Aeon – Into the Depths
The further Aeon walked beneath Central, the less the city above felt real.
Up there were crowded streets and steel trains, voices rising and falling with purpose. Down here, everything was still—heavy with a silence that felt too deliberate. The sound of his own footsteps echoed longer than they should have, and the air held the faint scent of rust, mildew, and something older.
His lantern cast a narrow beam ahead, barely enough to show the stone corridor in front of him. The walls were old—he could tell by the fading alchemical markings etched into the surface, designs meant for control and balance. They had once hummed with power. Now, they were just echoes.
Aeon stopped beside one of them and brushed his hand over the stone. Beneath his fingers, the symbol crumbled. Not from age alone. It had been drained—withered from within.
The Shadow had touched this place.
He moved on, more slowly now, careful where he stepped. There were cracks in the walls, small but wide enough to show veins of black running through them—like roots, brittle and dry. Aeon touched one and watched it fall apart like ash.
It should have felt like victory.
Instead, it made him uneasy.
He descended deeper, into a passage that had half-collapsed. A broken automaton lay in pieces against the wall—its chest caved in, metal arm bent back the wrong way. Nearby, another was little more than scrap. Not rusted. Torn.
Aeon crouched, studied them. They hadn't failed. They'd been destroyed.
He stood and continued down the narrowing corridor, which opened—abruptly—into something vast. His lantern's light couldn't reach the ceiling. But in the center of the chamber, there was a flicker.
Not firelight. Not torchlight.
Something colder.
He approached, cautious.
There, at the heart of the room, suspended by jagged iron supports, floated a crystal spire.
Black.
Tall as a man.
And inside it, threads of pale light writhed like nerve endings on the verge of death.
It pulsed. Slowly. Unsteadily. Like a heart struggling to beat.
Aeon stood motionless at the edge of the platform. He didn't need to get closer to know what it was.
The anchor.
A fragment of the Shadow—its last root in this world.
He circled the dais slowly, noting the old alchemical arrays inscribed into the floor. Layers upon layers. Ancient, barely legible ones beneath newer, messier glyphs—drawn in desperation, maybe. Like someone had been trying to hold it together.
It was failing.
Not just the anchor.
The whole foundation.
He climbed the steps to the base, moving carefully. The pulsing of the spire picked up slightly as he neared. Not like a greeting—more like a warning.
Or a threat.
Aeon didn't flinch. He knelt beside a fallen shard, broken off from the base of the crystal, and wrapped it in cloth. It pulsed faintly in his hand, but he ignored the chill crawling up his wrist. He'd seen worse. Held worse.
He turned to leave.
That's when the anchor pulsed—hard. A high, cracking sound filled the air. Light burst from its core in a sudden flare. Aeon clapped his hands together and slammed them to the stone—just in time. A shield rose between him and the blast.
The impact hit like a wall of pressure.
He staggered backward, knees buckling. The sound faded.
The anchor still floated, fractured but intact.
He didn't speak. Just stood there a moment, heart pounding.
It had reacted. Not defensively.
Instinctively.
It knew he was here.
And it was afraid.
————
Greed – Cracks in the Chain
Greed leaned against a wall in one of the upper tunnels, arms folded, watching the torches flicker.
It was too quiet down here.
Too still.
The kind of quiet that made your thoughts feel loud.
He shifted, running a thumb over the tattoo on the back of his hand. Ouroboros. The symbol of eternity. The brand of Father's will.
Lately, it felt more like a leash.
He scoffed at himself. Getting sentimental, are we? he thought, but the joke didn't land. Not even in his own head.
He walked—restless, hungry for motion, even if he had nowhere to go.
He ended up in one of the old labs. Dust choked the air, and the equipment was all covered in cobwebs. Beakers. Old notes. Maps of energy flow that probably hadn't meant anything in years.
He stood in front of the broken mirror.
Looked himself in the eyes.
Same face. Same smirk. But it felt thinner now, like the edges were peeling.
"You're getting soft," he muttered.
The mirror said nothing.
And then—
You weren't made to serve.
The voice wasn't loud. Barely a whisper.
But it was inside.
Not like Father's voice. Not like any of the others.
Greed didn't move.
He blinked. Swallowed.
"…Not this again."
He turned away from the mirror and paced the room, fists clenched. Memories stirred—uninvited. A bar in Dublith. Friends he hadn't ordered. Laughs that weren't part of any plan. Freedom, real and unpolished and gone.
You remember, the voice said again.
He stopped pacing.
"I'm not one of them," he said quietly. "I never was."
The shadows didn't argue.
And that was worse.
The Ripple
Somewhere below, Aeon stood still.
The shard in his satchel pulsed once—faintly.
Above, Greed raised his head, sensing something shift underfoot.
Far down. Far away.
But close enough to matter.
The world was stirring. Slowly.
Quietly.
And some part of them—both of them—knew:
This was the beginning of something neither of them could walk away from.
To be continued….