The chapel stank of smoke and wax. Rows of children knelt in silence, their foreheads pressed to cold stone. The priest's chant droned like a swarm of flies.
"O dead gods, keep our flash unbroken. O silent sky, keep our soul unshaken."
The boy mouthed the words but gave them no meaning. His mind was on the light he had seen. That sharp glimmer that made duct hang motionless. He could still feel it behind his eyes, as thought it had left a mark no prayer could scrub away.
A sharp crack split the air.
The children flinched. A candle toppled from its stand, wax spilling like blood across the altar. The priest's voice faltered, just for a moment, before he gathered himself.
"The gods test us," he snarled, "they shake the earth to measure our faith."
But the boy's stomach turned. That wasn't the earth. It was the sky.
The hunger inside him, twisted. Closer.
When the prayer ended, the children shuffled out in silence. The boy lingered in the chapel, his Gaza drawn upward. Thought a broken window, he saw clouds thickening in the gray sky. The shape of something vast and unseen loomed beyond them—like ribs pressed against a shroud.
And then—faint, almost too soft to hear—came the chime again.
Clink.
He spun, searching for the source. Nothing but shadows. Nothing but dust.
But the sound lingered in his ears, sweet and terrible, like a promise
he pressed his hand together as thought in prayer, thought no prayer formed. Only a thought:
Something is falling. And it's coming for me.
The thought echoed in him like a sound heartbeat.
The chapels' silence pressed down heavy, broken only by the faint crackle of candle wicks. He tried to steady his breath, but the hunger inside him clawed at his ribs, whispering that he was right—that something was descending.
Then it came again.
Clink.
The sound was clearer now. Not the wind. Not The settling wood. It rang as thought the sky itself had dropped a coin into the earth.
The boy's stomach knotted. His hands trembled against the stone floor.
Another clink. This one closer.
And then the air shifted. Dust above him hung suspended, frozen midair, as though the world had paused its breath. A crack of pale light opened between the rafters.
Something was coming through