CHAPTER 1 — THE BLACK DOG IN THE ALLEY
The rain fell without sound, as if the sky itself was trying to hide something.
Rain pulled his jacket tighter and quickened his pace through the narrow alley behind the apartment blocks. The streetlight at the far end flickered, its pale glow reflecting off puddles on the cracked concrete. Eleven at night was never a good time to walk alone, but this shortcut had been part of his routine for years.
The cold crept up his spine.
Footsteps echoed behind him—slow, unhurried.
Rain stopped.
He turned around.
The alley was empty.
"…Hello?" he muttered, feeling foolish. Probably just a stray cat.
He walked on.
Tap.
The sound came again, closer this time.
His heartbeat picked up. The air felt heavier, thicker, as if the alley itself was closing in. Ahead, under the flickering streetlight, something stood in the middle of the path.
A dog.
Large. Completely black.
It stood perfectly still, facing him. Rain soaked its fur, yet the body didn't shine the way a wet animal should. Its eyes were worse—empty, hollow, reflecting nothing.
Rain swallowed. "Go on," he said quietly. "Shoo."
The dog didn't move.
A strange sensation crawled into his chest. Not just fear—something deeper. A feeling that this thing should not exist here. Rain continued to fall, but none of it seemed to touch the dog. No droplets slid down its body. No steam rose from its breath.
Rain stepped to the side, trying to pass.
The dog moved with him.
There was no sound. No splash of water. No paw prints left behind.
"It's fine," he whispered to himself. "Just an animal."
His body didn't believe it.
Every instinct screamed at him to run.
Suddenly, the dog vanished.
Rain froze. "What the—"
Pain exploded in his left calf.
He stumbled forward, barely keeping himself upright. There was no wound. No blood. Just an intense cold spreading from the spot where he felt teeth sink in. His breath came in sharp gasps, the world tilting around him.
A low, heavy breathing sounded behind him.
Slowly, he turned.
The dog stood there again—right behind him.
Too close.
There was no time to scream.
The black jaws snapped shut, not on flesh, but on something deeper—something unseen. Cold flooded his body, sinking into his bones, crushing his chest. Aiman felt as if something was being pulled out of him, dragged away piece by piece.
He collapsed to his knees, clutching his chest.
The dog released him and stepped back. For a moment, its form flickered, edges blurring like an image struggling to stay real.
"What… are you?" Rain whispered.
The creature tilted its head, studying him.
Then, without a sound, it melted into the shadows of the alley.
Gone.
Rain tried to stand, but his legs gave out. His breathing was shallow, his chest unbearably hollow. The rain felt heavier now, each drop pressing him closer to the ground.
He looked around desperately, trying to convince himself it hadn't been real.
The alley was empty.
Normal.
Except—
Under the dim streetlight, his own shadow stretched clearly across the wet ground.
But beside it…
There was no shadow of a dog.
His vision darkened at the edges. The world felt distant, muffled.
As consciousness slipped away, Aiman heard something.
Not a voice.
Not a sound.
But a presence—whispering from within.
"You can see me."
Darkness swallowed him whole.
And deep within his blood, something began to move.
CHAPTER 2 — SOMETHING IN THE BLOOD
Rain woke to the sound of rain hitting glass.
For a moment, he didn't know where he was. The ceiling above him was unfamiliar—white, cracked at the corners, faintly stained by age. The smell of antiseptic hung in the air.
A hospital room.
His chest tightened.
Memories rushed back in fragments: the alley, the darkness, the black dog with hollow eyes. The cold that had invaded his body, pulling something out of him.
Rain sat up too fast.
A sharp dizziness hit him, forcing him back onto the bed. His breathing came uneven, his fingers digging into the thin blanket as if it were the only thing keeping him anchored to the world.
"You're awake."
Rain turned his head.
A nurse stood near the door, clipboard in hand. She looked tired, but not alarmed. "You collapsed in the rain last night. A passerby called it in. You're lucky."
Lucky.
Rain didn't answer.
The nurse checked his vitals, shone a light briefly into his eyes, then nodded to herself. "No visible injuries. We'll keep you for observation a bit longer."
Rain stared at his leg.
There was no wound.
No bruise.
Nothing.
Yet the memory of pain still lingered, echoing deep inside him like a phantom sensation.
After she left, silence filled the room again. Rain closed his eyes, trying to steady his breathing. His chest felt… empty. Not weak. Just hollow, like a space had been carved out of him and never filled back in.
He focused on his heartbeat.
Thump.
Thump.
Something felt off.
Between each beat, there was a faint sensation—cold, subtle, moving beneath his skin. Not blood. Not pain.
Something else.
Rain opened his eyes.
The lights above flickered.
He frowned. Coincidence.
As he swung his legs off the bed, a wave of emotion surged up without warning—fear, confusion, anger. His mind replayed the image of the black dog standing under the streetlight, unmoving, watching him.
The cold inside him responded.
The air around his hand darkened.
Not visibly—no smoke, no glow—but Rain felt it. A pressure, like the world was thinning around his fingers. His breath caught.
"What… is this?"
The heart monitor beside his bed spiked sharply.
Startled, Rain pulled his hand back. The pressure vanished instantly, like it had never been there. The monitor returned to normal.
He stared at his palm, pulse racing.
That wasn't imagination.
Later that evening, Rain was discharged. "Probably shock," the doctor said with a shrug. "Get some rest."
Rain nodded and left without argument.
The rain had slowed to a drizzle by the time he stepped outside. The city looked normal—cars passing, people under umbrellas, neon signs reflecting off wet pavement.
Too normal.
As Rain walked home, every shadow felt heavier. Every reflection lingered just a second too long. His senses felt sharpened, as if he were slightly out of sync with the world.
Halfway down the street, he stopped.
There it was again.
That cold sensation.
Not inside him this time—ahead.
Rain slowly lifted his gaze.
Across the street, near a closed convenience store, something crouched beneath the awning. At first glance, it looked like a stray dog curled up against the cold.
Black fur.
Still.
Rain's heart skipped.
Cars passed between them. People walked by without a second glance.
The thing lifted its head.
Hollow eyes met Rain's.
It was the same dog.
His breath hitched. "You're not real," he whispered.
The dog stood.
The world seemed to dim around it, the noise of traffic fading into a distant hum. Rain felt fear claw at his chest—but beneath it, something else stirred.
Anger.
You did this to me.
The cold surged violently.
Pain shot through his arm, sharp and deep, as if his veins were freezing from the inside. Rain cried out, dropping to one knee. The pressure around him exploded outward, invisible but overwhelming.
The dog recoiled.
For the first time, it let out a sound—a low, distorted whine.
Its body flickered, edges tearing like a broken image.
Rain gasped, clutching his arm. "Stop—stop—"
The cold obeyed.
The pressure collapsed inward, snapping back into his body. Rain panted, sweat mixing with rain on his skin.
When he looked up, the dog was gone.
Not faded.
Not retreating.
Gone.
The street returned to normal. Sound rushed back in. People laughed somewhere nearby. A car honked.
Rain stayed there for a long time, shaking.
Slowly, he realized something terrifying.
Whatever that was—
It had reacted to him.
And whatever moved inside his blood…
It wasn't leaving.
CHAPTER 3 — NOT AN ANIMAL
Rain didn't sleep that night.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw hollow black eyes staring back at him. Not in a dream—worse. In memory. Sharp, clear, unblinking.
Morning came quietly, grey light slipping through the curtains. Rain sat on the edge of his bed, elbows on his knees, staring at his hands. They looked normal. Warm. Human.
Yet he could still feel it.
That faint cold beneath his skin.
He stood and went to the bathroom, splashing water on his face. His reflection stared back—pale, tired, but unmistakably real. He leaned closer to the mirror.
For a split second, he thought he saw something behind his reflection.
Nothing was there.
Rain exhaled slowly. "Get it together."
He dressed and left the apartment. If last night had taught him anything, it was this: pretending nothing happened wouldn't make it go away.
Outside, the city moved on. People rushed to work. Shops opened. Life continued, indifferent to whatever had brushed against death in a dark alley.
Rain took out his phone and searched.
"Black dog attacks.""Animal bites no wounds.""Sudden collapse street night."
The results made his stomach sink.
News articles. Police reports. Forum posts.
Different locations. Same pattern.
Victims found unconscious. No visible injuries. Some complained of intense cold before collapsing. A few never woke up.
No animal was ever caught.
Rain stopped walking.
I'm not the first.
The realization weighed heavily on his chest. That thing wasn't following him by coincidence. It was part of something larger—something hidden beneath the surface of everyday life.
He changed direction.
The alley.
He shouldn't go back. Every instinct told him to stay away. But curiosity—and something darker—pulled him forward. The cold inside him stirred faintly, as if approving the decision.
The alley looked ordinary in daylight. Narrow. Damp. Trash bins lined the walls. No blood. No marks. No sign that anything unnatural had ever stood there.
Rain crouched and touched the ground where he'd fallen.
Nothing.
Yet when he closed his eyes, the memory returned vividly—the pressure, the cold, the sensation of something being torn away.
He stood quickly, heart racing.
"That thing," he muttered. "It wasn't an animal."
Animals didn't vanish without sound. They didn't leave no tracks. They didn't bite without breaking skin.
And they didn't react to emotion.
Rain's hand clenched.
Last night, the moment fear turned into anger, the cold inside him had surged. The thing had recoiled.
It felt me.
A shiver ran down his spine.
As he stepped out of the alley, something caught his attention across the street. A stray cat sat near a vending machine, its fur bristling, eyes fixed on nothing.
Rain followed its gaze.
Empty space.
The cat hissed, then bolted.
Rain swallowed.
He started noticing things after that.
Shadows that didn't match their owners. Reflections that lagged a fraction too long. Places where the air felt thin, brittle, like glass ready to crack.
At a pedestrian crossing, he felt it clearly for the first time.
The cold inside him pulled—gently, insistently.
Rain turned his head.
Near the entrance of a closed shop stood a man. Mid-thirties, average build, plain clothes. The kind of face that blended easily into a crowd.
The man was watching him.
Rain frowned.
People passed between them, blocking his view for a second. When Rain looked again, the man was closer.
Too close.
Their eyes met.
Nothing about the man looked threatening. No distorted features. No hollow eyes. No obvious wrongness.
And yet—
Rain's heart sank.
He looked away for a moment, pretending to check his phone. When he looked back—
The man was gone.
Rain blinked. "What…?"
Panic crept up his throat. He scanned the crowd, searching for any sign of him.
Nothing.
A strange pressure formed behind his eyes, like a headache without pain. Rain tried to recall the man's face.
Hair color?
Brown. Or black?
His nose—
Rain froze.
He couldn't remember.
Not clearly.
All that remained was a vague impression. A sense of absence.
His pulse quickened. "That's not normal."
The cold inside him shifted, restless.
Rain suddenly understood something terrifying.
The black dog wasn't the only one.
It wasn't even the most dangerous.
Some of them didn't hunt like animals.
Some of them walked among people.
Rain stood there, surrounded by life, by noise and movement—yet felt utterly alone.
Whatever this world truly was…
He was seeing it now.
And there was no going back.
CHAPTER 4 — THE MAN FROM THE BLACK REGISTRY
Rain Bright hated hospitals.
The smell of disinfectant, the low hum of machines, the way everything felt too clean—too sterile for a world that was clearly rotting underneath. He sat upright on the narrow bed, hands resting on his knees, staring at the rain streaking down the window. London looked the same as always from here: grey, indifferent, alive.
And yet, something in him wasn't.
His chest still felt… thinner. Not empty, not painful—just less than before. Like a candle that had been blown out but continued to smoke.
"You're healing faster than expected."
Rain flinched.
A man stood near the door. He hadn't heard it open.
Mid-thirties. Tall. Black coat despite being indoors. His hair was neatly kept, his expression calm in a way that felt rehearsed. Not a doctor. Not police.
"Who are you?" Rain asked.
The man stepped forward and placed a leather folder on the side table. "Marcus Hale. I represent the Black Registry."
Rain frowned. "Never heard of it."
"Of course you haven't," Marcus replied evenly. "That's the point."
He opened the folder. Inside were photos.
The alley. The streetlight. Rain collapsing onto the pavement.
Rain's stomach tightened. "You were watching me?"
"No," Marcus said. "We arrived after. But we've been tracking it for years."
Rain looked up sharply. "The dog."
Marcus's eyes flickered — just for a moment.
"Yes," he said. "The Hound of Holloway. Class Three Manifestation. Predatory. Intelligent enough to stalk. Rare enough that most people die before anyone notices."
Rain swallowed. "I didn't die."
"No," Marcus agreed. "You didn't."
He closed the folder.
"Because you awakened."
The word echoed in Rain's head. "Awakened… to what?"
Marcus stepped closer. The air around him felt heavier, the same way it had in the alley — but controlled. Contained.
"To Death Energy."
Rain's fingers twitched.
Something inside him stirred in response, like a muscle remembering how to move.
"Everyone produces it," Marcus continued. "Dead cells. Emotional residue. Grief, hatred, despair — all of it decays. Normally, the body discards it. You didn't."
Rain laughed weakly. "That's insane."
"So is a ghost disguised as a dog," Marcus replied calmly. "Yet it bit you."
Rain had no answer.
Marcus leaned against the wall, arms crossed. "Most people leak Death Energy without knowing it. It attracts Manifestations. That's why hauntings cluster around tragedy. But a very small percentage—less than one in a hundred thousand—can circulate it."
Rain's chest tightened. "And that does what?"
"It lets you interact with things that aren't alive," Marcus said. "And kill them properly."
Rain remembered the cold. The pulling. The sense of something being torn from him.
"It tried to eat me," Rain said quietly.
"Yes," Marcus agreed. "It targeted your Life Energy. But your Death Energy reacted on instinct. It resisted."
Rain looked down at his hands. They looked normal.
"They don't teach this in school," he muttered.
Marcus allowed himself a thin smile. "No. We recruit instead."
Rain looked up. "Recruit?"
The lights flickered.
For a brief second, Rain saw something else reflected in the window. Not his face.
A shadow, standing too close.
Marcus's expression hardened. He turned sharply, his presence flaring — Rain felt it this time. A pressure in the air, like standing near high voltage.
The shadow vanished.
Marcus exhaled slowly. "That answers the last question."
Rain's heart pounded. "What question?"
"Whether you're already visible to them," Marcus said. "You are."
Rain clenched his fists. "So what now?"
Marcus met his gaze.
"Now you choose," he said. "You can walk out of here and pretend this never happened. The Manifestations will keep coming. Stronger ones. Smarter ones."
Rain already knew the answer.
"And the other option?" he asked.
Marcus held out a black card. No logo. Just an address near the Thames.
"You come with me," he said. "You learn control. You learn survival."
Rain took the card.
The moment his fingers touched it, something inside him answered.
Not fear.
Not anger.
Acceptance.
Outside, the rain fell harder.
And somewhere in London, something old turned its head — and noticed Rain Bright for the first time
CHAPTER 5 — CONTROL IS NOT POWER
The Black Registry building did not look important.
Rain Bright stood across the street, staring at it in disbelief. No guards. No fences. Just a narrow brick structure squeezed between a closed bakery and a laundrette near the Thames. The sign above the door was faded and unremarkable.
CITY RECORDS — ARCHIVE ACCESS
"That's it?" Rain muttered.
Marcus Hale had already crossed the street. "Appearances matter," he said without turning back. "Which is why we avoid them."
Inside, the building changed.
The moment Rain stepped through the door, the air shifted. The noise of London—cars, voices, distant sirens—vanished as if swallowed whole. The corridor stretched longer than the building should allow, lit by soft white lights embedded directly into the ceiling.
Rain's chest tightened.
Not fear.
Recognition.
"So," he said slowly, "this place is… not normal."
Marcus nodded. "Good. That means you're sensing residual fields already."
They walked deeper inside. Doors lined the hallway, each marked with symbols Rain didn't recognize—circles broken by lines, inverted triangles, numbers scratched out and rewritten.
They stopped at a wide steel door.
TRAINING HALL — LEVEL ONE
Marcus placed his hand against the surface. The door unlocked with a dull thrum and slid open.
The room beyond was massive. Concrete floors. Reinforced walls. Observation windows high above. The air felt dense, like pressure before a storm.
Standing in the center was a woman in a grey coat, arms folded.
"New one?" she asked.
"Rain Bright," Marcus replied. "Untrained. Recently awakened."
She studied Rain with sharp, assessing eyes. "He looks fragile."
"I can hear you," Rain said.
"Good," she replied flatly. "I'm Eleanor Finch. If you break yourself in my hall, that's your problem."
Rain opened his mouth to respond—
—and the floor shifted.
A dark shape rose from the concrete, pulling itself upward like smoke forced into solid form. It took the shape of a man, but wrong—too tall, joints bending at impossible angles, its face smooth and featureless.
Rain's breath caught.
"That's not—" he started.
"A Class One Construct," Finch said calmly. "Artificial. Safe. Mostly."
Mostly.
Rain felt it immediately.
The thing wasn't alive.
But it wasn't dead either.
His chest burned as something inside him reacted violently, Death Energy surging without permission. His vision blurred, edges darkening.
"Do not release it all at once," Marcus warned. "Circulate first."
"I don't know how!" Rain snapped.
The construct took a step forward.
Instinct took over.
Rain raised his hand.
The world collapsed inward.
Cold flooded his veins, sharper than before, ripping through his body like shattered glass. The air screamed—not audibly, but internally. Rain felt his Death Energy tear free, uncontrolled, slamming into the construct.
The thing froze.
Then shattered.
Gone.
Silence followed.
Rain staggered.
His knees hit the floor hard. Pain flared up his legs, but it felt distant. His chest felt worse—hollow, violently so, like he'd torn something vital out of himself.
He gasped for air.
Too shallow.
Too fast.
"Stop," Finch said sharply. "You're over-leaking."
"I—can't—" Rain croaked.
Marcus was beside him in an instant, hand gripping Rain's shoulder. The pressure returned—controlled, stabilizing.
"Breathe," Marcus ordered. "In. Hold. Out."
Rain obeyed blindly.
Slowly, painfully, the burning eased. The room came back into focus.
The construct did not reform.
Finch stared at the empty space, then at Rain. "You erased it."
Rain looked at his trembling hands. "Isn't that the point?"
"No," she said coldly. "The point is control. What you did was self-destruction with results."
Rain laughed weakly. "That sounds like a compliment."
"It isn't," Marcus said. "If that had been a real Manifestation, you would've killed it—and yourself."
Rain's smile faded.
"So I failed," he said quietly.
"Yes," Finch replied without hesitation.
Rain swallowed. "Then why am I still here?"
Marcus met his eyes.
"Because you survived your own output," he said. "And because Death Energy responded to your will, even untrained."
Finch turned away. "Which means if we don't teach him fast, London's going to notice."
Rain pushed himself up, legs shaking.
Outside, unseen and unheard, something pressed closer to the city's edge.
And for the first time, Rain Bright understood the truth:
Power wasn't about destruction.
It was about not dying when you used it
CHAPTER 6 — THE COST OF BREATHING
Rain Bright woke up choking.
Not on air—on cold.
It clung to his lungs like frost, every breath scraping on the way in and out. His eyes snapped open to a dim ceiling lined with narrow lights. The room smelled faintly of metal and antiseptic, sharper than the hospital.
He tried to sit up.
Pain exploded through his chest.
"Don't," a voice said.
Rain groaned and collapsed back onto the bed. Eleanor Finch stood at the foot of it, tablet in hand, expression unreadable as always.
"What happened?" Rain rasped.
"You exceeded your threshold," she replied. "By a lot."
Rain swallowed. His throat felt raw. "I destroyed the construct."
"Yes," Finch said. "And you nearly destroyed your circulatory system along with it."
She turned the tablet so he could see. The screen showed a ghostly scan of his body—veins outlined in faint grey, branching through his chest and arms.
Some of them were cracked.
"What am I looking at?" Rain asked quietly.
"Micro-fractures," Finch said. "Not in your bones. In the pathways that carry Death Energy."
Rain's stomach tightened. "That's… bad?"
"It's permanent," she said.
The word landed harder than the pain.
Permanent.
"But I just started," Rain said. "I didn't know—"
"Which is why we don't forgive mistakes," Finch cut in. "Death Energy isn't forgiving. It's residue. Waste. The body was never meant to hold it."
She locked the tablet and stepped closer. "Rule one: you cannot release more Death Energy than your body can circulate. You don't get stronger by forcing it. You get broken."
Rain stared at the ceiling. "So I'm damaged already."
"Yes."
He let out a shaky breath. "Great."
Marcus Hale appeared in the doorway, coffee in hand. "On the bright side," he said mildly, "you didn't die."
Rain shot him a look. "That's your comfort speech?"
Marcus shrugged. "It works surprisingly often."
He pulled a chair over and sat beside the bed. "Finch didn't mention the interesting part."
Rain frowned. "There's an interesting part?"
Marcus leaned forward. "Your fractures are stable."
Finch sighed. "Barely."
"They should've collapsed completely," Marcus continued. "Most first-time overflows do. Which means your system adapted instead of failing."
Rain hesitated. "Is that… good?"
"It means you now have a limiter," Finch said flatly.
Rain looked between them. "A what?"
Marcus gestured to Rain's chest. "Those fractures restrict flow. Think of it like a damaged valve. You physically cannot output at full capacity anymore."
Rain's heart sank. "So I'm weaker now."
"No," Finch corrected. "You're alive now."
She turned and walked toward the far wall. "Rule two: Death Energy scars you. Every misuse leaves a mark. Enough marks, and you don't come back from them."
Rain flexed his fingers. He could still feel it—Death Energy, faint but present, like a low hum beneath his skin.
"So what happens if I ignore the rules?" he asked.
Finch stopped. "Your Life Energy collapses. Organ failure. Identity loss. Or," she glanced back at him, "you become something else."
Rain's chest tightened. "Like the Manifestations."
"Yes."
Silence settled between them.
Marcus stood. "There's one more rule you should know."
Rain braced himself. "Of course there is."
Marcus's voice softened. "Rule three: Emotion shapes output. Anger increases raw power. Grief increases range. Despair increases efficiency."
Rain's breath caught.
"That night in the alley," Marcus continued, "you weren't brave. You weren't skilled. You were empty."
Rain looked away.
"Which is why the Hound failed to consume you," Marcus finished. "You had nothing it could fully take."
Finch turned back. "Training starts tomorrow. Circulation drills only. No constructs. No combat."
Rain closed his eyes. His chest still hurt. His body felt wrong.
But underneath it all, something steadied.
Control.
Outside the Registry, London breathed on—crowded, loud, oblivious.
And deep underground, something humanoid paused on a Tube platform, head tilting slightly—
—as if listening to a heartbeat it recognized.