Night stared into the bottomless abyss, his silver hair cascading over his shoulders—framing a face carved by the agony of loss.
His silver eyes—once bright—were now dull, empty. Shadows lingered behind them like ghosts of a soul that had already died.
Tears slid silently down his cheeks, cutting paths through the dirt and ash clinging to his tattered clothes.
A hollow laugh slipped from his lips—dry, broken, cruel.
It didn't offer relief.
Only more pain.
He couldn't stop sinking.
Couldn't stop the numbness from becoming everything.
The world felt weightless.
As if time itself had shattered, and he was stranded in the fracture—where nothing lived, not even memory.
He had lost everything.
His parents.
His sister.
Gone.
The promise he'd made to protect her echoed like a curse, the weight of it crushing him.
What was left?
No hope.
No meaning.
No strength.
His hand trembled as it reached for the ground, fingers brushing against something cold.
A jagged key—small, sharp, and wrong—lay in the dust.
He should've thrown it away.
Should've let it rot like everything else.
Instead, he just stared.
And then, without a word, without a thought—
He stepped forward.
And jumped.
---
The air screamed around him as he fell.
Faster.
Deeper.
Colder—
Until—
Stillness.
He wasn't falling anymore.
He was drifting. Suspended in an endless dark.
Weightless. Numb. Swallowed by silence.
And then… they came.
Two presences emerged from the void.
One was pure shadow—shapeless, still, unmoving.
Its eyes held no judgment. Only pity.
It said nothing.
But its silence roared in Night's mind.
The other stepped forward—wrapped in calm, pale light.
It offered no warmth, only a fragile ease to the edge of his pain.
"Who are you?" Night whispered.
The figure's eyes were like stars behind clouds. Her hair shimmered like the edge of dawn.
"You seek the end," she said softly, "but your fate was sealed from the beginning. I'm sorry… I cannot stop it."
"I didn't ask for this," he murmured. "I just wanted it to stop…"
The shadow stood still, but Night felt its pressure—like the Void itself had leaned close. Listening. Waiting.
The girl didn't flinch.
She stepped closer.
"Even in despair… something in you chose," she said. "Your heart yearned for the truth. But truth is not something given—it must be earned."
"I have nothing left."
His voice was a breath.
"I just want to know why. Why I suffer. Why I'm like this."
Her gaze didn't waver.
"Then earn the truth you seek. It's inside you—but it won't reveal itself until you face it."
A door appeared beside her—no summoning, no movement—just a silent rupture in space.
Its surface shimmered, caught between black and white.
Like oil and starlight. Like everything that can't exist at once.
"Face your Trial," she said.
Night's jaw clenched. His fists trembled.
But he didn't reply.
He walked forward.
Toward the door.
Toward the unknown.
Toward the Trial.
"What you seek… will always return."
A pause.
Her voice softened.
"I'll stay with you until the end, Master.
My name is… Solenne."
Then the door swallowed him.
And the Trial began.
---
The Hex
It came after the wars. After the skies cracked and the earth folded inward, swallowing entire cities.
After the fires.
The screams.
The silence.
People vanished—gone without warning.
When they returned, they were marked.
Their skin bore tattoos—delicate, intricate, beautiful in ways that felt… wrong.
Some glowed faintly.
Others pulsed—like they were alive.
No one knew where the marked had gone.
No one knew why they came back this way.
But they remembered one thing:
The Trials.
Each Mark was a key—unlocking something far worse than death.
The Trials tore the soul and remade it.
Those who survived returned changed.
The rest… became Gates.
Monsters.
Empty vessels.
Living doors to something beyond comprehension.
They tore rifts into the world—gates to a hell more worse than anything their world had ever experienced.
Through them came horrors that didn't belong in time.
Twisted things.
Memories that never happened.
Wounds that wouldn't close.
This was the Dread Hex.
It didn't just scar flesh.
It bled into the world itself—into stone, sky, and thought.
And the curse, like death, was eternal.
But even then… something stirred.
From the ashes came the Seekers.
The marked ones who returned with purpose.
They had survived the Trials.
They had faced the Gates—and lived.
They remembered scraps of the old world.
Secrets of magic long buried.
Technologies once tht lost.
Methods to endure a broken realm.
With their knowledge, the world began to shift.
Cities reformed.
Nations rose.
Hope flickered in the ruin.
But power is never silent.
Some forces sought to control the Marks.
Others formed strongholds against the Abyss.
Whispers moved through the survivors—of factions rising, of pacts broken, of war brewing in shadow.
The Seekers were revered.
And feared.
Their bond to the Hex made them more than human.
But even they—
Couldn't stop what was still coming.