The rain hadn't stopped for three days.
Lunareth was drowning in silence.
I sat beneath the half-broken roof of the old bell tower, watching the city lights flicker through the mist. Every raindrop shimmered like a memory I wanted to forget. The world looked too calm for what it was hiding. Too peaceful for the screams I still heard every night.
The storm carried voices the kind only cursed souls could hear.
"Adrien Blackwood… you're not the only one."
The whisper echoed again.
It wasn't the first time I heard it.
My fingers tightened around the pendant my mother gave me before she died. A small silver charm, cracked down the middle. It pulsed faintly like a heartbeat struggling to remember it was once alive.
And then I felt it again.
That strange pull.
Something… someone… was awakening.
A flash tore through the clouds. For an instant, I saw it dark pillars of light rising from the northern edge of Lunareth. The air around me thickened; my own shadow trembled against the stone floor.
"Another one has awakened…"
The voice wasn't mine this time. It was deeper, colder almost reverent.
When I opened my eyes, I saw him.
Standing at the edge of the tower, unmoved by the storm. Black hair slicked back, violet eyes glowing faintly beneath his hood. He looked my age maybe a little older but there was something off about him. The air bent around his presence, as though reality feared him.
"Who are you?" I asked, keeping my tone steady.
He smiled, just slightly.
"The same thing you are."
Before I could react, he raised his hand and the rain froze mid-air.
Every droplet hung suspended, glimmering like crystal shards. Aether twisted around his body, forming dark veins of energy that pulsed in rhythm with mine.
"Two sides of the same dawn," he said. "But only one can rise."
The words didn't feel like a threat. They felt like prophecy.
The ground beneath us cracked, shadows spiraling out like ink in water. I could feel his power it was wrong, familiar, "alive". My mana flared instinctively, mixing with aether and that forbidden whisper that lingered at the edge of my soul.
"You feel it, don't you?" he said. "The curse that binds us both."
I stepped forward, fists trembling, breath unsteady. "Who are you!?"
Lightning struck behind him, revealing the faint mark on his neck the sigil of the "Second Chosen."
He tilted his head slightly, that faint, tragic smile still there.
"My name… doesn't matter anymore. But remember this, Adrien Blackwood"
"When the eclipse returns, you'll wish you'd never been chosen."
The world blurred.
The rain crashed down again, and he was gone.
All that remained was silence and a single feather, black as the void, falling at my feet.
For the first time since that night, I felt something close to fear.
Not of dying.
But of what I might become.
The night after the eclipse stormed across Lunareth, silence became the city's heartbeat.
The rain had stopped, but the scent of wet iron lingered blood, smoke, and something older.
The kind of silence that carried memories.
In the heart of the slums, in a derelict chapel that hadn't seen prayer in decades, a boy stood before a mirror too cracked to hold a reflection. The moonlight that spilled through the shattered glass painted him in cold silver.
He looked young sixteen, maybe but there was something ancient in the way he stood.
Unmoving. Detached. Watching himself like a stranger.
His name was "Lucien Vale".
Pale hair framed his face, silver at the roots, fading to black near the ends unnatural, like the eclipse had left a mark that never healed. His eyes were a contradiction blue that burned with quiet despair, rimmed with the faintest red glow when he blinked too slowly.
The mirror hummed. His reflection tilted its head a heartbeat too late.
And smiled.
Lucien didn't.
He lifted his hand pale fingers trembling slightly. "Who are you?"
The reflection's lips moved, soundless. Then, as if the world forgot what silence meant, a voice slid through his mind.
"You already know."
Lucien's heart skipped. The voice was calm, genderless, yet layered as if several whispers spoke in unison. It wasn't new. It had been there since the eclipse, crawling through his dreams.
He swallowed hard. "You again…"
"We are not separate, Lucien. We are one. You were born when I chose to open your eyes."
His fingers twitched. "No… I wasn't born because of you."
"Then why do you feel me inside your veins?"
The mirror rippled like liquid. His reflection reached toward him the hand phasing through glass like smoke. He stumbled back, heart hammering.
"Get out of my head!"
A laugh soft, elegant, cruel.
"You can't run from what you are. You are the second dawn… the one who will drown the light."
Lucien's knees hit the floor. He pressed both hands to his head as visions ripped through his mind cities burning under red moons, screaming faces, Adrien standing amidst the flames, glowing like a false god.
"He will destroy what balance remains,"the voice whispered. "You must stop him, my child. You must become the eclipse itself."
Then silence.
The glow faded. His breathing slowed. He looked at his reflection again, but this time, it was only him.
No whisper. No motion.
Only Lucien Vale, the boy who didn't remember who he used to be.
Meanwhile…
Adrien sat beneath the ruins of a bell tower, half his coat torn, his body aching. The battle still replayed in his mind flashes of light colliding with shadow, Lucien's calm eyes breaking for a heartbeat before that whisper consumed him.
He clenched his fist, staring at the faint crackle of violet light crawling up his wrist.
"Lnx Energy."
He could feel it now alive, sentient, crawling under his skin.
The same force that nearly destroyed him was now… following him.
"Why does it feel familiar?" he muttered. "It's not mana, not aether… it's something older."
The wind howled through the broken tower, scattering ash like gray snow. He leaned his head back, breathing heavily, his vision blurring.
Then came the voice.
Not Lucien's.
A memory.
"Adrien," his mother's voice whispered. "If the moon ever turns red again… run. Don't look back."
He opened his eyes, forcing down the ache in his chest. "Sorry, Mother. I can't run anymore."
He stood, brushing dust from his hands. The city looked endless from up here broken bridges like veins, towers like teeth, and that haunting moon still half-blood, half-silver.
Somewhere out there was the truth.
And now, another boy who shared his curse.
Lucien Vale.
Adrien didn't know his name yet, but he could feel their fates tied by the same energy. Two pieces of a prophecy that neither had asked for.
"Hours later", deep beneath Lunareth, the underground pulsed with life illegal traders, mechanical forges, whispers of rebellion. And among them, hidden in the labyrinth of tunnels, was the "Mastermind".
No one knew his true form. Some said he was human once. Others said he was something that wore human skin like a mask.
He sat on a throne of gears and chains, his voice echoing through the darkness.
"Lucien Vale… you've done well."
The boy knelt before him, drenched in cold sweat, his body trembling.
"I almost killed him," Lucien said quietly. "But… I couldn't."
The voice chuckled. "Couldn't? Or wouldn't?"
Lucien's eyes darkened. "He… he looked like me."
The Mastermind's hand reached out long, slender, mechanical and lifted Lucien's chin. "He is you, in another form. The reflection you must shatter to be reborn."
Lucien's voice faltered. "Why do you want him dead?"
"Because," the voice said softly, "light blinds the truth. And you, my child… were born in the dark."
The chamber trembled. Chains rattled like applause.
Lucien lowered his gaze, unable to meet those eyes glowing red, endless, ancient. He didn't see a master. He saw an abyss looking back.
Back in the upper ruins, dawn threatened the horizon. The first sunlight cut through Lunareth's haze, painting the rubble gold.
Adrien wandered through the narrow streets, clutching his side. His energy was fading fast.
Mana — 42%.
Aether — unstable.
Lnx — fluctuating.
Each step made his vision darker. His breaths grew shallow.
He stopped near a collapsed bakery, slumping against the wall.
"This city…" he murmured. "Always hungry."
A faint voice reached him. "You shouldn't be here."
He turned sharply. A girl no older than him, maybe a year younger stood at the corner. Her eyes were sharp, her cloak tattered but clean. A scavenger, maybe.
"Who are you?" Adrien asked.
"Someone who doesn't want to die," she said flatly. Then, noticing his bloodied sleeve, she frowned. "You're hurt."
"I'll live."
She hesitated, then threw him a small pouch. "Eat. It's stale bread, but… better than bleeding on the floor."
He blinked, catching it weakly. "Why help me?"
The girl smirked faintly. "Because you looked like you'd fallen from the moon. And I've never seen someone so broken still standing."
Adrien chuckled softly the first real sound of amusement in months.
"What's your name?"
She hesitated. "Elara."
"Adrien," he said. "Adrien Blackwood."
For the first time, her eyes softened. "That name… sounds like it belongs to someone who doesn't give up easily."
He didn't answer. He couldn't. Because her words brought back another memory one he'd buried too deep. His mother's last smile before the eclipse swallowed her.
He lowered his gaze. "Sometimes giving up isn't an option."
Elara nodded slowly. "Then you and I are the same."
That night, as Adrien drifted into uneasy sleep in Elara's hideout, a storm brewed over Lunareth.
The moon brightened again not red this time, but violet.
The eclipse pulsed once, faint but alive.
And miles away, Lucien awoke from another nightmare sweat dripping down his neck, his reflection in the cracked mirror whispering:
"The eclipse chooses its children… but only one will remain."
Lucien stared at the window. "Adrien Blackwood… I'll find you again."
Outside, thunder rolled across the blackened skyline the sound of destiny breathing.