The heavy thud of the door hitting the stone wall echoed through the silent workshop like a gunshot. Jake didn't hesitate; he didn't even think. His body moved with a fluid, lethal grace that felt utterly alien to him, as if someone else were pulling the strings of his muscles. He slid into a low crouch behind a stack of heavy alloy crates, the cold metal pressing against his back. He leveled the strange firearm, his finger tightening on the trigger as a figure stepped through the swirling dust motes.
It was Brock.
But the old man wasn't panting. He wasn't bleeding. He stepped into the room with a terrifyingly calm expression, his hands tucked into the pockets of his soot-stained apron as if he had just come back from a casual stroll through the market. He didn't even flinch at the sight of the weapon pointed directly at his chest.
Why aren't you afraid? Jake's mind screamed. I have a gun. I could kill you. Why am I holding a gun? Why does it feel like I've held it a thousand times before?
"Is this the 'Trial'?" Jake hissed, his voice trembling despite the steady aim of his hands. "The silence, the people outside, this weapon... answer me, Brock! What is happening to this world?"
Brock stopped walking. He didn't look at the gun; he looked directly into Jake's eyes, searching for something. A slow, knowing smirk spread across his weathered face—a look that was half-pity and half-amusement. He raised a hand and pointed a singular, gnarled finger straight at Jake's forehead.
"Don't think I don't know who you are anymore, boy," Brock said, his voice smooth and cold. "You're a sleepwalker. A 'Somnambulist' wandering through a nightmare you haven't realized is real yet."
Jake's expression faltered. The cold, soldier-like focus that had occupied his mind shattered, replaced by a hazy, dazed confusion. He felt a wave of vertigo, as if the floor had tilted beneath him. His grip on the gun loosened just a fraction, the weapon suddenly feeling heavy and alien in his palms.
"Huh?" Jake muttered, his voice distant. He blinked, his eyes glazing over as if he were looking at a horizon that didn't exist. "A... sleepwalker? What are you talking about? I'm just... I'm your apprentice. I've been here for years. I know the heat of the forge. I know the smell of the charcoal. I'm just Jake."
Am I? a smaller, darker voice whispered in the back of his head. If you're just Jake, why did you know exactly where the safety catch was? Why did you know how to breathe to steady your shot?
Brock watched the change in Jake's demeanor—the way the predatory instinct vanished as quickly as it had arrived, leaving behind only a confused, frightened young man. The old man's smirk faded, replaced by a genuine look of surprise. He tilted his head, scanning Jake's face for any sign of a ruse.
"Well, I'll be damned," Brock exhaled, his voice dropping an octave. "So you really are just a normal kid who's lost his way? A simple soul with a wiped memory?"
Brock took a step closer, ignoring the weapon entirely now. He looked at Jake's trembling hands and the vacant, fearful look in his eyes.
"I thought you were playing the long game," Brock continued, his voice softer but no less intense. "I thought you were hiding that monster inside you behind a mask of innocence, waiting for the right moment to strike. I've been watching you sleep, boy, wondering when the agent would wake up. But you... you really don't know, do you?"
Jake didn't lower the gun yet. The metal was cold against his skin, a stark contrast to the heat of the workshop he usually loved. "I don't know anything," he whispered. "But if I'm just a kid, Brock... how the hell did I know how to load this? Why did it feel so... right?"
Brock leaned against a workbench, eyeing the boy. "That's the mystery, isn't it? Even if the mind is scrubbed clean, the nerves remember. The muscles have their own memory. You asked what a sleepwalker is. They are agents, Jake. Puppets sent by different Shards—other realities, other fragments of what this world used to be before it broke. They are sent into other Shards to spy, to infiltrate, and to prepare the way for the inevitable collapse."
A spy? Jake thought, his stomach churning. Was I sent here to hurt Brock? Was I sent here to destroy the only home I remember? The thought made him feel sick. He looked at his hands, wondering whose blood they had spilled before he became "Jake."
"And the people outside?" Jake asked, his voice gaining a bit of its edge back. "The ones with the scars and the strange armor?"
"They are Challengers," Brock replied, his voice hardening. "Or they're about to become one. Challengers are the ones who have lived through a Trial. They've tasted the rewards, they've gained power you can't imagine, but they've also tasted the absolute despair of it. They're addicts, Jake. Hunters waiting for the next gate to open, hoping to win back what they lost or find a way out of this hell."
Challengers. Trials. Shards. The words felt like heavy stones being dropped into the quiet pond of Jake's memory. He wanted to scream, to tell Brock to stop, to make the world go back to being about iron and hammers.
"I don't want to be a Challenger," Jake said, his voice cracking. "I don't want to be a sleepwalker. I just want—"
He was cut off by a sound.
It didn't come from the street. It didn't come from the workshop. It seemed to come from the very air itself. It was a high-pitched, melodic drone that felt like it was vibrating in his very marrow. It didn't sound like noise; it sounded like a choir. A beautiful, haunting anthem that made Jake's skin crawl and his teeth ache. It was a holy sound, yet it felt utterly devoid of mercy. It was a hymn for the dying.
It's beautiful, Jake thought, even as tears began to prick his eyes. It sounds like home. No—it sounds like the end of everything.
"What is that?" Jake gasped, his knuckles turning white on the grip of the gun. "Is that music? Why does it feel like my head is going to explode?"
Brock's calm demeanor finally cracked. He looked toward the ceiling, his jaw tightening as the "hymn of death" grew louder, shaking the tools on the racks. The wrenches and hammers began to dance on their hooks, a frantic, metallic percussion accompanying the celestial song.
"That, kid," Brock said, his voice grim and filled with a rare trace of fear, "is a Trial taking shape. And it's happening right here, right now."
Jake looked at the door. Through the cracks in the wood, he could see the people outside—the Challengers—dropping to their knees. Some were screaming, others were laughing, their faces turned toward the sky as the light began to change. The sun was no longer yellow; it was turning a bruised, sickly violet.
I'm not ready, Jake thought, his heart racing so fast it felt like a drumbeat. I don't know who I am. I don't know how to fight. I'm just a boy in a dead man's body.
He looked at Brock, who was reaching for a heavy sledgehammer. "What do we do?"
"We survive," Brock said, his voice barely audible over the rising anthem. "Or we become part of the song."
Jake gripped the gun. He didn't know if he was Jake the apprentice or the sleepwalker the world feared. But as the walls of the workshop began to shimmer and fade into a different reality, he knew he was about to find out.