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Rain drizzled softly on the broken pavement of Eclipse Street, blurring neon lights into a dreamlike haze. Shadows stretched unnaturally between alleys, too long, too slow—like they remembered something the world had forgotten.
Silas Vane, fifteen, invisible to most, walked the cracked sidewalk with a busted umbrella and a heavier secret.
"Third time this week the streetlight flickered when I passed," he muttered, eyes darting up to the dim glow above. It pulsed—like a heartbeat.
A whisper answered from the alley.
"You shouldn't see the Veil, boy."
Silas froze. His heart didn't race. It stopped.
"Who's there?"
From the fog emerged a figure clad in robes that shimmered between dark blue and black, like oil on water. No face. No eyes. Just a mask, cracked down the middle, and etched with an ancient language.
"You're... one of them," Silas said. "A Veilwalker."
The figure cocked its head. "You remember that name? Strange."
Silas didn't know why the word felt familiar. Or why his bones ached every time the rain touched him. Or why he sometimes woke up with dried blood under his fingernails and broken glass on his windowsill.
"Leave me alone," Silas snapped. "I'm no one."
"No one," the figure echoed. Then it stepped back into the fog. "Not anymore."
The streetlight shattered above him.
And something in his mind unlocked.
---
Thirteen Hours Earlier.
The Black Heights Orphanage wasn't known for much—except for its record number of runaways and the unsettling mural in its cafeteria showing children with missing faces.
Silas, orphan since ten, nightmare magnet since birth, was used to being ignored. Kids steered clear. He didn't mind. Silence kept the memories from slipping.
But that day, he wasn't alone.
"You always sit here?" said a voice, loud, bright, and painfully annoying.
Silas turned. A girl in a blood-red hoodie, golden eyes flashing mischief, sat across from him, legs up on the table.
"I'm Nyra. And you're... that weird kid who talks to himself, right?"
Silas scowled. "Leave me alone."
"You said that already."
She pulled something from her sleeve—a black coin with a jagged hole in the center. When it touched the table, the air went cold. Silas leaned in.
"Where did you get that?"
Nyra smirked. "Knew you'd bite."
She slid it over. He touched it.
And his vision ripped.
A memory not his.
A city swallowed by flame. A tower cracking in half. Screams—countless—rising into a sky stitched shut by chains.
Silas gasped, dropping the coin.
"That's called a Whispershard," Nyra said, her tone now deadly serious. "Only people who are... awakened... can survive touching it."
"What are you talking about?" Silas asked, trying to steady his breathing.
"You've got something inside you, Silas. Something old. Something loud. And if you don't learn to control it, it'll break out. And kill everyone."
Silas didn't answer.
Because a shadow just passed over the sun outside the window.
And the mural on the cafeteria wall began to change.
---
Present.
Back on Eclipse Street, Silas stared at his reflection in a shop window. His eyes—normally grey—now glowed faint blue, and his shadow lagged behind.
"...You shouldn't see the Veil."
He heard the voice again. It came not from the street, but from his own thoughts. Something was waking up inside him.
He turned.
The alley was empty.
But the fog had grown thicker. And the rain fell sideways.
A girl's voice called out, faint: "Silas..."
Nyra.
He sprinted toward the sound.
Around the corner, he found her kneeling over a body.
"Silas," she said, her voice trembling. "They're here."
She stepped aside. The body wore the same cracked mask from earlier.
And its blood was glowing gold.
From the shadows, three more masked figures stepped out.
But these ones had no reflections.
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