Marcus did not calm after the nightmares that had torn his mind apart. Every step he took through the village felt as though he were walking on the edge of an abyss. The sun hung high, yet its light could not banish the shadows clinging to him from the night before, as if something inside him had changed forever.
Along the path to the forge, whispers threaded through the wind—voices fleeting, muffled screams that his mind dared not interpret. Every house, every street, every stone seemed to hold a dark secret of its own, as though the village itself breathed beneath an unseen layer of malice.
He entered Duncan's forge, the black and red of firelight casting grotesque shadows over hammers and anvils. The old man said nothing. He simply turned his back and gestured to the table, covered in sharp tools and strange metals, some shaped in forms that felt disturbingly organic.
Duncan: "It is your time, Marcus. Not every man is born to till the fields or serve as a soldier. There are things greater than blood and sweat… things that demand a will of iron. You possess it."
Marcus stared at the tools, then at the old man. A question lingered in his throat, unspoken: What does he mean? What do I carry?
Duncan: "You do not know yet. But soon… you will. Monsters roam this world, and when you face them… you will have no choice but to become like them, or die."
The words were heavy, but more than a warning—they were prophecy
Suddenly, a sharp pang struck his chest, as if his heart were being squeezed by invisible hands. He turned, gasping—and saw a shadow twisting on the wall. Human in form, yet grotesque, its arm unnaturally long, its eyes entirely black.
Marcus: "Who… who's there?"
The shadow did not answer. It moved, as if the ground itself were pushing it toward him. Then a voice, low and internal, whispered:
"Your fate… is bound in blood… and there is no salvation but through strength."
Marcus shivered. Not with fear alone, but with the pull of something calling from within—a duty he had not yet understood.
Duncan watched, sighing: "The beast within awakens. This is what I have always warned you of. You cannot run, Marcus. Not now."
He placed on the table a small, black metal piece, etched with runes Marcus could not read.
Duncan: "Take it… this is the beginning. Whoever bears it is tested… and every test will reveal the monster that sleeps inside."
Marcus reached out. The piece trembled in his palm as if alive.
Silence stretched. Then, in the distance, a bell tolled low and sinister, just as in last night's vision.
Marcus: No… what I saw was not just a dream.
He left the forge, the piece secured in his pocket, eyes searching for the path that would lead him to his destiny. Each step echoed strangely through the village, as if the earth itself whispered his name.
And he did not notice he was no longer alone. Between the trees, eyes glimmered—three, four, then an uncountable number. Beasts he had never seen, part human, part horror, watching him silently, waiting for him to prove he could survive.
Marcus drew a deep breath. Blood from the vision still ran fresh in his memory.
The village was no longer a place of safety—it was a stage, and he was its first test. Every step brought him closer to the monster he would become… or the monster that would consume him entirely.
And then, with the last dying ray of the sun, a distant rumble echoed, as if something immense was stirring beneath the earth, beneath the upside-down castle, beneath everything.
Marcus did not yet know that he was no longer a mere boy of the village. He was the beginning of a legend, the beginning of blood, the beginning of a monster…
—To be continued.