The ruin didn't look dangerous at first.
It sat half-swallowed by the earth, a leaning arch of stone and rusted metal ribs jutting from the hillside like bones. Lucian, eleven years old and bruised from a long walk, followed his last guardian, a man everyone simply called The Trapper, through the broken threshold. The air smelled stale, like dust locked away for centuries.
Lucian paused, one foot hovering over a fallen slab.
"Why do they bury doors underground?" he asked.
The Trapper grunted, adjusting the oil lamp. " They were not buried. Just time eroding the things that are too weak to stand against it."
Lucian didn't know the difference yet.
The deeper they went, the quieter everything became. No wind. No birds. The outside world felt shut out, as if the ruin itself disliked company. Lucian rubbed his arm, feeling the tiny hairs stand on end. His instincts whispered turn back, but the Trapper only pushed forward, boots scraping old stone.
Ahead lay a circular chamber, wider than a barn, walls lined with faint carvings half-eaten by time. One symbol repeated over and over: a circle with three jagged streaks cutting through it.
Lucian didn't ask what it meant. He didn't want to give voice to the shiver crawling up his spine.
The Trapper sighed and set the lamp down.
"This is as far as we go."
Lucian waited for instructions, for explanations, for anything. Silence answered.
Then the Trapper crouched, tapping his fingers against something metallic buried beneath rubble, it was a half-buried console or pedestal, its surface cold and smooth, untouched by rust.
Lucian leaned closer. "What is it?"
"Something old," the Trapper murmured. "Older than this region. Maybe older than the empire before it. Don't touch anything."
Lucian's gaze was drawn to a book half covered by dust. It's surface was plain and the cover was tattered. It looked like something that would simply turn to dust upon contact with slight force. It was this tattered book that drew Lucian's attention for reasons he could not explain. He felt a calling deep within his bones to reach out and just grab it.
A faint hum traveled through the floor snapping him out of a daze. Lucian stiffened. He hadn't touched anything. Yet. He remembered the warning he received just seconds earlier.
The hum grew louder.
The lamp flickered.
And then the book snapped open.
A sound like breaking ice cracked through the chamber sharp, sudden, and final.
Lucian didn't see the device the Trapper was handling activate. He didn't see the symbol flare to life. He saw only light from the open pages of the book.
A white, violent light, not like fire or lightning. It had weight. It moved across the room and pressed through his skull and poured into his mind, filling his thoughts with raw heat. There was no time to scream. No time to breathe.
His body convulsed, but he wasn't aware of that. The only thing he could hear was a strange sound. A ringing, high and constant, like thousands of voices whispering the same note.
His vision dissolved.
Shapes smeared.
Then nothing.
Darkness swallowed the light abruptly, like someone had slammed a door in the sun's face.
Lucian hit the floor, cheek scraping against cold stone. His fingers clawed uselessly, searching for the Trapper, for anything real.
A voice somewhere near him gasped, maybe his own and then came the smell of burning hair, burning skin.
Lucian's head throbbed.
His eyes burned.
Tears came, unbidden, hot and useless.
"Don't move. No matter what you do, don't open your eyes." the Trapper rasped, his voice growing weak. "Don't..."
Another crack, louder than the first.
Then silence.
Complete and merciless.
Lucian lay shaking, eyes clenched shut, not sure if they were still there, not sure if anything around him was real anymore.
A slow realization crept in through the ache:
He couldn't see.
Not darkness.
Not shadows.
Nothing.
The lamp had gone out.
Or maybe the world had.
Time moved strangely after that.
Minutes turned to hours, dragged by without shape. Lucian crawled, palms scraping through the dirt searching for the Trapper, for the lamp, for a wall, for anything. His breathing sounded too loud, echoing off cavern walls he could no longer picture.
His right hand brushed something still, warm, and slick.
He recoiled instinctively.
"Trapper…?" His voice cracked.
No answer.
Only the fading hum of whatever ancient mechanism he had triggered buried beneath rubble and time.
Lucian sat, hugging his knees, rocking gently because it was the only motion that didn't terrify him.
Hot liquid trickled down his face.
Blood.
Sticky and metallic.
His eyelids throbbed with every heartbeat, swollen and useless.
The smell of iron filled his lungs.
Somewhere far away, maybe back outside the ruin, he thought he heard footsteps. Slow and measured. The sound of someone looking, not running. Maybe nearby scavengers were drawn to the commotion.
He told himself to call out, but fear locked his jaw. Afraid of the unknown. Life was not fair in this part of the world that they lived in.
When the footsteps reached him, Lucian flinched, curling into himself.
A voice, old and rough like worn leather, spoke low:
"Easy, boy. Easy now. Don't move."
A hand touched his shoulder.
Warm. Real. Not a hallucination.
Lucian swallowed, throat dry. "Who…?"
"The name's Old Bob," the voice said. "From Yellow Vale settlement. You must have heard of me. Don't try to open your eyes. Let's get you out of here."
Lucian didn't plan to. He wasn't sure he still had eyes to open.
Pain finally dragged him under after he realized who Old Bob was.
Not dramatic, not sudden, just exhaustion from bearing that pain closing over him like water over drowning lungs. Old Bob's voice blurred, the world shrinking to warmth and blackness. Moments later, he was sound asleep. Not many could endure what had just happened to him. Especially children his own age.
The last thing Lucian thought wasn't fear.
It wasn't pain.
It was a simple, stubborn question:
How is Trapper?
Will he be okay?
Am I going to be blind forever?
Just that one, hard, practical question.
Then his thoughts sank into darkness.
And stayed there.