hands trembled. He looked down and saw faint marks on his wrists the same marks from the chains he'd used to bind himself before sleeping. They burned slightly, as if freshly branded.
Matteo stumbled backward, his mind spinning.
"This isn't real," he muttered. "It's just another dream… it has to be."
But then the cave breathed. He felt it the air moving, slow and steady, as though the entire place had lungs. The walls seemed to shift, the ground pulsing under his feet.
He backed away, desperate to find an exit. The faint glow in the distance flickered again, stronger now, revealing more of the cave. Strange markings covered the walls symbols, wings, eyes, and something that looked like a man kneeling before a figure of light. But the figure's face was carved away, scratched out violently.
Matteo reached the edge of the light and saw an opening ahead, narrow and suffocating. He didn't care. He ran.
But before he could move another step, the voice came again this time from right behind him.
"Run, fallen one. But remember… even in light, your shadow kneels."
A cold wind rushed past him, extinguishing the faint light.
Darkness swallowed everything.
And somewhere deep in that black void, something laughed a sound too human and too broken to belong to a monster.
Matteo clutched his chest and screamed.
But no one heard.
Only the cave answered, echoing his cry back to him
softly, mockingly
as if the darkness itself was alive.
His knees hit the cold stone floor with a dull thud. The cave seemed to breathe around him, the sound of laughter growing nearer low, cold, and impossibly human.
Matteo clutched his head and whispered, trembling, "This is not real… not real… not real…"
The words spilled out of his mouth like a broken prayer.
"This is a dream… a dream… just another dream…"
But the laughter didn't fade. It grew.
It circled him, echoing through the walls like something unseen was moving in the dark, stepping closer with every breath he took. His heartbeat raced until it felt like thunder trapped inside his ribs. The air thickened, colder, heavier, as if the cave itself wanted to swallow him whole.
He squeezed his eyes shut. "Wake up. Wake up, wake up, wake up"
The laughter stopped.
Silence.
Then, he heard a whisper right beside his ear.
"You can't wake up from yourself."
Matteo's body stiffened. A chill raced down his spine, paralyzing him. He tried to open his mouth to scream, but his jaw locked tight. The air grew dense, almost liquid, pressing against his chest until he couldn't breathe.
Then, suddenly his eyes rolled back.
For a moment, everything went white. His irises faded into thin, ghostly rings before the world around him collapsed into shadow. His body trembled once, then went still. The sound of chains echoed faintly metal dragging against stone.
And then
He jolted awake.
Matteo's eyes shot open, a sharp gasp tearing from his throat as he clutched the pavement beneath him. His vision spun, his breath heavy and uneven. The air was different no longer damp or suffocating, but crisp and cold.
When his senses caught up, he realized he wasn't in the cave anymore.
He was kneeling in the middle of a street.
Cars passed by in the distance. The sky was gray, heavy with clouds, and the world buzzed faintly with city noise muffled, distorted, almost unreal. People walked past him, some slowing down to stare, others whispering, shaking their heads before moving on.
To them, he was just another man on the edge dirty, lost, trembling on the cold pavement.
Matteo's hands trembled as he looked down at himself. His clothes were torn, stained with dirt and something dark that looked like dried blood. His chest rose and fell in shallow bursts as confusion and fear tangled in his mind.
"What the…" he muttered, his voice hoarse. "What the hell just happened?"
He tried to stand, but his knees gave out. His whole body felt weak, hollow, like something had been drained from him. He glanced at the pavement again and froze.
There were faint black marks where his hands had touched the ground. Not shadows stains. Like soot, or ashes. He wiped them quickly, but they smeared instead of disappearing.
Matteo's heart dropped.
He stumbled to a nearby window, using it as a mirror. His reflection stared back at him pale, disoriented, his eyes slightly darker than before. But when the light shifted, he caught something behind him in the glass something faint, black, and feathered.
He turned around instantly nothing. Just the street.
But when he looked back at the glass, the faint image still lingered a shadow of wings stretching from his back before fading into smoke.
"No…" he whispered. "No, this can't be real."
He pressed his hand against his chest, feeling his heartbeat race under his skin. Everything around him felt too real the sound of footsteps, the faint honk of cars, the cold wind brushing past his face.
Had he truly woken up?