The night was thick.
Not just dark—thick. Like breath held too long. Like a secret swallowing its own voice.
Rain tapped the windows with a kind of nervous rhythm, as if it, too, was trying not to be heard.
Vorn sat alone in the cramped apartment. A kettle whispered steam behind him, ignored. His eyes remained fixed on the object in front of him.
A jar.
Black. Sealed. And very old.
It didn't reflect the room. It swallowed it. The surface drank in the light like it had something to hide.
He didn't know how long he'd been staring at it.
It had arrived in a box that morning. No return address. Just a small, folded note:
"Do not open until it calls your name."
That had been enough to leave it alone. For a while.
But now it was nearly midnight, and something had shifted.
Vorn wasn't sure what had woken him.
The apartment was silent. The kind of silence that doesn't wait for sound, but kills it. The city beyond the window was dim, the lights on the street flickering under the storm.
He should have thrown it away.
That would have been smart.
But when he moved to do it, his hands had frozen. His breath caught.
Because he had heard it.
Not with his ears.
Inside.
A voice, soft and without shape:
"Vorn."
The jar pulsed faintly now. Not visibly. But he could feel it in the bones of the room.
He stood, barefoot on the cold tiles.
Three steps.
The room didn't get closer. The jar didn't get bigger.
But he reached it anyway.
It was heavier than it should have been. Heavy like memory. Like something buried.
His fingers found the seal. Wax, ancient and unbroken.
He paused.
"Don't do this," a voice whispered in his mind. Not from the jar. From himself.
But his fingers moved.
Crack.
The wax broke. The lid twisted.
A sound like air escaping from a forgotten tomb.
Then—nothing.
He opened the jar.
Inside was a heart.
Perfect. Black. Still.
But not dead.
It beat.
Once.
Vorn fell to his knees, clutching his chest.
Something entered him.
Not the heart. Not physically. But something else.
Cold. Deep. Heavy.
He screamed.
Except no sound came out.
When he woke, the apartment had changed.
No rain. No noise. No light.
The walls stretched too far. The ceiling was gone.
He stood, swaying.
The jar was still on the table. Empty.
His chest ached.
He went to the mirror.
His eyes looked the same.
At first.
Then the light shifted. And he saw it.
A faint glow. In both eyes.
A symbol. A single character, deep within the iris.
一
Seal One.
And the color—prismatic. Like rainbow oil. Like broken reality.
He fell back, breathing hard.
It wasn't a dream.
Something had started.
Something had been given.
Or taken.
He didn't sleep.
The heart was gone.
But he could feel it. Inside. Not beating. Just...watching.
Whispers came sometimes. In dreams. In reflections.
Questions he didn't ask, answered by voices that didn't exist.
"The Null watches. The Threshold is near."
"You opened it. Now walk it."
He tried to leave the city once.
Made it to the edge.
But something stopped him.
A man.
Tall. Pale. Wearing a coat that seemed too clean for the weather.
He looked at Vorn and smiled.
"Seal One. Congratulations."
"Go back. It's not time to run yet."
Then he vanished.
Not walked away. Just...gone.
Vorn stood there for hours before turning back.
It began small.
He could see things.
Not visions.
Layers.
Things beneath the surface of objects. People. Words.
He could stare at a locked door and see the pattern of how it was made. Hear the thought of the person who last closed it.
He could listen to silence, and understand what wasn't being said.
He avoided mirrors.
They whispered now.
Sometimes showed things behind him that weren't there.
Sometimes showed him doing things he hadn't done.
Weeks passed.
He marked the days in a notebook. They kept changing.
Monday. Monday. Monday.
Then Thursday. Twice.
Then no days at all.
He stopped writing.
Instead, he began to draw.
Symbols.
A circle, broken by a jagged line.
A mirror cracked at the center.
An eye with no pupil.
He didn't know what they meant.
But they felt right.
Then, Mira appeared.
She was the neighbor's niece. Moved in temporarily. Said hello in the hallway. Seemed to think he was normal.
She smiled. Often.
Made soup.
Brought extra.
Tried to talk.
He listened. Answered in short words.
She stayed anyway.
He warned her, once.
"You shouldn't spend time here. I'm not... right."
She laughed. Said everyone was a little broken. That didn't mean you threw them out.
He said nothing.
But he started keeping a knife under the pillow.
Not for her.
For what followed him in the dark.
A month after the jar, he dreamed of the first Door.
It stood in a room without walls. In a space without sky.
The handle was glass. The hinges were bone.
It didn't open.
It invited.
He woke, drenched in sweat. The seal in his eyes flickered.
And something inside whispered:
"Soon."
He opened the window.
The city was wrong.
Buildings leaned slightly the wrong way. The moon blinked.
Far below, a man walked upside-down along the streetlights.
Vorn closed the window.
On the seventh week, it happened.
He was walking past an alley.
Something reached out.
Not a hand. Not a shape.
A pressure.
Like thought made physical.
It touched his spine. His eyes flared.
The world twisted.
He stood in the alley. Except it wasn't an alley anymore.
It was black.
Endless.
Reflections floated around him, spinning slowly.
Mirrors.
Each showed something different.
A boy crying.
A girl bleeding.
A tower collapsing.
In one, he saw himself. Older. Eyes glowing with 六.
Seal Six.
He blinked.
The mirror cracked.
Voices screamed in reverse.
Then he was back on the street.
Mira found him that night, bleeding from the nose.
She didn't ask questions. Just cleaned him up.
He gave her an envelope the next day.
Full of money.
"Go. Leave the city. Don't come back."
She tried to argue.
But the look in his eyes ended it.
She left.
He never saw her again.
Three nights later, someone knocked.
He didn't answer.
The door opened anyway.
The man in the coat.
Still pale. Still smiling.
"Door One is waiting."
"You can turn back. This is the last moment of peace you'll have."
Vorn didn't speak.
He followed.
The door wasn't far.
It never had been.
It just hadn't wanted to be seen.
He stood before it.
Black wood. No handle.
Only a crack down the middle.
Inside, something moved.
The man nodded.
"You walk alone. But you are not alone."
"The Null watches."
Then he stepped back.
Vorn touched the crack.
The door opened.
And everything changed.