Dusk eased itself over the city instead of falling all at once, staining the skyline in muted violets and washed-out gold. Inside the apartment, everything was prepared far earlier than necessary, yet neither of them moved to leave. Waiting had become its own ritual.
Freddie sat near the couch, absently adjusting the straps of his bag, fingers moving out of habit more than need. Riven stood by the window, weight shifted slightly forward, eyes tracking the streets below. The city looked ordinary enough—traffic thinning, lights coming on one by one—but the air felt loaded, like the moment before a storm breaks.
"Feels weird,"
Freddie said after a while, his voice casual but thin around the edges.
"Knowing we're just… waiting for reality to shut off again."
Riven didn't look away from the glass.
"Better than being caught off guard."
Freddie gave a small huff.
"You say that like you weren't pacing for the last hour."
That earned him a glance, brief but amused.
"I don't pace."
"You absolutely pace."
Riven didn't argue it. The faintest hint of a smile crossed his face before it faded, his attention drifting back outside. The humor never lingered long anymore. Not tonight.
Time crept. The light outside dulled further, the sky deepening as the moon climbed higher. When the hour crept close to midnight, Riven straightened, the shift subtle but decisive.
"Alright, we go now."
The streets were quieter than they should have been, sound carrying strangely as they made their way toward the plaza. The moon hung low and pale, its light stretching shadows thinner than they had any right to be. Nothing had changed yet—but everything felt like it was waiting for permission to.
They reached the plaza with minutes to spare.
As the moment stands, the clock ticked over.
At first, it was only the color. A cyan sheen seeped across the concrete and glass, as if the city were being submerged in something artificial. Then the motion stopped. People froze and began to turn into gravestones. Cars stalled where they stood.
Conversations cut off without echo.
The world didn't collapse—it simply paused.
Their bodies began to transform into mechanical beings—animatronics, but this time it was as painful; they've accepted themselves which eased their pain.
As they finished their transformation, a tremor rolled beneath their feet, like something deep below had shifted its weight.
"Do you feel that?"
Riven nodded. His eyes were fixed forward.
Beyond the plaza, the air began to warp. Space folded inward, lines bending where they shouldn't. From that distortion, a structure emerged—not built, not summoned, but forced into existence. Stone and steel climbed upward in unnatural alignment, forming a tower that rejected symmetry and logic alike. It wasn't tall enough to scrape the sky, yet its presence dominated everything around it, casting a pressure that settled in the chest.
It didn't belong here.
It insisted.
"That wasn't here before,"
Freddie's eyes dimmed, seeing the tower's transformation.
"No," Riven replied.
"And it's not pretending to be."
The ground gave another quiet shudder, the glow intensifying along the tower's edges. The plaza felt smaller now, as if the city itself had drawn back.
Riven stepped closer, positioning himself just ahead of Freddie without thinking.
"Whatever that is, it's not decoration."
The tower finished forming, its silhouette solid against the altered sky. And with it came the certainty neither of them voiced aloud—
The tower glowed, it released a hollow sound that gives off goosebumps—an eerie one that's distinct.
"Should we… go?"
Riven glanced at Freddie, then back at the tower. Up close, it felt less like a structure and more like a presence—something that noticed them noticing it.
"We should. Whatever it is, this is our first call."
He started forward without waiting. Freddie hesitated only a second before falling into step beside him.
The distance closed faster than Freddie expected. It wasn't far, not really, but the closer they got, the more the tower distorted scale itself. What looked manageable from the plaza became overwhelming in its shadow. Its height pressed down on them, inducing that creeping, instinctive dread reserved for things too large to fully process—megalophobia made manifest in stone and silence.
By the time they reached its base, Freddie had to tilt his head back to see where it ended.
At the entrance stood a gate, narrow compared to the mass behind it. Suspended across the threshold was a staff engraved with a crescent moon, hovering as if held in place by something unseen.
Freddie slowed.
"What's that?"
Riven didn't answer right away. He stepped closer, studying it, then reached out. The moment his fingers brushed the staff, it dissolved into pale light, dispersing without resistance. The gate responded instantly, stone shifting aside with a low, resonant sound that vibrated through the ground.
A path revealed itself beyond—smooth, deliberate, leading straight to a massive door set deep within the tower's body.
Neither of them had seen anything like it.
They exchanged a look. No words, just understanding.
"This place feels…"
Freddie started, then stopped. The sensation didn't fit neatly into fear or awe. It was something heavier.
Riven angled himself slightly closer.
"Stay sharp and stick with me. Whatever happens, I've got your back."
"Thanks."
Freddie felt heat rise to his face at the quiet certainty in Riven's voice. He smiled despite himself. Riven noticed, gave a brief pat to his shoulder.
"We should be ready. If this place expects a fight, we don't hold back."
Freddie nodded. "Got it."
The door loomed ahead, unmoving, unreadable.
They stepped forward anyway.
Because courage, they were learning, wasn't the absence of fear—it was choosing to walk straight into it.
As they passed through the massive door, the world inside refused to obey any single logic.
The entrance hall stretched wide and tall, yet its proportions felt wrong, as if scale itself had been rearranged by an unfamiliar hand. Clocks were embedded everywhere—into walls, pillars, even the floor—some frozen mid-tick, others spinning wildly, their hands blurring into circles. The architecture looked borrowed from different eras and forced together: stone arches beside metallic frames, antique designs clashing with structures that felt too modern, too sharp.
A checkered floor spread beneath their feet, stained dark in places. The blood had dried unevenly, soaking into some tiles while others remained untouched, as though violence itself had followed a pattern no one could decipher.
Directly ahead, a staircase rose upward, impossibly wide—at least fifteen feet across—its steps shallow but immense, drawing the eye toward what waited above. At the top sat a rounded door, massive and ornate, its surface layered with carvings that depicted fragments of history rather than a single time. Battles, cities, symbols, eras collapsing into one another, etched so densely that it was hard to tell where one ended and another began.
To the left stood an elevator shaft—or what resembled one. The carriage was sealed shut, towering far higher than it had any right to be, with no visible cables, rails, or supports. It simply existed, suspended in defiance of gravity, like it had never needed permission to stay upright.
Beyond all of it, the room opened into something deeper.
Floating platforms hovered at irregular intervals, drifting slightly as if caught in a slow current. In the distance, pillars rose and shifted, sliding across unseen paths, rearranging themselves with quiet, deliberate motion. Nothing collapsed. Nothing settled. The space was constantly reconfiguring, as though the structure itself was alive and thinking.
Not reacting to them—but waiting.
The air felt heavy with layered time, every second overlapping the next. This wasn't a place built for people. It was a place that recorded them.
Riven took a slow step forward, eyes tracking the movement in the distance.
"Yeah, this isn't just a tower."
It felt like stepping into history while it was still being written—and rewritten.
"This is… the Cairn."