The first thing Silas noticed was the smell.
It wasn't the metallic tang of blood, nor the sulfurous stench of the mines. It was the smell of damp earth and cheap, rotting pine.
The second thing he noticed was the silence. It was heavy, physical, pressing against his eardrums like deep water.
Silas opened his eyes.
Darkness. Absolute, suffocating darkness.
He tried to sit up, but his forehead collided with rough wood mere inches from his face.
Thud.
Pain bloomed behind his eyes, sharp and immediate. But strangely, it faded just as quickly, replaced by a dull, cold numbness.
Silas reached out. His hands brushed against wooden walls on both sides. Narrow. Confining.
He kicked out. His boots hit a wooden board at the bottom.
I am in a box, Silas realized. His thoughts were uncomfortably clear, detached from the panic that should have been overwhelming him. I am buried.
He took a breath. The air was thin, stale, and running out.
A normal man would have screamed. A normal man would have hyperventilated, using up the remaining oxygen in seconds.
But Silas didn't scream.
He placed his hand over his chest.
Thump.
...
Thump.
...
Thump.
His heart was beating. But it was slow. Terrifyingly slow. Like a clock winding down. Roughly thirty beats per minute.
I am not dead, he thought, staring into the dark. But I am certainly not well.
[The Exit]
He didn't waste time banging on the lid. The weight pressing down on the wood told him there was at least six feet of dirt above him.
He braced his hands against the lid. He bent his knees, pressing his back against the bottom of the coffin.
He pushed.
Creak.
The cheap pine groaned.
He pushed harder. He felt a surge of strength in his muscles—a cold, hydraulic power that didn't feel entirely human.
CRACK.
The lid splintered.
Instantly, the heavy, wet soil collapsed into the box.
It filled his mouth, his nose, his eyes.
Silas didn't panic. He clawed.
He dug upwards, swimming through the earth. His fingers, stiff and cold, acted like hooks. He didn't feel the sharp stones cutting his skin. He only felt the objective: Up.
One foot. Three feet. Six feet.
His hand broke the surface.
He pulled himself out, gasping—not for air, but for space.
He rolled onto the wet grass, coughing up black mud.
[The Grey World]
Silas lay on his back, staring at the sky.
There were no stars. The sky was a bruised purple, choked by the industrial smog coming from the valley below. The moon was a pale, sickly crescent, looking like a cataract in a giant eye.
He sat up and looked around.
He was in a graveyard. Not a respectable one with marble headstones and iron fences. This was a Potter's Field—a dumping ground for the poor, the unknown, and the unwanted.
Rows of mound-like graves stretched out into the mist. Some had wooden crosses; most had nothing.
And there was his own grave—an open wound in the earth, with a shattered coffin visible at the bottom.
"Who buried me?" Silas whispered.
His voice sounded raspy, dry as old parchment.
He looked at his hands. They were pale. Abnormally pale. Under the moonlight, his veins looked like grey spiderwebs beneath the skin.
He focused on a nearby tree.
For a second, his vision shifted.
The world turned grey. He saw faint, translucent Threads drifting from the graves, dissipating into the air.
Spirit Vision, his mind supplied the term. He didn't know how he knew it. It felt like an instinct, etched into his brain by a branding iron.
I have changed, Silas realized. I am no longer just Silas Vane.
He remembered the term from the folklore of the mines.
A Beyonder.
Someone who had swallowed the madness to gain power.
Sequence 9: Corpse Collector.
[The Inventory]
He patted the pockets of his tattered coat. It was a rough wool coat, stained with mud and oil.
He found two things.
1. A Coin.
It was heavy, made of gold that didn't seem to reflect the moonlight. It had strange runes carved on the rim. On one side, a face of a weeping woman. On the other, a skull with a crown of thorns.
Silas felt a chill when he touched it. It wasn't money. It was a token.
2. A Note.
A crumpled piece of paper, written in hasty, jagged handwriting.
He squinted to read it in the dim light.
"Do not pay the Guide until you reach the Other Side. Trust the cold. Beware the fire."
"Trust the cold," Silas muttered. He felt the chill in his bones. It felt... comfortable. Safe.
He stood up. His legs were stiff, but steady.
He looked down at the grave next to his.
A shovel had been left there, stuck in a pile of dirt. The gravedigger must have been in a hurry, or perhaps he was drunk.
Silas reached out and pulled the shovel free.
The wood handle was smooth. The iron blade was rusted but sharp.
He weighed it in his hand. It felt balanced. It felt like an extension of his arm.
A weapon, he thought. And a tool.
[The Lights Below]
He walked to the edge of the hill.
Below him, nestled in the valley like a festering sore, was the town of Blackwater Creek.
Gas lamps flickered with a sickly yellow light. Smoke poured from the chimneys of the Live Tar refinery, blanketing the streets in smog. The sound of a distant train whistle echoed through the valley—a mournful, lonely shriek.
It was a town of miners, gamblers, and ghosts.
And somewhere down there was the person who put him in that box.
Silas rested the shovel on his shoulder. He adjusted his collar against the wind.
He didn't feel anger. He didn't feel fear.
He felt a cold, professional curiosity.
"Time to go to work," Silas said to the silence.
He began the long walk down the hill, toward the lights of the living.