The sound was small, but it thundered through me. A sound that split my chest open wider than the shattering wall ever had. The sound of an innocent body, falling to the ground.
Silence swallowed the world. Not the silence of peace, not the silence of sleep, but the silence that comes after something breaks beyond repair.
My father's hardworking hands - the ones that taught me to tie nets. My mother's gentle touch - the one that always fixed the mistakes in my clumsy knots.
A ragged sound tore itself out of me. I didn't recognize it as my own voice until my lungs burned.
"No… no, NO, NOO!!"
I tried to stand. My legs betrayed me. I pushed again, but my knees gave out. The earth clung to me, dragged me down as though it wanted me to join my parents in the dirt. My fingers dug into the soil until I thought they would snap.
And then my body finally broke free.
My legs, numb a heartbeat ago, launched me forward in blind desperation. I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just ran. The only thing I could think of were my mother's dying words:
"Run"
Run, away from the corpses.
Run, away from the shadows.
Run, away from the truth that had crushed the world in a single night.
The village was a storm of screams and shattering wood. Figures sprinted past me - neighbors, friends, strangers - all of them reduced to the same thing: prey scattering from a predator that couldn't be stopped. The lanterns that once glowed warmly now swung wildly, throwing weird shapes across broken walls.
My feet pounded the dirt road, too fast, too clumsy. My chest burned. My lungs felt like knives. Every step was a stumble away from falling - but then I did.
My feet caught on a plank sticking out from the ground.
I slammed into the earth. Pain exploded through my arm as it landed on something sharp - splintered wood or jagged stone, I didn't know. All I knew was the searing agony that ripped up my arm. I grunted, clutching my hand, only to feel blood already slicking my skin.
I didn't have time. Not for this.
Behind me, the Nyx was wreaking havoc. It didn't need to rush. It didn't need to run. It was certain - absolutely certain - that I could not escape.
Thankfully, it wasn't interested in me.
It moved with incredible speed. My eyes could barely notice it. The movements were small, but devastating. Everything behind me was dying, and yet the monster barely seemed to struggle at all. Destruction followed it simply because it existed. That was... Its twisted purpose. Screams rose, but were cut short in sickening silence. Roofs collapsed, fires roared higher.
The ground shook as another wall crumbled. Shards of clay, stone and wood rained down, nicking my arms, catching in my hair. The air was thick with smoke and ash, stinging my lungs. Every breath was a battle, every step a gamble between balance and collapse.
I stumbled forward, clutching my bleeding hand to my chest, forcing my legs to obey. My vision swam, dark spots creeping in at the edges, but I couldn't stop. I couldn't look back. If I did, I knew I would never move again.
The road twisted through the heart of the village, now a graveyard of burning wood and broken dreams. My chest heaved as if my ribs might crack open, each inhale slicing me apart. The injury in my hand pulsed with every heartbeat, threatening to drag me into unconsciousness. Still, I pressed on. Because if I stopped, even for a second, I knew the silence would take me too.
The edge of the village came into view - a jagged line where broken fences gave way to the forest. Trees loomed dark and silent, their branches tangled like grasping fingers. Smoke still curled behind me, flames thriving at the remains of homes.
For some reason, the Nyx did not follow me. It stayed, as if it had decided its prey was elsewhere. I didn't understand why, and I didn't care. I only knew that each step forward pulled me farther from what had once been my home, my world.
It felt as if hope itself was consumed by darkness.
Finally finding a moment, I leaned on a tree, barely breathing.
My head tilted up again. The same clouds, covering the sky at all times. They never changed. Every single day, every single night. They were there, covering the two lights they called Sun and Moon. Watching. Unmoving. Indifferent.
And then I saw it.
Among the shades, a faint glimmer, barely noticeable. For a moment, I thought my eyes were deceiving me. But as I focused my blurry vision, I could distinguish a body, curled on the forest floor.
I froze.
The world seemed to hush around me. The fire, the screams, the chaos of the village - they all faded to nothing.
All that existed was her - impossibly fragile, yet somehow untouched by the nightmare I had just fled. Her bright blonde hair with black ends fanned around her like a soft golden halo.
She had a face so calm, almost angelic in the dim light that it felt surreal. A single spark of life in the ruins of everything I had known. She wore a simple white dress, and didn't look older than me. Her dress was impeccably clean, as if someone had intentionally placed her here.
I knelt beside her, hesitant, afraid to disturb the miracle. My hands shook as I brushed a strand of hair from her face, and she stirred slightly, a faint exhale that made my chest tighten with relief.
Alive. She was alive.
I lifted her carefully, cradling her against me, ignoring the pain flaring in my wounded arm and the way my legs threatened to give out. Holding her was holding hope itself - a fragile light I could not let go of.
Through the trees, I glimpsed the distant outline of Neoshima. The city waited like a colossal lotus, its metallic petals acting like walls. I had never set foot there in my life, but it was a silent promise of shelter - or at least a chance to survive.
I whispered, more to myself than to her, "I won't let anything happen to you. Not like them. Not ever."
For the first time since the village fell, hope felt real.
That truth was the only thing keeping me upright. My wounded arm screamed with every movement, a wet agony ripping up to my shoulder, but I ignored it. I tightened my grip around her.
Suddenly, the air vibrated faintly - not thunder, but something sharper. I glanced up.A jet made of black metal tore across the clouds, lights blinking blue beneath its wings. Two silhouettes dropped from it.
I didn't know what they were. All I knew was that someone else was heading towards the hell i just escaped from.
My heart pounded so loud it felt like the whole world could hear it.
"Just… a little farther!" I whispered, words meant more to encourage my broken mind than for her ears to hear.
I don't know how long I walked. Time passed without definition. My body moved on instinct, on sheer will. My legs trembled, my vision wavered. But I held her tighter.
Dropping her wasn't an option. Not ever.
The trees thinned, the dark canopy giving way to the open night. I stumbled into a field, with well-walked paths made of concrete and stone, gasping as the sudden expanse before me. Grass swayed in the cold wind, silver under the faint light filtering through the clouds. And there - beyond the fields - rose the city.
Neoshima.
An impenetrable fortress, a bastion of humans. The beating heart of these lands, to us peasants only spoken of in stories or exaggerated tales. It loomed like a colossal lotus against the horizon, its walls vast metallic petals reaching for the clouds.
Light glimmered faintly from within, hidden yet undeniable. Life. The city didn't feel like it belonged to the same world as my village. It seemed distant, unreachable, existing on the boundary between dream, reality, and legend.
The fields stretched longer than they had any right to. No matter how many times my legs struck the dirt, the city never seemed closer. I forced myself forward, one dragging foot after another. Her weight pressed like a precious rock against my shoulders. Every breath of mine was tortured.
Her warmth was faint. I lowered my ear closer to her whenever I faltered, listening for that fragile whisper of life. As long as I heard it, I moved.
The wind whipped harder. The city walls finally loomed in front of me. They now looked less like protection and more like judgment. I wondered if they would turn us away, if...
But I had no choice.
I staggered the last few meters, my legs moving in small, unorganized movements. I was driven by one thought and one thought only: keeping her safe.
I was a coward. I was weak. I couldn't even fight for my own family, let alone protect them. But I could not let go. Not of her, too.
But then I stumbled and fell to my knees. Dirt and grass pressed into my skin, but I refused to loosen my grip. My arms tightened around her fragile body as though the night itself waited to steal her away.
"I swear- I'll kill... All Nyxes..."
Exhaustion pulled me down. Darkness crept in from the edges of my vision. I finally collapsed, clutching her even as consciousness fled. All I could see was darkness, surrounding me in a weirdly comfortable rest.
---
A pair of heavy leather boots pressed into the earth, deliberate and unyielding. Each step echoed through the silent night. A faint metallic clink rang out - the subtle hum of a mechanical arm.
The man walked with the weight of war etched into his frame. His hair, streaked with gray, was bound loosely, strands falling over a scar-marked face - marks that told of battles fought, battles lost, and battles survived. His eyes, dark under the clouded sky, cut into the world. Nothing escaped them. Nothing dared.
The air stilled around him, silence folding inward, as if the forest itself dared not breathe. He moved with the weight of inevitability, a quiet storm pressing down like an invisible hand on the throat. Authority. Danger. Power.
He stopped. Before him lay a boy sprawled in the dirt and gravel, clutching a girl as though she were his last breath. For a long moment, he didn't move. His jaw tightened, unreadable. Then, faintly, something flickered in his gaze - not pity, not softness, but recognition.
Without a word, he bent down. The mechanical arm whirred, sliding beneath the boy as if he weighed nothing, tucking him under one side like a precious burden. His other arm, scarred yet steady, lifted the girl, her golden hair cascading over the cold steel of his shoulder.
He rose again, unshaken.
The night swallowed them as he turned toward a hidden door in the impenetrable walls of Neoshima.
They say you need to hit rock bottom to see the sky. But first, they would see the underworks.