Nyx didn't have time to celebrate. The Phantasm lashed out with its free hand, the fingers extended into sharp, bony black claws. Nyx ducked under the swipe and shook the bell again.
Chime.
The silver threads glowed brighter, becoming almost solid. The Phantasm let out a distorted shriek, clutching its head. Nyx saw his chance. He lunged forward, hatchet aimed for the tangled knot of its Primal Essence.
But Nyx was too slow. The Phantasm's dizziness passed in an instant. It parried his clumsy strike with its needle, the force of the impact numbing his arm. The needle twisted, disarming him, sending the hatchet clattering across the floor.
Nyx was weaponless. Backed into a corner.
The Masked Figure stand threatening over him, raising its needle for the final thrust into his brain.
Desperate, Nyx's mind screaming, he did the only thing he could think of. He raised the Bell of the Lost One and shook it a third time.
CHIME.
The sound was different. Deeper. Cold. More resonant. It didn't just ripple; it shattered the silence and the darkness itself.
The Phantasm froze completely, its needle halted inches from Nyx's forehead. Under it, Nyx paled, his heart beating like crazy.
Then, from the deepest shadows of the department store, something groaned, making it present know.
"Aaaa..."
Then the sound of heavy, wet steps echoed across the floor. And another. And another.
Slowly, shambling forms emerged from the darkness between the aisles. They were humanoid but wrong, their skin slick and onyx, their mouths slack and drooling, their eyes were milky white and blind. Their figure looks like an old woman with long limbs in a wet, tattered robe of shadow. They were drawn to or perhaps called by the sound of the bell, moving toward the Masked Figure with a single-minded, bottomless hunger.
The Lost One.
The Masked Figure turned its head, screamed with all it have as a form of intimidation, facing the new prey—no, the new threats.
Soon, it was surrounded.
Nyx didn't wait. As the first of the shadow hag lurched into the Phantasm, clawing at its porcelain mask, he scrambled away on his hands and knees, snatching up his hatchet.
He didn't look back. He heard the sounds of the struggle, the shriek of battle, wet tearing sounds, the brittle crack of porcelain. He ran, bursting out of the department store and back into the night streets, the echoes of the bell and the horrible feast fading behind him.
He ran until his lungs burned, finally collapsing in a narrow, recessed doorway of a crumbled building, hidden from the main thoroughfare. He was safe. For now.
He looked at the Bell of the Lost in his hand. It had saved his life, but the knowledge it had given him was chilling.
Three chimes call the Lost One.
He had traded one monster for several worse ones. That was the price. ...was it the irony the Librarian had spoken of?
Nyx didn't quite understand.
—§—
Gasping for air, Nyx leaned his head back against the cold wall of the fourth floor of a crumbled building. The night wasn't just continuing, it was getting deeper. Through the Treasure Eyes, he learn the danger of the Night Realm. For hours, he observe the Phantasm from the makeshift watchtower.
Most of the Phantasm was already present in places when he found them. This type of Phantasm—the teritorial Phantasm Nyx call it—never loitering around the streets, their range of activities was limited around the place they exist.
The other type, the wandering Phantasm, get into his range of vision by walking, flying, or just suddenly appear like teleporting. They are at the top of his list of dangers. He doesn't have the ability to know if the creature with that extraordinary movement abilities is after him. And if they suddenly appeared in near him, he didn't know what to do. Fortunately, this type is small in number.
During this, he learns something new about his ability. According to his estimation, the range of his new vision was no more than fifty meters. More than that, the world he looked at was just like a normal person would.
Knowing what a phantasm can do, the door offered no real shelter, just an illusion of it. The danger always exist even when he hide inside a closed room. But he still need it, to rest his weary body, to keep his mind healthy.
The cold from the humid air seeped through his tattered suit jacket, a constant reminder of his exposure. He never felt so helpless and defenseless.
He had to move. He needed walls. A door he could barricade.
Pushing himself up, Nyx peered down into the street.
His Treasure Eyes scanned the decaying cityscape once again. He looked not for treasures or more so threats, but for a shelter, a structure that looked more intact than the others. A place that could be defended.
There. A block down, a narrow four-story building was sandwiched between two collapsed husks. Its fire escape was mostly intact. The windows on the upper floors were dark, but unbroken. It was the best candidate he'd seen so far.
He clutched the hatchet he made up his mind, the Bell of the Lost in his pocket, and then he moved, down to the first floor, sticking to the shadows to go to his destination. Every flicker of shadow made him flinch. Every sound was a potential danger to him. The short journey feels like forever.
After don't know how long, he reached the building's entrance. The door was heavy wood, reinforced with metal bands. It was slightly ajar. A bad sign.
He pushed it open slowly, wincing at the creak of its hinges.
The lobby was small and dark. The air was thick with dust. A staircase spiraled upwards into gloom. A quick scan with his Treasure Eyes revealed nothing. No glowing treasures. No lurking essences.
Silence but doesn't mean it's safe.
He closed the door behind him, sliding a heavy rusted bolt across. It wasn't much, but it was something. A psychological barrier as much as a physical one.
A brief exploration show him that the first floor offered him no protection. The doors was broken, and the windows, he was uncomfortable with them knowing they were connected to the alley.
He took the stairs slowly, testing each step for noise. The second floor was a long hallway of doors. And shame indeed, all were open and broken, revealing empty, ransacked rooms.
The third floor was the same.
He moved to the fourth floor. The highest one. The air felt slightly colder here. The hallway was narrower, the doors was broken, but at the very end was a single, intact door.
It was closed however.
An anomaly were all the doors was open and broken.
Nyx approached cautiously. This was it. His last option and hope. There was no reaction from his eyes, so he felt positive.
The door was solid. The knob was cold brass. He turned it slowly.
It was unlocked.
He pushed it open, hatchet raised.
The room was small. A studio apartment. A dusty couch. A collapsed bookshelf. A small kitchenette, its cabinets hanging open, empty.
The windows was intact. And, most importantly, there was a door to separate him from the nightmare world.
Nyx had found it. A safehouse. For now.
He closed and bolted the main door from the inside. He dragged the couch in front of it for good measure. He checked the windows. The view was of a maze of crumbling rooftops and the ever-present, eerie sky. The white moon with its red pupil stared down, unblinking.
The ever present observer.
He was alone. He was enclosed.
For the first time since the cab, the screaming tension in his nerves eased, just a fraction. The silence here felt different. It was his silence and it feels comfortable.
He slumped against the wall, sliding to the floor. The adrenaline faded, leaving a deep, bone-weary exhaustion. His body turned into lead. The memory gaps in his mind ached like phantom pain.
He pulled out the Flask of Vital Star. He had one dose left. He choose not to used it, he saved the last single Tear. A reserve in dangerous times.
He looked at the Soul Card the Librarian had given him. It was blank red with the back filled with intricate detail. But is the blank red truly the front? Nyx doesn't know. The tarot-like card is a mystery.
He focused on it, pouring his will into it, like how he did with his eyes when he use his ability.
Nothing.
He sighed, stuffing it back into his pocket. Another mystery for later.
His gaze fell on the small pile of Shards of Memories from the cleaver-arm Phantasm. Twelve jagged pieces of… what? Regret? Sin? Memorie as the name implies.
He picked one up. It was like a glass, cold and smooth.
He focused his Treasure Eyes on it. The shard flickered. A jumble of sensations, not images, assaulted his body and mind.
The smell of ozone and blood.
A child's terrified whimper.
The visceral satisfaction of a sharp blade meeting resistance.
He dropped the shard with a gasp, his heart beating. It was a piece of that thing's existence. A fragment of its nightmare, or perhaps, its past?
He now understood what the Librarian traded in. The shard was the currency of the Night Realm. Not for its value but for what it contained.
Pain. Fear. Twisted satisfaction. Corrupted morals.
The bell. He left it alone in his pocket. Too afraid to touch it as he remember those eerie shadow hags.
He sat in the dim, quiet room, the weight of his new reality heavy on him.
He was learning the Night Realm cruel rules, one bloody lesson at a time. After he receive the Librarian's help, he knows he was no longer just prey. He was a player in a game he never wanted to join. And the only way out was to keep playing.
"Something not to be happy about," he murmured with bitter smile. But then he breath out a relief sigh. For now, he had a safehouse. So he closed his eyes, to take a break he deserve. "I miss my soft, warm bed."
The Night Realm was his home now, he must adapt