He walked through the heart of the city—the one ruled by Shades. Every figure that passed him wore clothes, coats, and rags stitched from memory, yet beneath the fabric there was nothing. Just darkness, thick and constant, with those white eyes gleaming out from the void of their faces. They watched the world with expressions that couldn't decide whether to kill or comfort—predators born from pity.
But to Ethan, they felt… ordinary.
Their movements had rhythm, their silence had weight. They felt human, or close enough to fool him. Not that he'd ever seen a real one.
None of them spared him a glance. They walked past, heads low, their steps muffled by the fog. Not one pair of those white eyes turned toward him. It was as if he wasn't there—as if he belonged already. One of them. Another shade in the endless dark.
The thought didn't bother him. Not yet.
His mind was chasing something else entirely.
Did anyone here need help? What truly were they? Was he one of them? Were they human?
He frowned slightly, muttering under his breath. Maybe they're gods too. Maybe they know what this place is called.
His voice drifted into the cold air as he walked. He didn't notice the road narrowing, the cobblestone giving way to jagged stone and mist. He didn't notice the wind change either, rising into a slow, hungry pull.
By the time he did, the street was gone beneath him.
He blinked, realizing he'd stepped too far. The ground crumbled at his toes, and the black fog below opened like an ocean of nothing. The drop stretched endlessly—an eighty-kilometer dive into the dark, the kind that promised no return, no sound, just the weightless silence of falling.
His heel slid half an inch forward before instinct finally caught up.
His foot slipped.
An instinctive jolt ran through him—his arm flew up to shield his face as the rest of his body lurched forward, dipping toward the abyss that yawned beneath the floating island. Eighty kilometers of nothingness waited below—dark, endless, and hungry.
But if was the key word.
Something lashed out from the earth. A tendril—thick, faintly luminescent, more sinew than vine—burst through the ground and coiled around his torso. It jerked him backward with effortless force, sending him tumbling onto his back. The impact stole the air from his lungs, and he rolled once, twice, before finally stopping on his side.
The tendril retreated as silently as it came, sliding back into the dirt. Only the soft rustle of grass betrayed its passing.
Ethan pushed himself upright, blinking. His heart pounded, but the air around him was still—eerily so. He looked toward the cliff again, then to the small tear in the soil where the tendril had vanished. A breath escaped him, sharp and unsteady, as he brushed the dust from his clothes.
The street stretched out around him: black stone, blue shadows, houses like hollowed shells of night. Nothing moved. No one watched. There was no one to thank, no savior to nod toward.
Only the hole beside him remained, small and quiet. No sound from within. No rustle, no echo—just disturbed dirt and a patch of grass bent in a strange spiral.
He sighed, turning away. A shiver crawled up his spine as he did, an invisible hand tracing along his nerves. For a fleeting moment, he could feel the darkness below watching him—disappointed, almost resentful, that its meal had slipped away.
Something freshly born. Something that still smelled of life.
He looked around once again.
A billboard caught his eye—some kind of festival announcement, letters glowing faintly blue against the dark stone. Shade-Silk, it read. A contest about crafting things out of shadows as if they were silk itself—clothes, towels, accessories, trinkets. Below it, on a cracked wall, hung a smaller poster: a hiring notice for a bakery owned by someone named Finis Jussio. The sketch showed a man—if he could be called that—with a wide-brimmed hat and a purple feather tucked into it.
It was a bizarre sight, but so was everything in this city. He barely spared it another glance.
Further down the street, a man—or a shape resembling one—was tinkering with a cluster of wires inside a squat concrete building. Sparks danced in his hands, humming quietly. Across from him, another figure leaned against a counter inside a music shop with a flickering sign that read Deth's Hexes. Rows of black discs lined the walls, and a gramophone sat beside the man, its horn aimed at the street like it was listening.
Ethan kept walking, the faint ache of fatigue setting in. The short trek already felt endless. When he reached a lamp post at the corner, he sat down on the bench beneath it. The white light spilled across the blue-stained wood and dark metal frame, soft and steady.
He sank into it with a quiet sigh. It was surprisingly comfortable—nothing like the cold wood of the manor's tables or the rough ground he'd been thrown onto before. This felt almost like a pillow.
Tilting his head to the left, he closed his eyes for a moment. Just a moment. Surrounded by beings that might not even have souls, he felt—strangely—safe.
He listened. To everything.
The low murmurs of shades talking in their strange, echoing voices.
The rustle of trees beyond the city's walls, bent by the distant wind.
The faint mechanical hum from within the buildings.
The soft buzz of electricity running through unseen veins.
And then—
—the subtle whisper of grass moving right beside the bench he sat on.
He opened his eyes—
—and saw nothing.
For a second, he thought he'd gone blind. Then he realized the darkness was because a gun barrel was pressed right beside his face, blocking out everything but its cold, circular void.
He turned his head slightly, just enough to see the figure holding it.
Neither of them spoke.
The silence stretched on, taut and fragile, like even a whisper could be enough to shatter it—and him—with it. A full minute passed before the stranger finally moved, the gun still steady in his hand.
When he spoke, his voice was low, rough, and unmistakably male beneath the hood that hid his face.
"Who do you work for?"
Ethan froze. His mind blanked, the question echoing and scattering in the empty halls of his thoughts. His pupils tightened into small points of silver, his lips curving into a confused, watery smile. A few broken noises escaped his throat before he finally answered, voice trembling between fear and bewilderment.
"…My father?"
The figure exhaled sharply—half a sigh, half a curse—and lowered the weapon. With a small, resigned motion, he tossed the gun onto the sidewalk. It clattered once against the dark stone and fell silent.
None of the shades walking past paid any attention. They moved like nothing had happened, like neither man existed.
The stranger sat down beside Ethan, and for a brief, terrified moment, Ethan thought he was about to be stabbed instead. His muscles tensed, breath caught—
—but the man simply leaned back on the bench, resting an arm along the cold metal frame.
Another sigh escaped him.
"Relax," he muttered. "No bullets anyway. Even if you were an enemy, all I've got left are my fists."
Finally, the figure raised his free hand—not to harm him, but to pull back his own hood.
Underneath, black locks spilled out, messy and dusted with dirt. His face looked like he hadn't slept properly in a week, and the faint smudge under one eye didn't help that impression.
He shifted, muttering something under his breath as he tried to shove his hand into the pocket of his leather jacket. The red sleeve of his shirt caught on the lining, making him struggle for a second before it finally slipped in.
Then he tilted his head toward Ethan, smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"What's cookin', good lookin'?"
Ethan blinked. "I… don't know how to cook."
The man groaned, dragging his palm down his face. "Christ alive…" he muttered into his hand before lowering it again, this time with a slightly less forced smile.
"How old are you, kid?"
Ethan thought about it for a moment, then answered plainly, "I was born today."
That earned him silence.
The man's jaw dropped, hanging open for a few seconds before he managed to force it shut again. His brow furrowed, somewhere between disbelief and mild concern.
"…Right," he said slowly. "Let's pretend you didn't just say that, yeah?"
He cleared his throat, leaning back on the bench and trying to gather some sense of composure that had long since fled him.
"Name's Jasper. Jasper Dawn," he finally said, voice steadier now, though the smirk returned with a faint glint of irony.
He extended a hand halfway before thinking better of it, settling for a nod instead.
"First follower of Imperial Solaris. Currently on recruitment duty… looking for new soldiers for the army against Evodil."
Ethan tilted his head slightly to the side, the confusion clear on his face.
"Who are you again?" he asked quietly.
Jasper blinked, looking genuinely caught off guard by the question. "You don't know me?" He let out a short, humorless laugh and leaned back, arms crossing over his chest. "Damn. Thought at least someone conscious in this city had heard my name by now."
Still, he didn't seem angry—just tired. With a huff, he started to explain.
"There's a revolution brewin'," he said, tapping his boot against the cobblestone street. "Two sides fightin' over what's left of this city. On one end, you've got Civil Control—James leads that one. Law, order, peace, all that noble bullshit. And on the other…" He paused, glancing toward the skyline where the faint glow of the upper levels shimmered through the haze. "You've got Evodil. The new dictator. Calls himself the god of chaos. Took the top city, turned it into a damned throne."
He adjusted his jacket, voice lowering. "We? We're what's left of the human army. Underground. Me and my uncle Noah run the cavern city down below. Trying to fix the mess—restore what the world was before the Curse hit. That thing wiped out half the population in… hell, probably a week."
When Jasper finally stopped talking, the silence that followed was heavy enough to choke on.
Ethan nodded slowly, his eyes dimming with thought. He raised a single finger, the movement precise, deliberate.
"If you're all fighting… if Evodil truly rules as a dictator," he began softly, "then why are you here? Shouldn't you be on guard? Always moving, always hiding? And how many casualties have you had so far?"
He stared directly into Jasper's eyes, his tone calm but unnervingly sharp. "I don't feel any spirits clinging to you."
Jasper froze. For a kid who claimed he was born today, the boy's words cut deeper than they had any right to. Questions even he hadn't asked himself—questions not even Noah had answered.
After a long moment, Jasper rubbed his chin and huffed, looking away.
"No one's died yet," he muttered. "Far as I can tell, there ain't even been a fight. Feels like… paranoia more than war. Two sides sittin' still, waitin' for the other to start something. Just a bunch of people watchin' each other rot while pretendin' it's strategy."
Ethan hummed faintly at the answer, a low, almost content sound that slipped out before he smiled again. His gaze drifted toward the nearest housing block ahead of the bench. A few windows still glowed faintly — soft, bluish-yellow light spilling between thin blinds. Through some, the silhouettes of people shifted, blurred by curtains or shadow. The world looked alive, but distant.
Jasper followed his gaze, exhaling through his nose as he sank deeper into the bench. The wood creaked under the shift of his weight, the metal frame humming faintly. He shoved his other hand into his jacket pocket, mirroring Ethan's posture without realizing it. For a moment, they both just sat there — two mismatched figures framed by the white glow of the lamppost, the hum of the city a quiet drone around them.
Then Jasper nudged him lightly with his elbow.
"So," he muttered, voice roughened by fatigue, "you told me you work for your father. But you never said who the guy actually is."
Ethan didn't answer right away. The hum lingered — that same calm note — as if he was mulling over the phrasing, or maybe the weight of saying it aloud. When he finally spoke, it was quiet, almost delicate.
"I don't think you'd like to meet him," he said. "But maybe… someday, when everyone calms down, you will. Maybe you'll even be friends."
Jasper raised a brow but stayed silent. Ethan went on.
"He has long black hair. Wears a scarf. Looks a bit ragged," he continued, voice steady but distant. "Though he lives well. Big house."
Jasper tilted his head, a low hum escaping him — somewhere between curiosity and disbelief. The description tugged at something half-remembered, half-feared, but he didn't press. He just smirked faintly and leaned back.
"Well… if your old man's out there, maybe I'll run into him when this whole mess stops spinning. Wouldn't mind a drink with someone who actually built something worth living in."
Ethan's lips curled into a small smirk of his own, faint but unmistakable.
"Oh, you will meet him," he said softly, almost under his breath. "If no one's dying… that means the war's going well, right? No graves, no crying, no wandering souls."
He looked back toward the lights, silver eyes catching the lamplight like glass.
"Peace comes easier when death forgets to show up."
Ethan finally stood from the bench, stretching his arms over his head with a soft, almost human yawn. The motion swayed him a little, the faint tremor in his legs betraying how new he still was to the idea of standing, walking—existing. His fingers went up to his glasses, sliding them off to rub at his eyes. The world blurred into light and color for a second before he set them back in place, the lenses catching the white gleam from the lamppost above.
Jasper watched him from the corner of his eye, smirking faintly. "Where you headed? Don't tell me I bored you that bad."
Ethan blinked at him, tilting his head. "No," he said simply. "I just didn't explore the manor I was born in yet. I should probably find a room to sleep in or something." He glanced down at his hands as if inspecting them again. "The ground's not that comfortable. Even for a half-shade."
Jasper's eyebrow lifted at the word. Manor.
There was only one manor near Menystria, sitting on the cliffs like a scar across the horizon — and the kind of people who lived there weren't the kind you met on park benches. His smirk faded into something quieter, curiosity and disbelief mixing behind his eyes. The kid didn't look like he was lying though. Hell, he didn't look like he even knew how to.
He stayed silent for a beat, then raised a hand lazily in farewell. "Well… try not to fall off the island again, kid."
Ethan smiled faintly, returning the wave as he turned away. His steps were light but uneven, still adjusting to the strange coordination of tendons and thought. Each motion looked like it required conscious effort — but there was something steady in the way he kept walking, like he was learning faster than he should.
The lamplight dimmed behind him, and the quiet murmur of the shades filled the empty streets once more. Jasper stayed seated, eyes following him until the boy vanished around the corner.
He leaned back, hand dropping to his pocket again as he exhaled.
"The manor, huh…" he muttered, half to himself. "So the bastard's still making things."
He didn't smile this time.