He woke sitting upright.
There was no sound of breath returning, no sharp inhale, no violent jolt. One moment there was nothing, the next there was awareness. He was already awake.
It took him a second to realize he was unclothed. The thought arrived without embarrassment. It felt irrelevant. The black around him was too complete for shame to exist inside it.
There was no floor.
And yet he was sitting.
He placed his palm beneath him. Solid. Cold. But it did not feel like stone or soil. It felt like resistance. As if something allowed him to remain upright out of tolerance rather than support.
He stood.
The darkness did not shift. It did not deepen. It did not respond. It simply continued.
He turned slowly in a full circle. No horizon revealed itself. No gradient. No distance. Just an endless, uniform absence that pressed against his eyes until they began to ache.
He took a step. The sound did not echo.
He took another.
Still nothing.
It was not silence. Silence suggests the absence of noise. This was something else. As if sound itself had never been invented here.
He walked longer than he should have without tiring. Time stretched thin, like a thread pulled too far. At some point a thought formed: this is endless. The thought did not feel like fear. It felt like confirmation.
Then, far ahead, something shifted.
Not light. But instead
A Color.
A faint green disturbance trembling within the black.
It did not glow. It stained.
He moved toward it, and as he did, the ground changed beneath his feet without warning. Cobblestone replaced resistance. Uneven. Ancient. The seams between the stones were too straight, too deliberate, like they had been laid by something that understood geometry better than humanity ever could.
Debris floated at the edge of his vision. Broken arches. Fractured columns. Shards of something once magnificent. They did not fall. They did not drift. They remained suspended in quiet defiance of gravity, as though gravity had never been invited here.
The green mist thickened. It entered his lungs without asking permission. It smelled faintly of metal and something older, something like rain on ruins that no longer exist.
He continued forward because stopping felt worse.
Gradually the mist began to thin, not outward but upward, as if pulled away by invisible hands.
And then he saw it.
A corridor. Perfectly formed. Tall arches. Polished transparent floor. Ornate pillars carved with patterns he almost recognized but could not place. It extended into the distance, suspended in nothing.
There were no walls holding it.
No foundation beneath it.
Just structure existing because it decided to.
He stepped inside. His footsteps echoed now.
But the echo returned a fraction too late.
He looked up. A sun burned above the corridor. Not dim. Not symbolic. A real sun, suspended in the black, radiating light that touched nothing beyond the hallway's limits.
He looked down. Below the corridor hung a moon. Full. Bright. Close enough that he could almost believe he could fall into it.
Sun above.
Moon below.
He did not question it. The recognition came first. I know this place.
The thought did not feel like memory. It felt like repetition.
At the corridor's end stood seven thrones arranged in a vast circle. The distance between each was deliberate, wide enough that the emptiness between them felt like a participant.
They were seated. Seven figures.
Humanoid in shape, yes.....but the resemblance felt incidental.
One sat upright, presence steady, and the stone beneath his own feet seemed subtly aligned toward that throne, as if orientation itself bent in her direction. Another leaned back slightly, the mist near her throne curling inward instead of drifting outward, like breath being drawn rather than released. Across from them, a figure remained still enough that the air around him looked structured, too symmetrical to be natural. Something about the outline of his form suggested more than it showed, as if the darkness refused to outline him fully.
One bore a face that seemed partially concealed, not by shadow but by shape—an intentional obstruction that made the space where a face should be feel deliberate rather than hidden.
The remaining four were harder to focus on. Each time Amir tried to fix his gaze on them, details slipped. Not vanished. Slipped. As if clarity required permission. He began walking toward the center.
Step by Step. The distance did not shrink. He frowned and looked back. The corridor's entrance stood exactly where it had been when he entered. He had not moved. He blinked. And the world adjusted. Suddenly he stood at the center of the circle. No transition. No motion remembered. Seven gazes rested on him.
"How strange."
The voice was soft. Curious. Not loud, not echoing, yet it filled the corridor completely.
"I have never seen a mortal arrive without lowering his head."
His body stiffened.
Before he could speak.....
KNEEL
The word did not strike his ears. It entered his bones.
His legs folded. There was no resistance. No internal struggle. His knees met stone with a sharp crack that sounded distant, as though happening to someone else. His spine bowed.
He had not chosen. Something older inside him had. A different voice followed, smooth and faintly amused. "Are you quite certain this mortal will prove interesting?"
Silence stretched, thin and deliberate. "Yes," said the one whose face refused definition. "This new vessel will be different.
A pause. "More entertaining than the others."
The sun burned overhead. The moon waited beneath.
His eyes snapped open.
For a few seconds he did not move. He lay there staring at the ceiling, breath shallow, pupils unfocused, as if expecting something to be hanging above him. There was nothing. Just the same cracked plaster. The same faint stain near the corner. The same pale morning light slipping in through the half-drawn curtains.
Everything was normal.
His eyes moved without lifting his head. The oil lamp rested on the table beside the bed, exactly where he'd left it after putting it out. The match tin lay tipped on its side. The stack of Inquisition files hadn't shifted. One corner still bent from where he'd leaned on it. The tin cup stood empty now, a faint ring dried along its inner rim. His pocket watch remained where he'd dropped it. Above him, the map of Steelhaven was unchanged. No fallen pins. The cabinet doors were still crooked. Closed. The bookshelf still leaned, stubborn and overloaded.
The barred window showed nothing but grime and early grey light.
Nothing had changed. A long breath escaped him. It dragged out of his chest like it had weight.
These dreams again.
He didn't even look disturbed anymore. That was the disturbing part.
They came almost every night now. Endless halls. Voices. Fire. Kneeling. Laughter buried in smoke. Sometimes he woke sweating. Sometimes he didn't. Today, he felt nothing. As if nightmares had become routine. As if they were the only constant companion he had left in this world.
His throat tightened slightly.
When he first arrived here, he had believed something foolish. That maybe this was freedom. A restart. An escape from Earth. From responsibility. From pressure pressing against his skull day after day.
He almost smiled at the memory of that thought.
This world is worse.
The realization didn't come with anger. It came with fatigue.
Sometimes he wondered what he was even doing. Living in a place that did not belong to him. Breathing air that was not meant for him. Walking streets that would forget him the moment he stopped moving.
He should be searching for a way back. That would be logical.
So why wasn't he?
His fingers twitched against the sheets.
A part of him wanted to leave.
Another part did not.
That contradiction disgusted him. His gaze drifted toward the empty wall. Sometimes he missed his mother.
Sometimes he didn't. She loved him. He knew that. But her love had always felt conditional, measured in results and returns. If you don't get a high-paying job, your life is a waste. The words still lived inside his head, sharp as ever. It will be a disgrace if my investment doesn't bring results.
Investment.
A hollow sound escaped his throat. It might have been a laugh. Everyone in his life had wanted something. Grades. Achievement. Status. Validation. Even affection had terms and conditions attached to it.
Only Captain Squawks had wanted nothing. Food, Company that was enough for him. For a moment, Amir's eyes softened. He wondered where the bird was now. Whether someone remembered to feed him on time. Whether he waited by the cage door out of habit.
He hoped he was fine. The softness faded. He had thought about revenge. For Gail. For Reil. The images of that night still surfaced without warning. Smoke. Blood. Screams cut short.
But this world did not reward revenge. It multiplied corpses. Life here was cheaper than a single gold coin. Chasing death would only lead to another grave.
He knew that. And yet he was still here. Still following a detective called Cog Master like a shadow without direction. He slowly lifted his right hand. It was shaking Not violently Just enough to be noticeable. He stared at it.
When did this start? He couldn't remember. At some point, fear had stopped feeling sharp. It had turned dull. Constant. Like background noise that never fully went away. He lowered his hand back onto the bed and stared at the ceiling again. He didn't feel heroic.
He didn't feel chosen. He didn't even feel angry. He felt displaced.
As if he had been dropped into a story that was never meant to include him, and now the plot was moving whether he understood it or not.
Another slow breath left him.
The room remained quiet, Ordinary, Unchanged But something inside him had shifted long ago.
Amir sat up slowly on the bed. For a few seconds he remained completely still, staring into the empty air in front of him. His mind felt heavy, clouded, like something inside it had not fully returned yet.
The dream still clung to him in fragments he could not quite grasp. Shapes. Voices. The feeling of being watched. He exhaled quietly and rubbed his face once with both hands before swinging his legs off the bed and standing. The wooden floor creaked faintly beneath his bare feet as he walked out of the room and down the short hallway toward the bathroom. The boards complained under each step, a familiar tired sound that had long ago stopped meaning anything to him.Inside the bathroom he stopped in front of the mirror.
He did nothing at first. He just stood there staring at the reflection. The man in the mirror looked back with the same hollow stillness, dark circles under his eyes, hair slightly disordered from sleep. Amir didn't try to fix it. After a while he turned toward the tin bucket resting in the corner. The water inside was cold. He dipped both hands in and splashed it across his face. The shock of it ran down his skin and into the collar of his sleep trousers. Droplets slid from his chin and fell quietly to the floor.
He wiped his face with the back of his hand and stood there a moment longer before reaching up toward the small shelf above the sink. A wooden box rested there. Inside were the cleaner reeds. Amir pulled one out and began brushing his teeth slowly, the faint scraping sound filling the otherwise silent room.
His eyes drifted back to the mirror while he brushed, though he wasn't really looking at himself anymore. His thoughts had already wandered elsewhere. When he finished he rinsed his mouth, spat into the sink, and set the reed aside. The mirror caught his gaze again for one last moment. Then he turned and left.The hallway felt quiet as he walked back. The same creaking followed his steps until he reached his door and stepped inside his room again. Amir grabbed the towel hanging from the hook on the wall and wiped the remaining water from his face and neck before hanging it back where it belonged.
For a brief moment he simply stood there, breathing slowly. Then he walked to the cabinet and opened it. The hinges let out their usual tired protest. On the top shelf sat the cloth sack the Cog Master had handed him the night before. Amir picked it up and loosened the cord just enough to look inside. Gold coins rested in silence. He didn't bother counting them. The bag closed again and returned to the shelf. His gaze drifted beside it. Seven glass vials stood there. Next to them rested the iron argument. Amir's eyes stayed on them longer than anything else in the cabinet. For a brief moment something tightened in his chest. He had everything with him that day. Everything.....And still it wasn't enough. without thinking much about it he took out his cloths from the shelf. Today he thought something simple would be nice thus he left the waistcoat and long coat inside the cabinet. he pulled out his grey shirt and reinforced trousers he also suspenders laying across the shelf which he couldn't remember them buying maybe it came along the grey shirt when he brought ? who knows ?Dressing took only a minute. The grey shirt first, the fabric cool against his skin as he buttoned it slowly. The suspenders followed, pulled over his shoulders and adjusted. Then the black trousers. Last came the black flat cap which he settled on his head with a small absent movement. He stood there a second longer before striking a match against the edge of the table. The tiny spark flared and he held it to the oil lamp. The wick caught and a dim flame spread through the glass, pushing the shadows back just enough to make the room feel less empty. Amir watched it burn for a second then
He picked it up and stepped into the main room, the small circle of light moving with him through the darkness. He set the lamp on the wooden counter beside the stove.
Above it, the shelf held his few supplies. Amir reached up and pulled down the cloth sack of bread. The fabric sagged with the weight of the hardened pieces inside. He opened it and took one out. The bread was rock hard. He bit into it anyway His jaw worked slowly to break off a piece.
Halfway through chewing, something near the door caught his eye.
A folded letter lay on the floor.
Someone had slipped it beneath the door during the night or this early in the morning ?