Time in the slums is not measured in hours or days. It is measured in scars. And with every passing day, it felt as if Prime Eden was trying to swallow me for good.
I was ten years old back then. A dirty, nameless child in an ocean of rust. But I had Aria. However, something began to change.
It started slowly. Aria disappeared. First for hours. Then for entire days. When she returned, she no longer smelled only of rain and engine oil. She smelled of ozone. Of electricity. Of fear. She had new scars on her skin, and in her eyes lay a strange, feverish glow that I could not interpret.
And there was something else. Her hair. Those black strands with the glowing blue... before, they were just a color. But now? In the darkest nights, when the smog swallowed the light of the Upper City, they seemed to glow. Like neon light, only... more alive. More dangerous.
One night, we sat on the roof of our hiding place. The rain fell black and oily from the platforms of the elite above. Aria stared into the sky, at the lights of the sectors we were never allowed to enter.
"There are things bigger than us, Kyro."
Her voice sounded strange. Mysterious. She turned to me, and I swear, for a second, I saw sparks dancing in her eyes.
"The resonance... it is everywhere. In the machines. In the air. In us."
I just stared at her. Resonance? To me, that was just a word from ghost stories. I didn't understand what she meant. I didn't want to understand it either. I just wanted her to stay. I wanted her to stop talking as if she were saying goodbye.
But life in Prime Eden does not give you what you want. It takes.
A week later, the time had come. The night was quiet. Too quiet. Aria stood before me. She wore her old coat, but she seemed different. Stronger. And sadder. She took my face in her hands. Her blue strands glowed like small lightning bolts in the darkness.
"You are strong enough now."
My heart skipped a beat. "No," I wanted to scream. "I'm not. Not without you." But I couldn't make a sound.
"But you need a different teacher. One who can teach you what I cannot."
She pressed a kiss to my forehead. It felt like a seal. A promise and a farewell at the same time. Then she turned around. She merged with the shadows of the alley as if she were a part of the darkness.
I stood there and waited. Hours. Days. Weeks. Months. Years.
The loneliness ate me from the inside. I roamed the streets like a ghost, hungry and lost. I wondered what had happened. Was she dead? Had the slave traders taken her? Or those faceless guards from above, who sometimes take people away who never return? All that remained was her voice in my head "Trust no one but yourself and me."
But she was gone. And now I was alone. Until he found me.
The Alley of Blind Spots – Four Years Later
Four damn years had passed. I was no longer a small child, but I was still a walking target. My hair was matted, black, and dirty. But the most striking thing about me were my eyes. The left one: icy blue. The right one: glowing emerald green. Heterochromia. In the Upper City, perhaps an exotic beauty feature for the rich snobs. Down here? A reason to get beaten up because you look "different."
I had a fresh scar over my left eyebrow. A "gift" from a thug of the Blood Chain who thought I had looked at him the wrong way. I learned quickly to duck. To run. But that evening... that evening, running was no longer enough.
I had been careless. I had looked for food in a sector controlled by the Blood Chain. Six of them. Dirty, stinking bastards with tattoos on their faces and greed in their eyes. They cornered me in a dead end. The smell of wet concrete and urine rose into my nose. In front of me: six men. Behind me a cold wall.
"Well, look who we have here."
One of the thugs not the boss, just a mean little leader of this squad grinned. He held a stun gun that crackled in the damp air. The blue light reflected in his dead eyes. "That's the bastard with the freaky eyes," laughed one of the others. "Maybe those up there will pay well for a freak like that."
I pressed my back against the wall. I felt the cold metal through my torn shirt. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. But I didn't want to beg. I thought of Aria. "Fight for what you believe in." I clenched my fists. I had nothing but rage in my stomach. Rage at this city. Rage at the elite who let us rot here. Rage at these gang bastards who prey on children.
The leader came closer. The stun gun hummed threateningly.
"Come here, kid. We'll make it quick."
I closed my eyes and waited for the pain. But it didn't come.
Suddenly, the laughter stopped. The crackling of the stun gun ceased. I opened my eyes. The thug had stopped. His eyes were wide open, staring at something behind me or around me? The others froze as well.
"What the hell...?" one stuttered.
Then I saw it. The shadows. Not the normal shadows of the buildings. No. The darkness in the alley began to move. It detached itself from the walls like viscous oil. It crawled across the ground, winding like black snakes around the boots of the thugs.
And then he materialized. Out of pure darkness itself.
A FIGURE.
He stepped out of nowhere, as if the night had decided to take on a body. He wore a long coat that billowed in the wind, even though it was calm. His face was hidden behind a mask that pulsed with a faint, purple shimmer. But it was his eyes that took my breath away. Behind them glowed two golden embers.
The Blood Chain thugs backed away. Their arrogance was blown away. Now they were just cowardly rats.
"Who... who are you?!" the leader screamed, but his voice cracked.
The stranger did not answer. He only raised his hand. A casual movement. Almost bored. The shadows obeyed immediately. They shot forward, entwining the thugs like living shackles. Black vines pulled them off their feet, wrapped around their necks, their arms, their weapons.
No shot was fired. No blow was dealt. It was not violence. It was absolute control over the shadows themselves. The six men were pulled into the darkness. Then there was silence.
I stood there, trembling, my back pressed against the wall. The man the monster? turned to me. I felt his gaze. It burned not just into my skin, but deeper. As if he were scanning my soul.
He studied me. Silently. Analyzing. Later I learned what he saw in that moment. He did not just see a dirty boy from the slums. He saw my soul.
93% inclined toward good. One of the purest souls he had ever found. And he saw me as the one who would restore the balance.
"Interesting."
His voice sounded like velvety steel. Deep. Calm. Dangerous.
"You didn't even try to use your resonance."
He tilted his head slightly.
"You don't even know you have it, do you?"
"Resonance?" I croaked. The word tasted strange on my tongue. Aria had mentioned it, but I had no idea what it really meant. I thought I was just sick or cursed.
A soft laugh came from beneath the mask. Not mocking. Rather amused.
"The power that slumbers within you, boy. The ability to shape reality itself."
He stepped a step closer. The rain seemed to curve around him. I backed away until my back touched the cold masonry again. My knees shook. "Who... who are you?" I stammered, my voice barely more than a whisper.
The golden eyes fixed on me.
"Names are but smoke and mirrors."
He paused for a moment, as if he were thinking.
"Some call me Nightwalker. Others call me the Shadow Weaver."
He leaned slightly toward me.
"But you... you can call me Shade."
Shade. The name did not sound like a title. It sounded like a state of being.
"And you? What is your name?"
I swallowed hard.
"Kyro," I said quietly.
"Well, Kyro. How about I show you who you can truly be?"
I stared at him. "How do I know you aren't one of them?" I asked. My fear slowly gave way to a spark of mistrust. I narrowed my different-colored eyes. "Another street shark recruiting small children for his dirty business?"
Shade let an appreciative smile flash beneath the mask.
"Smart boy. Caution keeps you alive."
He stepped back and raised his hand. Suddenly, the shadows in front of me condensed. They formed a smooth, black surface. A mirror made of darkness. I looked into it. I saw myself. Dirty. Injured. But there was something else. A faint, bluish glow surrounded my body. Like an electric mist that seemed to stream from my skin.
"That is your resonance, Kyro. It has always been there. It has been waiting for you. Like a sleeping storm."
He let the image fade and looked at me seriously.
"I could force you to come with me. It would be easy for me."
His voice became softer.
"But I will not. I am no slave trader. The choice is entirely yours."
I swallowed hard. The rain ran down the back of my neck.
"And if I say no?"
"Then I leave. And leave you to your fate."
He made a wide gesture that encompassed the entire rotten alley. The slums. The trash. The misery.
"Is this really the life you want? An eternal struggle for survival in the dirt, while something so powerful slumbers within you?"
He stepped closer, his golden eyes boring into mine.
"Resonance is not just power, Kyro. It is a tool. It can create worlds – or destroy them. The question is: What will you do with it?"
I remained silent. My gaze wandered to the place where the thugs had disappeared. Then up to the floating cities that shone like stars above us, unreachable and cold. Those up there let us die. The gangs tortured us. I had lost Aria because I was weak. Because I was nothing.
Rage rose within me. Hot, burning rage. I didn't want to be the victim anymore. I didn't want to run anymore. I thought of the words I had sworn to myself. I will tear their damn chains apart.
I raised my head. My gaze was firm.
"Then I already know," I said. My voice was firmer than I felt. "I don't want to just survive while the bastards up there let us rot. If I truly have this power... then I want to use it."
I clenched my fists.
"I want no one to have to live like I do anymore. I want to change the world."
A short silence. Then Shade tilted his head.
"And if you have this power do you think those who live above will give it to you without a fight?"
"I don't care," I hissed. "I don't know who they are. But I won't let everything stay this way."
Shade laughed softly. A sharp, dry sound.
"Change things? You are a child who doesn't even know how this world works."
He turned around, the shadows moving out of his way.
"But I see that you believe what you say. That is a start. You could become one of my most interesting students."
He gestured for me to follow.
"Follow me."
I hesitated for a second. A last look back into the empty alley, into my old life. Then I stepped forward. I followed the man who called himself Shade through the winding alleys of the slums, away from the place I hated, into a future I did not yet understand.
The Anomaly
We walked for a long time. Through sectors I did not know, past ruins that looked like skeletons of giant beasts. Finally, we reached an abandoned warehouse at the edge of the zone. Rusty corrugated metal, broken windows. It looked like any other decayed place down here.
Shade stopped in front of a massive metal wall. He placed his hand flat on the cold steel. And again, it happened. The shadows around us began to vibrate. The wall did not open like a door. It... folded. As if reality itself were taking a step to the side.
"Welcome to my humble home," he said with a hint of irony.
I stepped through and stood frozen. The contrast was brutal. Outside dirt, rain, decay. Inside a cathedral of light and technology.
The room was huge. Several stories high. Holographic displays floated freely in the air, showing data streams, maps of Prime Eden, and pulsing energy patterns that I did not understand. On the walls stood shelves full of old books real paper, something that was priceless down here right next to state-of-the-art weapons and server banks. In the middle of the room floated a platform. A training ring.
But it was not the technology that fascinated me. It was hundreds of people. Everywhere in the giant complex, men and women were training. They wore clothing that was functional, dark, but well maintained. And on their jackets was a symbol. A white wolf's head.
They moved with a precision I did not know from the clumsy thugs of the Blood Chain. Their eyes were alert. Dangerous. These were not victims. These were warriors.
"This is...", I stammered.
"An anomaly," Shade added. "A place between realities, created by resonance."
He went to one of the glowing displays. The bluish light made the scars on his skin even more visible. In here, he didn't seem like a monster. He seemed like a general.
"But before we begin, Kyro, you must understand the world we truly live in."
A woman detached herself from the group of trainees. She had silver white hair and an aura that immediately commanded respect. Between her fingers, spheres of pure energy played, pulsing like small suns before she made them disappear with a wave of her hand. She came toward us. Her eyes shimmered in a supernatural silver.
"New recruits... they are getting younger and younger," she said coolly. Her gaze scanned me as if she were cataloging every one of my weaknesses.
"This is Echo," Shade explained. "She was one of the first we were able to save."
Echo crossed her arms. She seemed tense.
"The patrols are becoming more frequent, Shade. Yesterday, Kryntor's soldiers combed through two sectors again. They seem desperate."
Kryntor? The name meant nothing to me. Shade nodded gloomily. He activated another display. Three symbols appeared in the air, huge and threatening.
A phoenix made of flames. A sword enveloped in ice. A sun whose rays looked like daggers.
"The three Houses of Prime Eden," Shade said. His voice dripped with contempt.
He pointed to the symbols.
"House Vayne. The scientists. Dr. Lyra Vayne conducts 'research' that the public has no idea about."
He threw me a quick, almost pitying side glance that I didn't understand.
"House Kryntor. The military. The fist that keeps us down."
"And House Thalor. The voice. The lie."
Echo's silver eyes darkened.
"Anyone who asks too many questions about resonance disappears. Just last week, a reporter. They only found his camera in an alley."
"Truth has a damn high price here," Shade murmured. "The more you know, the more dangerous it becomes."
He turned back to me.
"That's why we will only teach you what you need to survive here. The rest..."
He shook his head.
"Some doors are better left closed."
I looked around the room. The other White Wolves exchanged looks. Meaningful, heavy looks. They knew more. Secrets that weighed heavier than the steel plates above our heads.
"What is resonance, anyway?" I blurted out.
Immediately, the air in the room thickened. It was the wrong question. Or the most important one. Shade and Echo exchanged a look. "A power," he answered cautiously. "That's all you need to know for now. Too much knowledge..."
He did not finish the sentence. Suddenly, a pain shot through me. A stabbing headache, so intense that everything went black before my eyes. For the fraction of a second, I saw an image. A face. A woman. Pale skin. Sharp features. Cold, calculating eyes. A white lab coat. And tanks. Rows of glass tanks.
As quickly as the image came, it was gone. I stumbled.
"Everything okay?" Echo asked sharply.
I blinked the pain away. "Yes... just a headache."
Shade studied me. He knew I was lying. But he let it go.
"Let's focus on the essentials," he said sternly. "You must learn to defend yourself. The streets are becoming more dangerous. House Kryntor's bloodhounds are becoming more aggressive."
At that exact moment, an alarm shrilled through the hall. Red light flooded the room. One of the Wolves at the monitors ripped his headset off.
"Movement in Sector 7! Three combat drones, Class A! They are scanning the area!"
Shade grinned. But it was not a friendly grin. It was the grin of a predator that scents prey.
"And that, my boy," he said grimly, "is your first lesson."