The city was drowning in rain. Neon lights flickered, reflecting off wet asphalt like shards of broken glass. Kael Sato pulled his hoodie tighter, trying to ignore the chill creeping into his bones. The streets were empty—except for the whispers.
He paused at an alley, heart hammering. Something felt… wrong.
A scream tore through the night, sharp and raw. Kael's instincts screamed at him to run—but he couldn't.
He stepped into the alley.
A figure stood at the far end, cloaked in black, a long scythe glinting in the dim light. Before Kael could react, a man lunged at the figure, knife raised, his face twisted with rage.
The figure moved like water, a blur of shadow. In a heartbeat, the scythe swung, slicing through the air with a metallic whisper. The man fell, lifeless, yet unharmed by any visible wound. Kael blinked.
The figure turned slowly, and Kael's breath caught. Its eyes… they were empty, dark voids, yet somehow, he felt them pierce into his soul.
"Wh-who… who are you?" Kael stammered.
The figure said nothing. A black feather drifted from its cloak and landed at Kael's feet. Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the figure vanished into the night, leaving only silence.
Kael knelt, staring at the feather. It was cold, impossibly dark, absorbing the light around it.
And then he heard it—the whisper of the alley, soft and chilling.
"They are not yours to save… but soon… it will be your burden."
Kael staggered back, eyes wide. The alley seemed to stretch, shadows crawling along the walls like living things. He felt it: a pull in his chest, like something inside him had awakened.
He looked at his hands. Nothing. Yet a warmth, a strange energy, pulsed through him. The whisper came again, faint and echoing, as if carried from another world.
"See them. Hear them. Judge them… if you can survive what comes next."
A scream cut through the rain once more, this time closer. Kael ran toward it, driven by a force he didn't understand. At the far end of the street, a shadow detached itself from the darkness, a writhing mass of black tendrils, eyes glowing with hunger.
Kael froze. His instincts told him to run. Yet… he didn't.
Something inside him responded—an instinct, primal and terrifying. His hand shot out toward the shadow. And the world tilted.
The shadow shrieked, recoiling as if recognizing him. The whispers swelled around him, voices of the unseen: angry, pleading, lost.
Kael realized the impossible: he could see them. The souls trapped in the city, lingering between life and death. They were crying, screaming, clawing at the edges of his vision.
And above it all, the figure with the scythe watched.
Kael's heart pounded. Fear, adrenaline, and something darker coursed through him. He didn't know what had awakened inside him, but he knew one thing: his life had changed forever.
The shadows surged toward him, and Kael raised his fists—not knowing that tonight, a boy would step into a world where death had eyes, and the Grim Reaper waited for his apprentice.
The rain fell harder. The city whispered. And the Dawn of Shadows had begun.
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