"Some traumas don't scream… they settle into long, endless silence."
The clock struck three past midnight.
Thick fog slithered like a gray serpent through the alleys of Arknor, one of the many enigmatic cities in the world of Kolaber. The flames of gas lamps danced gently with each breath of wind, as if whispering secrets buried in the bones of the ancient city. Rain tapped against the windows in a melancholic rhythm, but on a corner of Crown Hill Street, one house stood still — dark and silent… except for one room.
"Crying is sometimes a form of delayed awareness. You don't understand what's happening, so you stay quiet. And when you finally do… you cry. Tears fall from the moment awareness grows too large for the body to contain. Some cry because the truth becomes clear, not because it can be escaped."
I had read those words before. I never truly understood them.
Until now — as I stared at my parents' lifeless bodies.
A sixteen-year-old boy sat barefoot on the wooden floor, unmoving, eyes fixed on the two figures before him — the corpses of his mother and father. Blood soaked the aged floorboards, spreading like a filthy crimson veil. Their glassy eyes stared back at nothing, stripped of all life.
Strangely… he did not cry.
His name was Isaac Crownkan.
Silence choked the room — not just absence of sound, but a stillness so thick it seemed time itself had paused to witness the moment.
Something in him died that night.
He remained seated, motionless, like a statue carved from shock. No tears. No screams. No trembling. Only his eyes — sunken, distant — gazing at the bodies as if they were part of a nightmare he would soon awaken from.
But the dream never ended.And the blood on his hands never dried.
The room was cold. Or perhaps… he was the one who had become cold.
Their bodies had been warm when he first touched them. Now, he watched the warmth slowly fade.He could do nothing. Not before.Not after.
He had once believed grief felt like drowning.But now he knew — true grief doesn't drown you.It empties you until there's nothing left to drown.
The wind howled through cracked windows, carrying distant sounds — a whistle, a sob, or maybe just the old city breathing.
A Week Later…
A boy stood before a cracked mirror in a cold, mold-scented bathroom, staring at his reflection.
His brown eyes looked pale and faded, as though stripped of their original color. Sunken cheeks framed a face too young to be that hollow. Skin pale like a ghost, untouched by sunlight for ages. His dark hair hung messily over his forehead, unruly and uncaring. An aura surrounded him — invisible, but palpable — like the edge of a blade.
He stood there motionless, as if searching for something not in his face, but behind it…Someone who used to live inside him — and vanished.
Minutes passed. Maybe more.Time doesn't move when you no longer care it exists.
Was he remembering?Was he thinking?Or was he simply… being?
Suddenly, his heart jolted.
It wasn't a sound one hears from the outside…It was something else — something deeper.
"My condolences for your loss... or more precisely, for our loss."
The voice came not through his ears or mouth, but from somewhere else entirely — from the core of his consciousness.
A muscle twitched in his eye. He turned quickly. No one was there.
But he felt it.
"Who are you?!"He said it with a voice cracked by silence, as if his throat hadn't been used in ages.
"You already know who I am, Isaac."
Silence.
Then — a faint smile appeared on his lips.But it wasn't his.
It wore his face… but it wasn't his smile.
"Just a hallucination, then?""Yes, that's how broken minds like to comfort themselves. They say: it's just trauma, just shock. And that soothes them."
Isaac raised a hand to his forehead, as if trying to rip the voice out of his mind.
"Who are you?""Call me what you like. But if you need a name… call me Eric."
He froze. The name echoed in his skull like a whisper in a cavern.Eric?
"When… when did you enter my head?"
"The moment your parents died.Maybe before that.Maybe I've lived inside you for a long time… sleeping.But their death — it woke me."
Isaac's body trembled — for the first time in a week.
"Were you there?Did you see who did it?"
A pause. Then a whisper:
"Yes. I saw."
"Who? Tell me!"
"I can help you find out…But things aren't that simple, Isaac.There's much you don't know — about the world, about yourself… and about me."
Isaac stepped back, leaning on the wall as if afraid to fall.
"And why would you help me? What do you want in return?"
A faint chuckle echoed in his mind:
"Let's just say… I have a vested interest in you knowing.We now share body and soul.And just like you felt the pain of their death… so did I.So, let's find the one who did this."
Silence.
Then Eric's voice pierced like a needle:
"But before we begin… you must become stronger."
Isaac bit his lip until it bled.He didn't know if this was a dream… or madness.But something about "Eric" wasn't an illusion.
He felt him. Like he felt hunger.Or cold.
"Stronger?" he whispered.
"Yes. But not strength as people know it.A different kind.Power hidden in the city's bones —in its rituals,its forgotten blood.This is a city of lies and shadows…This is Kolaber."
The name rang in his mind.
Kolaber…
Like a ghost that had called his name before he was ever born.
"Do you have this power?"
"I know of it.I know who wields it.And some of it… is meant for you."
"Where do we begin?"
The voice smiled.
"From the depths of darkness, Isaac…where truth is the only light you'll ever see."
And the candle in the room extinguished itself.