"Eskafar hin eik Razan im imperi Estroda…"
The figure's voice was guttural, ancient, as if it had clawed its way through stone and smoke to reach Razan's ears.
Each word carried a heavy accent, thick and alien, its meaning lost to him yet delivered with deliberate intent.
Before Razan could even respond, the figure's hand shifted.
*fwip!
Something small left its grasp, cutting through the air with a faint whistle.
Razan's instincts took over—his hands shot up without thinking,
*tap!
and he caught the object against his chest.
Blinking, he looked down.
Resting in his palm was a small, rounded thing.
At first glance, it resembled a berry, but not one he had ever seen before.
Its surface was dark—no, not merely dark, but charred, as though it had been plucked from the heart of a dying fire.
Fine cracks lined its skin, and from those fissures seeped thin wisps of strange golden smoke.
The vapor curled and writhed unnaturally, glimmering faintly before dissolving into the air.
Razan frowned, turning the strange fruit in his hand, the faint warmth of it prickling against his skin.
"What's this?" he muttered, lifting his head.
But the figure was already gone.
The shadows ahead had swallowed everything.
The space where the cloaked being had stood only moments before was empty,
*fwooosh!
returned to nothing but the usual veil of darkness and the pale illumination of the lamp posts.
The silence of the street pressed in, as if nothing had been there at all.
Razan's eyes darted left and right, his heart thudding violently in his chest.
"…What the hell—?" he breathed, confusion twisting his expression.
"HEY! YOU AREN'T SLACKING OFF, ARE YOU!?" The gruff, familiar voice of the old coach bellowed from inside the gym, cutting through the tension like a whip.
Razan flinched, snapping back into motion.
His hand closed tightly around the strange berry-like object before he quickly shoved it into his pocket, burying it from sight.
"I'm on the last lap already, old man!" he shouted back, his voice strained but loud enough to carry.
He exhaled sharply and forced his legs into motion once again, jogging forward under the lamp light.
Each step brought him closer to finishing the fiftieth lap, but his mind was no longer on his punishment.
His thoughts kept circling back to the charred fruit in his pocket, and to the figure that had vanished into the dark as though it had never been there at all.
After finishing his last lap—followed by a few more scoldings from his coach—Razan finally wrapped up training.
Exhaustion still clung to his muscles, but he pushed it aside as he climbed onto his motorbike and rode through the quiet streets.
*vrrrrr….!
The steady roar of the engine was the only sound accompanying him
.
.
.
until he arrived in front of the massive gates of his house.
His expression hardened immediately, the casual frustration from training shifting into something darker.
He pulled up beside the gate and leaned forward, pressing a small button set into the panel near its side.
His jaw tightened, his lips curling with clear disdain, the look of someone who would rather be anywhere else but here.
"It's me," Razan said flatly into the speaker.
*click...! *clack...!
Mechanical clicks echoed from within the heavy gate,
*creaaaak!
gears and locks shifting before the iron barrier groaned and slowly swung open.
He rolled forward, the bike rumbling beneath him as he passed through and entered the wide driveway.
Stopping near the entrance of the mansion, Razan pulled his bike into place at the pathway's edge and cut the engine.
The silence that followed was immediate, pressing.
He then swung his leg over, removed his helmet, and ran a hand back through his sweat-matted hair.
*sigh…
A long sigh escaped him as his eyes rose to the sight ahead.
The towering mansion loomed under the pale lights scattered around the grounds, its pristine walls and polished windows a stark contrast to the heaviness in his chest.
"Back in this shithole again," he muttered under his breath, his voice low, bitter, and filled with the weight of resentment.
Without another pause, he walked toward the front steps of the mansion.
As Razan reached for the door handle,
*Thud!
the heavy wooden door suddenly burst open from the inside.
The abrupt movement made him flinch, his eyes snapping forward.
"What took you so long?" said a man, older in years, his sharp gaze already fixed on Razan with judgment.
His tone was flat, but the weight of disapproval was clear.
"I was at the gym," Razan muttered, brushing past him with little pause, trying to slip through before the conversation could drag on.
But his father's hand shot out and clamped tightly around his arm, halting him mid-step.
The grip was firm, almost punishing, and Razan felt the tension in his father's stare as those eyes narrowed.
"How many times must I tell you," his father said, his voice low but cutting, "that this fighting nonsense will not get you anywhere? You should be focusing on your studies."
Razan turned his head just enough to look back at him, his lips curling into a half-smirk that didn't reach his eyes.
"I am focusing on my studies, Father. Boxing… it's just a hobby. A way to let my mind relax, that's all."
The fake smile on his face was deliberate, almost mocking in how poorly it concealed his disdain.
"Mhm."
His father released the grip on his arm with a scoff, then folded his arms across his chest, his expression stern as ever.
"You'd better have good grades this semester. Otherwise, I'll cut your allowance."
"Gotcha," Razan said simply, his tone flat but quick, eager to end the confrontation.
He turned away without waiting for another word, his steps heavy as he climbed the stairs.
Reaching his room, he slipped inside and shut the door, the sound quiet, almost careful, as though he didn't want to give his father the satisfaction of hearing him slam it.
*sigh…
Razan let out a long, heavy sigh the moment the door shut behind him.
Without care, he pulled the strap of his bag from his shoulder and hurled it toward the corner of the room.
*Thud—clatter!
The sound echoed as the bag hit the floor and spilled against the wall, its weight scattering the silence of the room.
"One step at a time… one step at a time," he muttered under his breath, as though repeating the words could keep him grounded.
He slid down against the side of his bed until he was sitting on the floor, his back against the frame, the quiet of the room pressing down on him.
For a few moments, he stayed there in silence, his head lowered, his breathing steady but heavy.
His thoughts churned, piling one on top of another.
The pressure of his father's expectations.
The demands of school.
The relentless grind of his boxing training.
Each of them clashed in his head, fighting for dominance until his chest felt tight.
Then, something sharper broke through the storm of thoughts—an image, a memory.
That moment earlier during his run.
The shadow.
The voice.
And most of all… the strange object he had caught.
Razan's eyes narrowed as he reached into his pocket, his fingers rummaging until they touched the faintly warm surface.
Pulling it free, he brought the item into the light.
The berry-like object sat in his hand, small and deceptively simple.
He pinched it carefully between his thumb and index finger, raising it to eye level.
Its charred, blackened skin seemed unnatural, wrong somehow,
as if it didn't belong to anything grown in soil.
Fine cracks marked its surface, and faint trails of golden vapor seeped out from those lines, curling upward before fading away.
"What the hell is this in the first place?" Razan muttered, his eye narrowing as he studied it closely.
He turned it slightly between his fingers, as though shifting the angle might reveal some hidden answer.
But it remained what it was—foreign, unsettling, and completely out of place in his hands.