Leximus saw them first—the cold obsidian hands rising from below, their fingers curling around his limbs with a slow, deliberate hunger. He didn't resist. Something in him felt too heavy, too hollow. Then, without warning, the hands yanked him downward into the abyss.
Air vanished. Sound vanished. Even the idea of breath disappeared. Leximus reached upward instinctively, clawing for a support that did not exist. The hands tightened. Their surfaces vibrated as they whispered—each one singing a different discordant tune.
Then the memories came.
They didn't return gently; they tore through him. Joy sharpened to pain. Grief ignited like acid beneath his ribs. Love, guilt, fear—everything collided inside him as the whispers rose, twisting into screams.
Three words cut through everything, unmistakable despite the chaos:
"The Unlit Chamber.The Eve Mountains.The Scroll of Erised."
The screaming became unbearable. Leximus squeezed his eyes shut—and that was when the memories shifted, as if something ripped open inside his skull. Images flooded in. Voices. Heat. Darkness.
Then another voice reached him, faint and wavering, as though from miles away.
"Hey… are you alright? Hey, can you hear me?"
The world snapped back.
The blackness dissolved, peeling away like smoke, and Leximus found himself staring at a whitewashed ceiling. He blinked twice, disoriented, the quiet ringing in his ears slowly fading. When he turned his head, two faces hovered beside his bed—one gray-haired, blue-eyed, the other amber-haired—with expressions caught somewhere between curiosity and fear.
"What is it?" Leximus croaked once his voice returned.
Both boys recoiled slightly. The gray-haired one answered first. "We were just… checking up on you."
Leximus studied them for a heartbeat before pushing himself upright. The amber-haired one added, "Um—by the way, you've got dried blood on your cheeks. You might want to clean that."
"Where can I wash my face?" Leximus asked, standing.
"Behind the door on your left," the other boy replied.
He took one step toward it—and collapsed to his knees.
The headache slammed into him like a blade shoved straight through his skull. Shadows burst outward beneath him, stretching and snapping like living tentacles. Both boys—Rylan and Liam—stumbled back, panic widening their eyes.
Rylan reacted first. He lunged forward, grabbed Leximus, and pushed his power into him.
Calm yourself, Leximus heard, not through his ears but inside his mind.Clear your head or this gets worse.
Leximus tried—but the pressure only grew, crushing, suffocating.
Rylan inhaled sharply. Brace yourself.
Then he pushed.
A wave of memories crashed through Leximus' mind like a tidal surge—and suddenly everything went dangerously, blessedly clear.
Leximus gasped. "What… did you do?"
"That's my power," Rylan said flatly. "Rank One Ripple-Senser, Mnemonic Wells." He looked almost bored as he asked, "Do you feel okay now? Can you stand?"
Leximus nodded, unsteady but stable. He slipped into the small adjoining room—just a bathroom—and scrubbed the dried blood from his skin. When he looked into the mirror, his reflection startled him: his eyes seemed darker, hollower, like something had been scooped out from behind them and replaced with shadow.
When he returned to the room, a man was waiting. Rylan and Liam were already being ushered out by him.
Calvin.
"You alright now?" he asked, concern slipping into his usually rigid voice.
"I think I'm doing alright," Leximus replied.
Calvin exhaled—a subtle release, but telling—then cleared his throat and motioned for Leximus to follow.
As they walked through the halls, people stared. Fear clung to their faces, subtle but unmistakable. They kept distance as though he carried a contagion of nightmares.
"Don't worry about them," Calvin murmured.
But Leximus wasn't disturbed. He'd known these looks all his life. In the slums, people had always watched him like he was something other. Something wrong.
"Where are we going?" His own voice sounded distant to him, as though echoing down a long corridor.
"Sirius wants to see you," Calvin said, concern returning to his tone.
They entered an office where Sirius sat behind his desk, posture regal, aura oppressive. The moment he saw Leximus, he offered a faint smile.
"Good to see you're doing well."
"I am good now," Leximus replied.
Sirius' smile deepened. "Any drastic changes to your body?"
Leximus hesitated. Apart from the headaches… but that's just a side effect, he told himself.
"I'm fine," he answered.
Sirius seemed pleased. "Calvin, escort him back to the sleeping quarters until he's picked up."
Leximus followed Calvin out. They walked in silence until they reached the sleeping hall.
"Wait here until the two boys come get you," Calvin said, then left without another word.
Damn it… I couldn't see their expressions earlier. The shadows—maybe if I concentrate…He tried to compare his current state to before, to pinpoint what had changed.
That was when the shadows resurfaced.
At exactly seven that evening, Liam and Rylan were pulled aside by Calvin.
"Go fetch the new boy," he ordered.
As they walked, Liam grumbled, "Why is it always us? Can't that boy walk himself?"
Rylan gave him a look that said he should know better. Everyone here knew why. Everyone feared getting too close.
When they reached the room and pushed open the door—
Leximus was on the floor, body convulsing in pain, shadows beneath him thrashing like a storm of living ink
Rylan froze in the doorway.
Liam's breath hitched, a sharp intake of panic.
Leximus lay twisted on the floor, his back arched as if an invisible force was pulling him upward by the spine. Shadows poured from beneath him, spilling out in frantic surges—snapping, recoiling, splitting into tendrils that clawed at the air.
The room stank of cold stone and something older… something wrong.
"Rylan—" Liam whispered, voice trembling.
"I see it," Rylan murmured, his pulse hammering in his throat.
Leximus convulsed again, a violent jerk that rattled the metal frame of the bed. The shadows beneath him swarmed upward, climbing his arms, sliding beneath his skin like hungry veins searching for somewhere deeper to root.
His mouth opened in a silent scream.No sound came out—only a shiver in the air, like the room itself had flinched.
"Help… me…"The words barely escaped him, cracked and strangled.
Rylan snapped out of his paralysis.He rushed forward—and immediately flinched back as a shadow-tendril whipped past his face, slicing the air with a hiss like burning coal.
"Damn it—Leximus!" he shouted. "Fight it!"
Leximus' eyes flickered open.
But they weren't right.
The irises were darker—almost black—like ink had seeped into them. Shadows pulsed inside the pupils, swirling in tight spirals as if trying to pull the world inward.
Rylan forced himself forward again, dodging another shadow lash. He pressed both hands to Leximus's temples. Ripples of Mnemonic energy burst outward, shimmering through the darkness.
"Clear your mind—focus on me!" Rylan ordered, voice shaking despite the command.
The shadows recoiled for a moment.A brief gasp of air.A heartbeat of silence.
Then Leximus jolted violently, almost throwing Rylan backwards as another surge erupted beneath him.
Liam, terrified but unwilling to flee, grabbed Leximus's shoulder with trembling hands."Come on—just breathe—just—just hold on—!"
Leximus couldn't hear him.
The whispers were back—not in the room, but inside him.
Layered voices.Fragments of forgotten words.Something knocking at the edges of his sanity, begging to be let in.
"The Unlit Chamber…"He heard one voice hiss again.The same phrase from the void.
His eyes snapped open wider.He choked on a breath he didn't remember drawing.
Rylan grit his teeth and pushed harder, Mnemonic waves crashing into Leximus's mind like structured lightning.
"Stay with me!" he yelled. "Leximus—stay with—"
The shadows flickered.Twisted.Then shattered outward in a violent pulse that blew the lantern on the wall off its hook, smashing it against the floor.
Liam stumbled back with a cry.
Leximus collapsed, the shadows receding as abruptly as they had risen—sliding back beneath him, dissolving into the cracks of the stone floor like smoke retreating from light.
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Leximus lay motionless, chest rising and falling in ragged, shallow breaths. Sweat and leftover blood glistened on his face. His fingers twitched once, weakly, as though reaching for something he couldn't see.
Rylan knelt beside him, breath uneven, hands still trembling from the backlash of his own power.
Liam stood frozen near the door, swallowing hard, eyes wide with a fear he could no longer hide.
Neither of them spoke.
Because both understood the truth now—they hadn't just witnessed a relapse.
They had witnessed something awakening.