Episode 10:
The morning sun was warm, but Alok barely felt it.
Classes slipped by in a blur math, literature, science all just noise beneath the single thought pounding in his head:
the hill beyond the school.
He kept glancing at the clock.
Tapping his foot.
Counting seconds he couldn't sit through.
When the final bell rang, he didn't linger like he usually did. No half-hearted talk with classmates. No wandering to the bus stop.
Instead, he slipped out the side gate and took the narrow dirt path behind the sports ground the one that led to the old hill everyone avoided.
The hill wasn't large, but it had a strange weight to it.
The trees clung to its sides, their roots twisted like veins beneath the earth.
The air grew quieter with every step, as if the sound itself refused to come this far.
Halfway up, he felt it again
the faint hum from his pendant.
It pulsed softly against his chest, warm now, almost alive. Almost… guiding him.
At the top, he found nothing.
Just wild grass waving in the wind and the faint outline of the town below.
He exhaled, frustrated.
"Great. I'm talking to jewelry now."
"You came."
The voice wasn't in his head this time.
It was behind him.
Real.
Alok spun around.
A figure stood near the edge of the hill, cloaked in black. The air around them shimmered, bending light like heat rising from asphalt.
They didn't move.
"Who are you?" Alok asked, his pulse quickening.
The figure lifted their head slightly. Beneath the hood, nothing but shadow.
"You've forgotten everything… but your soul hasn't."
Their voice was low soft, and yet heavy enough to make the air tremble.
"And the one who hunts you is getting closer."
A gust of wind swept across the hill, carrying the sharp scent of ash.
For an instant just one breath the world cracked.
The school was gone.
The town below burned.
The sky bled red, torn open by monstrous silhouettes that roared in silence.
Then
it was over.
The hill returned. The grass swayed.
And Alok was shaking.
"What's happening to me?" he whispered.
The cloaked figure stepped closer.
"This life you're living… is only the surface. You are more than you think. But if you wish to survive long enough to learn the truth"
They reached out, pressing something cold into his palm.
"you must awaken."
Alok looked down.
A metallic shard rested in his hand, etched with intricate, shifting symbols that seemed to move when he wasn't looking.
"Keep it close," the figure said. "It will call to you when the time comes."
And then....
the wind rose again.
When it died, the figure was gone.
Alok stood alone on the hilltop.
The shard gleamed faintly in his palm.
The pendant against his chest pulsed once
a single, heavy heartbeat.