Some prices are paid in blood.Others... are paid in the deepest corners of the soul.
Asher stood frozen, his breath shallow in the stale night air, staring at the silhouette that shouldn't exist.
Liora.
The woman who had vanished into the flames of his past, gone in an explosion that erased an entire sector of the Inner Ring. Gone, along with everyone he'd failed to save.
But here she was now, walking toward him through the fog and flickering neon as if death were just a phase one could walk out of.
Her long coat fluttered behind her, catching the breath of the alley's dying wind. Shadows curled around her like obedient pets, almost... eager.
"You look surprised," she said, voice curling like smoke, familiar and cruel. "Did you really think I wouldn't find you again, Asher?"
His name in her mouth was a dagger drawn slow.
Asher's fingers twitched, drifting toward his knife.
He could still feel the phantom heat of the explosion where she'd died. Could still hear her final scream as the flames swallowed the lab. She had been more than a weapon. She had been his partner. His failure.
"You…" he began, his voice hoarse, heart pounding. "You died. I watched it happen."
"Died?" she laughed, and it wasn't the sound he remembered—it was fractured. Unnatural. "Death is a story people tell themselves to sleep at night. But not all of us get to sleep. Some of us wake up somewhere worse."
Her eyes caught the light—glinting not with life, but with a strange static. Like something not entirely human. Not anymore.
"We've got unfinished business, you and I."
He steadied himself, planting his feet like a man bracing for a storm.
"I'm not your pawn, Liora. Not anymore."
Her grin widened, teeth too white in the dark. "You never stopped being mine, Asher. You just stopped noticing the strings."
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Creepy Moment – The Dark Awakening
The shadows behind her began to change.
They moved.
Not with the natural flow of light, but as if responding to her presence. They twisted up the walls, slithered along the broken pavement. Alive. Hungry.
And with every word she spoke, Asher could feel something coiling inside his own chest—something old. Something he'd tried to bury with her.
"You don't even know what you are," she whispered. "But I do. I always have."
Asher took a step back. The air thickened. He could feel the hum of his power, but it didn't answer him. It was trembling. Frightened.
Liora's eyes narrowed, now devoid of mockery. "You thought you could outrun it? The truth? You were never meant to survive that day. But you did. Because it chose you."
A cold touch grazed his arm.
Her hand.
Her skin was icy, like she'd been dead a long, long time.
"The darkness remembers, Asher. And now, it's waking up."
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The Price
Liora moved faster than he expected.
Her hand pressed against his chest, directly over his heart. For an instant, there was heat—scalding, blistering. And then the heat collapsed into pressure. Crushing, like the world was folding in on itself.
His knees buckled.
Inside him, his powers screamed. Not from pain—but from something worse: submission.
"You feel that?" she whispered, her lips at his ear. "That's not me. That's you. You're breaking."
Asher gasped, choking on nothing. His body betrayed him, his strength flickering like a faulty light. The darkness inside him surged, out of rhythm, out of control.
Liora stepped back.
And Asher collapsed to one knee.
"Power always has a price," she said, her voice turning cold. "And the shadows don't take coin. They take you."
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Asher coughed hard, spit flecked with blood staining the ground. His vision was swimming, black edges closing in, and not all of it from pain.
His voice was barely audible. "You... did this... to me."
"No," Liora replied, folding her arms. "You did. The day you opened that mirror, when you made that choice to remember. That's when the debt was sealed."
The neon light flickered. Sparks dropped from a broken circuit above them. The alley seemed to stretch, warping like something from a nightmare. Time didn't feel real anymore.
"You think you're different from me?" Liora asked, stepping closer again. "We both touched the same flame. You just haven't burned yet."
Asher forced himself up, trembling.
"I won't become what you are."
"You already have." she hissed. "You just haven't shed your skin yet."
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The Lurking Eyes
That's when he heard it.
The whispering.
Not from Liora. Not from inside his head.
All around him.
A susurrus of voices, weaving through the air like wind through dead leaves. Each word unintelligible, yet deeply wrong, scraping against his thoughts like broken glass.
The shadows grew eyes.
Tiny, glowing pinpricks—dozens, then hundreds—lining the alley walls, blinking in unison. Watching.
Judging.
He turned, trying to find the source, but there was none. The darkness itself was alive.
"You're not alone anymore," Liora whispered—and this time her voice came from everywhere. Every wall. Every shadow. Every corner of his mind.
"You're in their domain now."
[End Of Chapter 16]
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Asher backed away slowly, the air turning thick with the scent of sulfur and ozone.
Then he saw it—through the fog, beyond the alley's edge.
A figure.
Tall. Rigid. Familiar.
Draped in black and crowned in twisted iron, with a blade forged from obsidian sorrow clutched in its hand.
It stood motionless.
But its presence crushed everything else. The whispers fell silent. Even the shadows retreated.
Asher's breath hitched.
He knew that figure.
It wasn't just a memory. It was a reflection.
The version of him that never chose mercy.
The one that embraced the fire.
And it was walking toward him.
Preview:
Chapter 17 – Echoes in the Abyss
Asher is pulled deeper into the labyrinth of his forgotten past, forced to face a version of himself born from shadow and fury. But the abyss doesn't offer answers—it demands sacrifices. And some reflections... refuse to fade.