The stone shifted with a soft crunch.
Just enough.
A sliver of air wafted through the new gap, stale and dry—yet it smelled freer than anything Alex had tasted in years.
He didn't hesitate.
With one last glance at the flickering glyph behind him, he pressed forward, sliding into the narrow crawlspace.
Stone scraped his shoulders. Ground tore at his knees. Dust choked his lungs.
The glyph pulsed once—dim, uncertain.
Then it died.
The Chainbind's suppression faded like a drowned whisper.
Silence.
Then—
The Hollow's Bargain Mark flared. Brief. Quiet.
Like a heartbeat in the dark.
Not mercy.
Not rescue.
An agreement.
As if the mark whispered,"I'll help. But survive on your own."
Alex gritted his teeth and moved deeper.
The crawlspace tightened as he went. Cobwebs clung to his face, roots twisted from above, old metal grates jutted out like broken teeth.
His ribs ached from every breath. But pain meant life.
He pressed on.
Every inch forward was planned. Memorized. Rehearsed.
The first checkpoint—
A left turn. Just past the cracked pipe that leaked warm vapor.
He reached it. Flattened against the slick stone.
Waited.
Footsteps echoed faintly from above.
Closer.
Closer.
A guard passed overhead, whistling off-key.
Then—
A flick and click of flint.
The guard lit a smoke.
Alex held his breath.
The ember's glow briefly lit the grate. Inches from his face.
Then it moved on.
Gone.
Alex exhaled. Quietly.
Second checkpoint—
End of the maintenance crawl. A junction that opened into a wider hall.
Glyph trap embedded in the left wall. One he couldn't bypass. At least for now.
So he tricked it.
He reached into his pocket. A jagged stone, swiped from his cell.
He flicked it right, down the wrong corridor.
Clink.
A half-second passed.
Fzzt—BOOM!
The glyph exploded with a burst of white-blue light.
Shards rained down.
Alex darted the opposite way, smoke shielding him.
No alarms.
Just burnt air and a half-blind camera lens.
He didn't stop.
Didn't even slow down.
The old paths were holding. For now.
And if the map inside his mind was right—
The exit was close.
Past cold rooms and broken sigils. Past the boundary where guards stopped patrolling out of boredom or fear.
Alex crawled faster.
Blood smeared on his elbows.
His Mark pulsed—warmer now. Encouraging.
A bond forged in silence.
A promise.
The next turn bent downward, where the stone dipped and moisture pooled.
That was where the real door waited.
The last door.
He didn't know what lay beyond it.
But he knew what waited behind him.
So he didn't look back.
Didn't breathe deep.
Didn't pray.
He just moved.
One crawl at a time.
Toward the cold.
Toward the dawn.
Toward the outside.
The crawlspace ended in a narrow shaft.
Alex braced himself, slid down, and landed in a dark utility corridor.
No lights. Just the buzz of arcane current running faintly through the walls.
He crouched low, every muscle coiled, listening.
Footsteps. Distant, rhythmic.
Not one guard. Two.
He moved.
Left, then sharp right—just like he'd memorized.
It was like he didn't see it, but he knew about it already.
This section ran parallel to the west wing surveillance path.
It had a flaw.
A blind spot. Three seconds wide.
He counted the steps.
Seven... eight...
The hum of a detection glyph flared briefly on the wall ahead.
He hugged the corner, eyes narrowed.
The glyph dimmed. The pulse moved past him.
Still synced. Still working.
He sprinted across the open gap, landing silently in the shadow of a decaying water pipe.
One second too slow—and he'd have been dust.
A flicker of torchlight appeared around the bend.
Too early.
A guard patrol.
Alex flattened himself against the damp tunnel wall. Heart pounding.
A shadow passed the grate.
The guard paused. Lit a smoke.
The ember glowed. Orange.
Burning the darkness.
Alex didn't breathe.
Smoke curled into the air vents. The guard sighed.
Then moved on.
Gone.
He exhaled, but only just.
Another turn—this one sloping upward.
Faint glyph trails painted the walls in barely visible red.
Motion traps.
Too old to kill. Still deadly enough to expose him.
He crouched low and reached into his boot.
The stone he'd saved was still there.
Smooth. Rounded. Small.
He tossed it down the left corridor.
It bounced once—then rolled.
Fzzt—CRACK!
The trap detonated.
Blinding light. A concussive blast.
Alarms didn't trigger.
Old system. Disconnected years ago.
Perfect.
He bolted through the smoke, cutting right before the debris fully settled.
One final glyph arced beneath his feet—this one flickering, hungry.
He jumped it. Rolled hard on the landing.
Pain flared in his side, but he kept moving.
Ahead—the old sigil door.
His path out.
It stood like a wall of bone, etched with ancient runes—half of them cracked, the rest barely glowing.
He pressed his palm against the center glyph.
The Mark on his arm responded.
Energy surged.
The glyph recoiled, tried to resist.
Then the Hollow's Bargain moved.
Not loud. Not bright.
Just raw.
It pulsed like a second heart in his skin.
The rune-lock sparked—then shattered. Its whole energy was sucked out from it.
It became just a normal broken lock.
A hum built in the door's frame.
Then silence.
The door opened with a hiss.
Beyond it—cold air.
Real air.
Not prison-filtered. Not recycled.
Just wind.
Alex stepped out.
His skin trembled. Not from cold—
From freedom.
He didn't smile.
Didn't cry.
He just breathed.
Then ran.
The wind hit his face like a slap—sharp, real, biting with frost.
Alex staggered forward, boots crunching over broken frost-lined tiles.
He had made it.
Out.
His breath steamed in the silvery night.
The prison tower loomed behind him—no alarms, no cries of pursuit.
But that didn't mean they hadn't noticed.
He needed to vanish.
Now.
Kairo City's underlayer stretched ahead of him.
Fog rolled through the crumbling streets like something alive.
He ducked behind a collapsed railing, then dashed through a ruined archway.
There had been more light here once—before the war, before the purges.
Now, the streets were bones.
He turned down a side alley where flickering glyph-lanterns swung from rusted hooks.
A coughing vendor stirred in his sleep beneath a ragged tarp.
Didn't see him. Or pretended not to.
Alex kept moving.
Faster now.
Each step was a beat in a fading song Climb. Drop.
He kneew these routes from stolen whisispers,
He passed a broken window and saw himself—half-starved, eyes glowing faintly with Hollow light, face half-covered in cloth.
Not a boy anymore.
Not really.
He spotted a run-down storeroom ahead—roof half-caved, glyph-lock rusted off.
Perfect.
He crawled inside and shut the panel behind him with slow, trembling fingers.
Inside was dust.
Ash.
The bones of what might've once been a chair.
Alex collapsed behind an overturned shelf.
His shoulders burned.
His ribs throbbed with every breath.
He pressed a strip of cloth against the Mark on his arm, shielding it from stray light.
The Hollow pulsed under his skin—not active, just watching.
Like it was amused.
His mind screamed for sleep, but his instincts wouldn't let him.
Five minutes.
That's all he could afford.
He counted the seconds in his head.
Thirty... sixty... two hundred...
Then he stood.
Stiff. Sore. But alive.
He rewrapped the cloth around his face.
Pulled the hood from a discarded robe over his head.
Stepped outside.
The fog hadn't lifted.
It never did in this part of the city.
Kairo's lower districts were rotting in silence.
He walked.
Eyes down. Steps even.
A few early risers watched him pass—silent, careful.
None called out.
One woman, hunched in a doorway, simply said, "Another one," then looked away.
A boy watched him from behind a dumpster.
Didn't speak. Just nodded.
Not welcome. Not hunted.
Just seen.
They know.
He kept walking.
Toward the outer edge.
Toward whatever was next.
And behind him—high above the fog—a figure watched from the roof.
Silent.
Still.
Following.
The city's edge was closer now.
Alex could feel it.
The air was drier. Less saturated with glyph-smog.
More real.
His footsteps echoed off forgotten alleys and shattered bridges.
This was the part of Kairo City that officials didn't talk about—where the towers thinned and the streets bled into cracked earth.
The fringe.
He passed a wall where old posters peeled under years of rain and soot.
A boy was drawn in one of them. Shackled. Branded.
The words below were half-burned. Something about redemption through servitude.
He didn't stop.
Didn't look back.
Every heartbeat was a countdown.
Every step a gamble.
He finally saw it—the outer barrier.
A metal gate, leaning crooked between two watch towers that no longer sparked with wardlight.
One guard.
Slumped half-asleep beside a glowing crate stamped with a merchant's seal.
A delivery caravan approached—old, clattering wheels, pulled by tired duskbeasts.
Perfect.
Alex moved with the shadows, hugging the rusted walls.
One breath. Two.
He broke into a slow jog, then a quick stride, slipping behind the rear of the caravan.
The duskbeasts didn't react.
Neither did the watchman.
Too focused on arguing with the driver over papers.
Alex ducked low and passed through the narrow gate slot, the broken segment in the outer wall.
No alarm.
No shouts.
Then—
Wind.
Clean.
Cold.
Free.
He staggered across gravel, barely keeping balance as the terrain shifted beneath him.
His legs didn't believe it yet.
His lungs didn't trust the air.
But he kept going.
Past the ridge. Past the scarred rocks.
And when he finally dared to look back—
Kairo City stood like a fortress of ghosts.
Towers swallowed in mist.
No movement on the walls.
No signs of pursuit.
But deep in the back of his mind—
He felt it.
Something still watching.
A weight behind his eyes.
He turned away.
And walked.
Farther.
Each step took him away from the only world he'd known.
Toward a horizon painted in ash and bloodlight.
He didn't know where he was going.
But it was not back.
Never back.
Behind him, the outer gate groaned shut.
A thud. Final. Heavy.
Somewhere—on the ridge just beyond view—
Someone stood.
With the shadow well mark.
Cloaked in mist.
Watching.
Silent.
No footsteps.
No breath.
Only presence.
And when they stepped away, the ground where they'd stood smoldered faintly—
As if the land itself rejected their weight.
The wind howled across the wasteland.
Loose gravel stirred in Alex's wake, kicked up by half-running feet.
But not all footsteps belonged to him.
Far behind—too far for sound, too close for comfort—another pair moved.
Measured. Silent.
Not chasing. Just… matching.
High above, the masked figure stood on a broken ledge of stone, wrapped in dusk and shadow.
No cloak flapped. No breath fogged the air.
Their eyes—if they had any—glowed faintly behind the mask's etched runes.
The symbol at its center pulsed, then dimmed.
They stared at the boy ahead.
Watching.
Learning.
Alex paused near a dead tree, the bark blackened by old glyph fire. He leaned on it, catching his breath.
The Hollow's Mark tingled back on his arm—warm, then cold.
A warning?
He turned sharply, scanning the jagged ridgeline.
Nothing.
Just wind.
Just dust.
But still… something felt off.
Like he was walking through a trail already taken.
The masked figure crouched low on a distant outcrop.
They touched the ground where Alex had stepped.
The soil shimmered—rippled as if recalling the past.
Faint glyph residue danced into the air.
"Resonance," they whispered.
Their voice was distorted, not male or female.
Not even… human.
They stood, slow and patient, and began walking again.
Not rushing.
The prey wasn't ready to be taken.
Not yet.
They passed a lone vulture-like creature, perched and watching.
Its eyes glazed over when the figure came near.
It didn't flee.
It froze.
As if instinct screamed louder than fear.
Further ahead, Alex entered a crevice between two cliffs.
The walls bore carvings—old warnings in dead languages.
He didn't read them.
But the Mark on his arm responded.
A throb. A flicker.
Something in this land remembered old memories.
Alex pushed forward, unaware of the shadow slipping over the ridge above him.
Moving as if it had always belonged there.
Like the earth made space for it.
Behind a crumbling boulder, the figure finally stopped.
Watched.
Waited.
Whispered.
"The chase begins. The first thread unravels."
They lifted one hand, and a symbol shimmered into the air—matching the one on Alex's Mark.
But reversed.
Twisted.
Then they closed their fist, and the air stilled.
Wind ceased.
Even the dust hung suspended, as if afraid to fall.
Then, the figure turned and vanished—
Not stepping. Not leaping.
Just… gone.
Or, maybe not.
And miles ahead, Alex suddenly felt a shiver crawl down his spine.
He looked up at the overcast sky.
No eyes stared down. No sounds broke the silence.
But deep inside—beneath ribs, beneath reason—
A part of him knew.
He wasn't alone.
Not anymore.
The outer gate slammed shut behind him.
Alex didn't look back.
He couldn't.
Every muscle burned, every bone rattled. But he kept running—through dry fields, cracked roads, past rusted pipelines and crumbling watchtowers left from some forgotten war.
Night had swallowed the land whole.
Kairo's silhouette vanished in the distance, drowned in fog and shadow.
The Hollow's Mark pulsed faintly on his arm, like a second heartbeat. Slower now. Weaker.
But not gone.
Alex's breath came ragged. His legs moved on instinct, not will.
Free.
He was finally free.
So why did it feel like the chains had only changed shape?
High above, perched on a dead signal tower, the masked figure watched.
Silent. Still.
Unseen.
Their eyes followed him, never blinking.
Not a hunter in pursuit—
A reaper, waiting.
Alex stumbled through a dry creek bed. Thorns tore at his clothes. His vision blurred.
Ahead—barely visible in the moonlight—stone pillars marked the outer boundary of the Kairo territories. Beyond that, a new province.
A new life.
If he could reach it.
He took one more step—then another.
Then collapsed.
His body hit the dirt with a dull thud.
Dust billowed around him. He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
The Mark flickered once.
Then went dark.
From the shadows, the masked figure stepped down onto the dirt trail.
No footprints followed.
No weight to their steps.
They stood over Alex, head tilting.
No emotion. No words.
Just quiet judgment.
Until—
A voice crackled over a nearby scrying orb.
"Unit Theta-3 reporting. Visual sweep complete. No signs of breach from Kairo—wait. Hold position."
From behind a hillcrest, figures appeared.
Armor gleaming with faint gold runes.
Sunspire scouts.
A patrol.
Unaware of the boy lying yards away.
Unaware of what stood above him.
The masked figure looked toward them.
Paused.
Tilted their head again.
Decision.
Then vanished—dissolving into the wind, as if they'd never been.
One of the scouts stepped forward, scanning the terrain.
Another checked his scry-orb.
"There's… something. Residual glyph energy. Faint. Chaotic."
The first one narrowed his eyes.
"Spread out. Now."
They moved forward, lanterns cutting through the night mist.
Closer.
Closer.
One wrong step and they'd walk right past him.
Or one right step—and the story would change forever.
As Alex lay unconscious beneath the moonlight—his Mark dead quiet, his breath shallow—
Fate stood at a crossroads.
Who would find him first?
The law?
Or the thing with no name?