Chapter Nine: The Echo That Returned From the Shadows
The city was no longer what it had been minutes ago. Something unseen—something like a slow crawl across the surface of reality—was reshaping the alleys and walls, very slowly yet with terrifying clarity. The light that had begun to shine across the city after my merge with Lorasine didn't dim… but it became unstable, moving like liquid inside the stone, as if searching for something… or running from something.
I ran behind the silver-eyed girl through a narrow corridor whose walls pulsed like the chest of a living creature breathing. Our footsteps echoed unnaturally, each step creating a sound that carried far away, as if the city had become wider… or deeper.
I asked breathlessly as we ran,
"Where are we going? And what is the Lower Hall?"
She didn't look back.
"It's the only place untouched by the shadows. The place your people built the city around before it turned. There… lies everything you hid, and everything the city wants to remind you of."
I swallowed, my voice shaky.
"And the one who woke up?"
She stopped suddenly and turned toward me, her gaze unwavering.
"He is the one who knows the hall like you do.
Who knows your secrets like you do.
And who… you once trusted."
My hands trembled.
"I trusted him? Who is he?"
A stone beneath our feet split open as if cracking from the inside, releasing a cold breath that made me shiver.
We heard a sound… not the sound of a human, nor a shadow.
A deep sound… like an echo rising from a bottomless well.
The girl raised her hand quickly.
"No time to remember the past. If we don't reach it before he does… everything will end."
---
The city around us began to change more violently.
Walls bending…
The ground breathing…
The lantern-lights shifting as though they were eyes looking inward… and backward.
It felt as if the city was trying to choose whom to follow…
and whom to oppose.
We reached a massive gate that had once been just a dull wall.
Now it was carved with horrifying detail—human faces etched across it, some smiling, some weeping, all staring inward, into the darkness behind the door.
The girl placed her hand on the gate.
The carvings began to move, as though waking from a long sleep.
"This," she whispered, "is the Lower Hall."
Then she looked at me.
"You're the one who must open it."
I hesitated.
"How?"
She pointed at my chest.
"The stone… knows its place."
I placed my hand on the gate, and for a moment, it felt as if someone else was guiding my hand. A violent pulse struck my chest. The whole city shook—as if it sensed what was happening.
And the gate opened.
The air inside the hall was entirely different.
Not cold.
Not warm.
Not familiar.
It was air you could breathe as memory.
Circular patterns spread across the floor, intertwining like loops of time.
At the center stood a large, flat stone surface, marked by traces of things that once rested upon it.
And the walls… they were covered with giant drawings that resembled maps—not of one city, but of many.
Of many worlds.
My voice trembled.
"What is this place?"
She answered,
"This is where all the city's shadows began.
And this… is where you hid the stone for the first time."
I was about to speak—
but the ground shook violently.
A deep echo rose from all directions, like someone dragging heavy chains, and cracks forming in reality itself.
"He's here," the girl said.
I turned quickly toward the gate.
It was open.
But no one entered.
Instead, shadows seeped in first… thin, dark ribbons sliding across the ground, gathering, connecting, rising—reshaping themselves.
A step…
another step…
From the shadows, a man emerged.
A man… who looked like me.
Yes…
His features…
His eyes…
But he wasn't a copy of me, not like Lorasine. He looked like me as I had been years ago.
He stood there, staring at me, his eyes filled with one thing:
Stored betrayal.
He spoke in a calm voice sharp as a blade:
"I didn't expect you to be the first to arrive."
I couldn't move.
"Who are you?"
He smiled coldly.
"You don't know?"
He took a step forward.
The floor beneath his feet melted, then hardened again. His influence on the place was stronger than shadows… and stronger than light.
"Don't you remember me?
You always said… I was your right hand."
My breath caught.
A memory flashed suddenly—
A meeting…
Voices…
Someone standing to my right…
A sword…
An oath…
A name…
His name—
But the memory was torn away, as if something was forbidding its return.
The girl behind me said urgently,
"Don't listen to him. Don't let him inside you."
He laughed.
"You always say the same words… and he never understands."
Then he looked at me.
"Do you know what you did to me?
Do you know who made me what I am?"
He stepped closer.
His presence pressed against my chest like a weight sitting directly on my heart.
"You're the one who expelled me from the council.
You're the one who broke the oath we swore.
You're the one who hid the stone from everyone… even from me."
I stared at him in shock.
"I…?"
He roared, his voice cracking the walls:
"Yes, YOU!"
The hall trembled, part of the ceiling collapsing behind us.
The air thickened with pulses of deadly darkness.
"I was your brother in the shadows.
And I wanted to protect the city too.
But when I learned what the stone could do…
I wanted to use it."
He stepped so close we were one step apart.
His face was clearer now—
and I could see the real pain in him, deep and raw.
"But you… betrayed me.
You imprisoned me in the shadows.
Left me there for years…
Until I forgot my own name."
A coldness surged through my core like nothing I had ever felt.
"I… I don't remember any of this," I whispered.
The girl spoke quickly,
"You don't remember because the city erased those memories… to protect you."
He laughed bitterly.
"Protect him?"
He lifted his hand, and shadows swirled around it, coiling like a black storm ready to swallow everything.
"He stole my life…
Erased my name…
And now the city wants to shield him from me?"
I stepped back.
"I didn't mean to… I didn't do it to hurt you."
"You DID," he roared.
"And I'm here… to reclaim what you took."
He pointed at my chest.
At the stone.
---
The air thickened around me.
The stone's pulse flared violently inside my chest—painful, searing.
It felt as though the power was waking up… or escaping.
The girl cried out,
"Don't let him touch you! Your power isn't stable yet!"
The man laughed.
"He won't need to touch me.
The stone will come to ME."
He opened his hand, and shadows rose around him like a towering pillar.
---
The stone throbbed violently—my chest felt like it might burst.
My hands grew heavy.
My vision blurred.
Light and darkness swirled together.
The girl screamed,
"Fight it! He's trying to pull the stone out by force!"
But I couldn't…
My heartbeat became a loud echo filling the hall.
Everything was spinning.
And suddenly—
Suddenly—
A strand of light stretched from my chest toward his hand.
Slowly…
Unstoppably…
The stone was responding to him.
The girl screamed,
"No!
If he takes the stone… the city will fall—
and so will YOU!"
But I could no longer hear her.
Light was flowing out of me…
Darkness swallowing it…
And the man… smiling.
A smile of triumph.