Yan sat in the damp darkness of the basement, where the stench of mold and burnt oil hung thick in the air. The stone walls were slick with moisture, and water dripped from the ceiling, each drop ticking like a time bomb counting down.
Across from him sat a man in a wig, his face hidden in shadow, only his chin illuminated by the greasy candlelight between them. The man lit a hand-rolled cigarette and exhaled a thick cloud toward the ceiling.
"You won't find Nimbus," the man said, his voice rough from years of alcohol abuse. "He decides when he's seen."
Yan clenched his fists. "Then how do I get close to him?"
The man leaned forward and unfolded a tattered map on the table. Red lines snaked across it, leading to different buildings in the city.
"He controls three places: the northern refinery, the central hospital, and here..." His finger landed on a black dot. "Beneath the city library. The old war tunnels."
Yan stared at the map. "How do I get in?"
The man suddenly coughed, a deep, rattling sound from his chest. When he pulled the handkerchief away, specks of blood stained the fabric.
"There's a way... but you have to accept death."
He pulled a small bottle from his pocket, a thick, black liquid that shimmered in the candlelight.
"This can turn you into one of them for forty-eight hours. It only works once... and then, your brain melts."
Yan took the bottle, rolling it in his palm. The liquid inside moved sluggishly, as if alive.
"Why are you helping me?"
The man took another drag. "My son disappeared in New Eden one day."
A heavy silence fell between them. The dripping water pooled on the wooden table.
"Tomorrow night. Nine o'clock. Behind the library," the man said, standing. "If you chicken out, know you weren't ready for this."
When the door closed, Yan was left alone with the bottle and the map, now damp and tearing at the edges. Outside, the rain tapped softly against the walls, a whisper from a world that no longer existed.
Yan pushed open Emilia's door. The scent of fresh bread and wildflowers, the ones she always kept by the window, filled the warm space. Emilia sat at the kitchen table, her hands wrapped around a cup of tea. Her green eyes widened when she saw him, fear, hope, something else Yan couldn't name.
"Can I... come in?" he asked, his voice hoarse.
Emilia stood abruptly. Tea sloshed onto the saucer. "Always," was all she said.
Yan stepped inside, shutting the door behind him. The rain had started again, streaking the window like tears.
"I have to go," Yan said. "Tomorrow night. I found a way to get close to Nimbus."
Emilia crossed to him. She took his hands, her fingers were cold. "You know you might not come back, right?"
Yan stared into her eyes, those green-and-gold flecks that always reminded him of Heidelberg's spring forests. "I know. But... I don't have a choice anymore."
Silence. Only the rain and the ticking of the wall clock.
Then Emilia placed a hand on her stomach. A slow, almost cautious movement. "Yan... I'm pregnant."
The words hung in the air. Yan's breath caught. All sound vanished, rain, clock, even his own heartbeat.
"What?" was all he managed.
Emilia smiled, a smile that trembled with tears. "I thought you should know... before you leave."
Yan dropped to his knees. His shaking hands pressed against her stomach. Warmth radiated through the thin fabric of her dress. In that moment, all the darkness of the world faded, Nimbus, New Eden, revenge, none of it mattered against this small, warm secret beneath his palms.
"How... how is this possible?"
Emilia laughed, a hiccupping sound. "Remember that night in the refinery storage room?"
Yan pressed his forehead to her stomach. His tears came, hot and salt-heavy. "I... I can't go. Not now. Not when..."
Emilia stroked his hair. "You have to go. Precisely because you have more reason now."
That night, as the rain fell outside, they lay tangled in Emilia's old bed. No rush, no urgency, just the heat of their bodies sharing what might be their last night. Yan kept his hand on her stomach, and Emilia hummed an old lullaby under her breath, one her mother used to sing.
And when morning came, Yan left. With the black bottle in his pocket and Emilia's green eyes burned into his mind. He knew now, he wasn't fighting for revenge anymore. He was fighting for a future he might never see.
The smell of sizzling meat and foreign spices twisted through the humid afternoon air. The wooden stalls, their awnings faded from years of trade, stretched in two spiraling rows like weary old men. Shadows of the crowd danced across the cracked cobblestones.
In a corner, beneath a tattered canopy, two old merchants sat at a wooden table. Steam rose from their brass coffee cups.
The first merchant, a man with twisted white whiskers and spectacles perpetually sliding down his nose, counted gold coins. The second had a face like cracked leather and almond-shaped eyes, as if he'd spent years squinting into the eastern sun.
The whiskered merchant spun a coin between his fingers and sighed.
"Money's losing its worth. Like beach sand, the tighter you grip, the faster it slips away."
The eastern merchant chuckled softly.
"Value is an illusion. Today you count coins; tomorrow, those same coins may be your crime."
He sipped his coffee, wiping his lips with his sleeve.
"But one thing always holds value... information."
The whiskered merchant glanced around, then leaned in.
"Have you heard? Nimbus plans new taxes. They say even breathing will soon be taxed."
The eastern merchant drained his cup.
"I know Nimbus. Strange man. One day, he feeds bread to the hungry. The next, he orders their mouths sewn shut with lead."
A heavy quiet settled between them. The squeaking of rats in the wheat sacks filled the void.
"He promises freedom, yet burns free thinkers alive," the eastern merchant continued. "Denies God, yet sets himself as a deity who defies nature's laws."
The whiskered merchant adjusted his spectacles.
"Then why do people still believe in him?"
"Because they'd rather trust a monster with a human face... than a human with the face of a monster."
Yan moved through the absolute darkness beneath the library. The stone walls wept condensation, the air thick with mildew. His flashlight flickered, its trembling beam dying every few steps, as if even technology feared Nimbus.
His feet sank into stagnant water. Each step squelched, like dead hands reaching up from below.
The black bottle was clenched in his left fist. The liquid inside pulsed, like a still-beating heart.
He recalled the eastern merchant's words: Nimbus only appears in three places, where he tortures, where he hides, and where he tastes power.
The tunnel forked. Yan paused. He pulled a stone from his pocket and scraped the left path. The air grew colder. The walls were metal now, not stone. The floor clean, dry, as if frequently traveled.
Yan turned off his flashlight.
In the dark, a thin blue light seeped from under a steel door at the end. As he neared, he heard it, the sound of data-processing machines.
And then, a voice, soft and harsh, calm and furious all at once, as if spoken through a thousand throats:
"I knew you'd come, Yan Schultz. I knew when you saw that pregnant woman, you'd end up here."
Yan raised the bottle. His hand shook. "This ends tonight, Nimbus."
The steel door groaned open. Blinding white light engulfed him.
"Welcome," Nimbus said, arms spread, "to the center of the world. Where all threads converge... and where you, like the rest, are just a replaceable strand."
An infinite space, its ceiling a black dome like the night stars die in. The marble floor so polished, it was like walking on frozen water, every step sending invisible ripples.
The walls were ancient mirrors, their surfaces warped with subtle twists. Some cracked, others fogged with mercury, distorting reflections.
When you moved through this hall, you saw a thousand versions of yourself, each slightly different. Some reflections moved independently, as if versions of you from parallel worlds had leaked through.
From the ceiling hung long chains with old lanterns, their aggressive yellow light casting monstrous shadows.
At the center stood a circular basalt platform, carved with spirals that seemed to spin if stared at too long.
The air was still, yet an occasional cold breeze carried the scent of copper and dried skin.
The silence had weight, as if the space itself was watching you breathe.
Black velvet curtains hung in the corners, their depths pure void, something unseen staring back if you dared to part them.
On the eastern wall, a massive relief of intertwined faces, all staring at one point. Their expressions shifted depending on where you stood.
The floor here was mosaicked with a leafless tree, its branches like claws reaching for the viewer.
"Where's my sister?" Yan demanded.
"Your sister? Death will save us."
Suddenly, Nimbus dropped to his knees, one hand on his head, the other raised to the sky. He shouted:
"We thank you, God! You are the Creator! I am the Creator! They will pay for their sins! Death waits at the end! Death!"
Then he stood.
"Your sister is right here."
They brought Liza in, strapped to a chair. A tube connected to a bag of acid, another forced into her rectum, both merging before entering her mouth.
She was missing an arm, Nimbus had cut it off and eaten it.
He had stolen fortunes. Tortured countless.
A naked thirty-year-old man was led in next, crawling like a dog, a collar around his neck.
Then a small child, his nose cut off, as one of the three men mounted him, riding him like a horse.
The acid and Liza's diarrhea mixed, funneled into her mouth as the two men began cutting and eating her flesh.
Yan lunged, but Nimbus struck him down.
The Hall of a Thousand Faces became an arena, its mirrored walls reflecting the brutal dance of fists.
Yan and Nimbus, locked in a death grapple.
The first blow was Yan's, a left hook to Nimbus' ribs. The crack of bone echoed.
Nimbus didn't flinch. He just laughed and drove his elbow into Yan's face. Blood sprayed from Yan's broken nose, splattering the mirrors, a thousand crimson droplets.
Yan licked the blood from his lips. "I see... fear in your eyes."
Nimbus attacked, a barrage of strikes Yan barely blocked. A kidney shot. A gut punch. Yan bent but didn't break.
His retaliation was savage, a headbutt to Nimbus' forehead. The crack of skulls was deafening.
Nimbus stumbled back, slipping on the blood-slick floor.
Yan pounced, pinning him, hammering fists into his face, chin, nose, eye socket. Blood coated his knuckles.
But Nimbus wasn't done. His hand shot down, claws digging into Yan's thigh.
Yan screamed, the pain shattered his focus.
The world flipped.
Now Nimbus was on top, his right hand squeezing Yan's throat. White stars burst in Yan's vision.
"They always... die... like this," Nimbus hissed between squeezes. "Every... hero."
His left hand went to Yan's belt. The zipper tore open.
Yan thrashed, but suffocation stole his strength.
The rape was swift, merciless, no preparation, no lubrication. Yan felt himself split apart, pain searing to his bones. His fingers scraped bloody trails into the marble.
Nimbus leaned into his ear:
"This is what I did... to your sister... while she cried your name."
Each thrust drove Yan deeper into the floor. The mirrors reflected a thousand versions of the violation, each more grotesque than the last.
Nimbus stood, Yan's last strength dripping down his thighs.
He admired himself in the mirrors, the undisputed victor.
Then he smashed Yan's skull with a rock, over and over, until it split open.
Yan lay broken, naked, only able to whisper one word before death took him:
"Li...za..."
Nimbus said nothing. He called in more men, more victims. The noseless child was brought into the courtyard, ridden like a horse.
Then Nimbus spoke:
"Death will save us. Kill every human on Earth."
From that moment, governments and soldiers turned on their own people, slaughtering them one by one.
Nimbus walked among the corpses in Berlin, staring at the ground.
He noticed a woman, still alive, playing dead.
"Be good people," he said. "Like Adolf Hitler. Today is judgment day. God will kill you. Death will save you. Now pray. Pray your god."
He raised his hand.
She was shot.