My muscles contracted on instinct — spasms overtook my arms and legs. My heart pounded with a wild rhythm, as if trying to break free from the prison of my chest.
The smoke kept stabbing at my eye like a spear made of invisible needles — sharp, relentless. It felt like something was digging into the globe itself, searching for space, rummaging through, tearing tissue, nerves, and consciousness.
And in my neck... it was different. Slower. Crueler. Like a burning serpent coiling through my flesh, searing every nerve in its path. The pain wasn't just on the surface. It burrowed deep, carving something inside me, as if tattooing my soul with molten fire.
I tried to scream, but my throat locked shut. I tasted blood, metallic and warm, rising into my mouth, mixed with foam that trickled from the corner of my lips.
My eyes rolled back.
And then, my mind... couldn't take it anymore. Reality lost its edges. My body sank into something dark, endless.
I dissolved. Like ashes on the wind, falling into the black.
✦ ✦ ✦
Alexander was in agony. Lying on the cold stone floor, his body still jerked in violent tremors — the final spasms of a nervous system wrecked from within. The smoke had vanished, but the damage remained.
Blood and foam leaked from his mouth — a grotesque blend of physical and spiritual collapse.
At last, after long minutes of torment, his body gave out. His knees, long since buckled, could no longer hold him. His torso slumped under the weight of something unseen. His head struck the floor with a dull thud — not hard enough to kill him, but just enough to leave another mark of pain.
Silence.
"Hmm..."
A faint sound broke the stillness — like fabric dragging across stone, or the rustle of wings in a closed space.
A shadow, motionless, watched from the gloom. It remained hidden among the partially ruined columns, behind the torn tapestries that still clung to the walls with stubborn resolve, like relics of an era refusing to fully fade.
There, in that space where moonlight hesitated to reach, where even the wind seemed to forget to blow, it lingered — silent, patient, as if it had always been there.
That thing... or person... tilted its head slightly to the side in a gesture strangely familiar. The movement, though subtle, had the air of someone used to watching — to waiting.
Its eyes glowed with uneven intensity. One was hidden beneath a long, messy fringe — perhaps deliberately. But the other... the other was a void of deep violet, almost hypnotic, with a golden pupil at its center, pulsing as if alive.
Before its gaze, sprawled across the cracked, stained marble of the old cathedral, lay Alexander's unconscious body. The child was wrapped in his own agony — a faint tremor still flickering in his fingers, the foam at his lips now drying, clinging to his pale skin like the residue of pain just endured. The sword lay only a few steps from his outstretched hand.
The shadow breathed — or rather, let out the sound of breath, as if its presence alone carried life that didn't rely on lungs.
"Took far longer than I thought..." it muttered, voice raspy, laced with weariness and sarcasm — the tone of someone who knew too much, or had simply waited far too long for this moment.
"Who would've guessed..." The voice rose, low and hoarse, frayed with time. "That he read it all... and still spent so long scouring the city. Even with nothing to find." A brief pause. A slight shift of gaze, as if the words were meant more for the emptiness than the boy crumpled on the floor.
"And more than anything... he spent even longer staring at the sky…" The figure shifted subtly, the dry rustle of fabric brushing against stone echoed with delicate weight.
Its shoulders lifted in a nearly imperceptible motion — half a sigh, carrying as much fatigue as resignation. Maybe even... a sliver of respect.
"Now it's just a matter of time." The phrase came out in a whisper, more to itself than anything — or perhaps to something far off, unreachable. Its eye — the visible one, violet-sclera and golden-pupiled — returned to the boy before it. "Yes... only time will tell if he'll be able to find us."
The shadow's expression, once unreadable, seemed to shift — a deeper weight settled over its features, shaped by a silence steeped in melancholy.
Nothing dramatic. Just the shadow… and time, passing.
It remained still, staring at the fallen child. Its gaze, unhurried, lifted toward the gaping hole in the cathedral's roof — once a proud Gothic dome, now shattered, letting the night sky peer in.
The moon, full and unwavering, poured its soft silver light down like a silent curtain. It framed the boy in gentle contrast, tracing the delicate outline of his form.
Alexander looked even smaller from that height, fragile... but alive. His chest rose and fell with slow, hesitant breaths, a quiet rhythm against the broken silence of a place long left behind.
Stillness returned.
The shadow did not move. No tilt of the head, no step forward. It simply remained, watching.
Its gaze lingered on the child, then slowly drifted upward to the opening in the cathedral's ceiling — where once stood grand Gothic columns and intricately carved domes.
Now, ruin had stripped the temple down to its core: an open wound to the heavens, where the full moon rested solemnly, like a silver sentinel.
The light fell directly upon Alexander's body, bathing him in silver, accentuating his fine features, his fragile posture, the faint rise and fall of his chest — a quiet signal that life still lingered.
The contrast between the child's delicacy and the chaos surrounding him felt almost symbolic, as if the universe itself were trying to paint a scene of innocence cradled by ruin.
The shadow did not move.
Its eyes stayed locked on the illuminated figure, unblinking, unwavering.
For a long moment, it said nothing — simply took in the pale moon and the star-drenched sky it belonged to.
And then, as if thinking out loud, in a whisper that seemed woven into the very echo of the forgotten cathedral, it spoke:
"Is it truly that beautiful?"