The world fell with dawn, and the surrounding nights of city life blinded her for a few short moments.
Her scream echoed out into the night until she hit the ground hard, the breath knocked from her lungs, the people heading back from work, the social owls and late-shift citizens scattered around them, their respondent screams of shock and murmurs sounding on the quiet street.
She had managed to fall onto Kade; luckily, he was a lot more durable than she ever was, so he could walk it off.
But the lack of a groan or complaint from him below shook Dawn to her core. She swung around to him.
'Shit, please don't be dead!'
His eyes were open, blankly staring into the sky, with no thought or reaction at all. Tears welled in her eyes as she shook him back and forth in distress before leaning down to his chest, the subtle swelling of breath weak but there.
He had passed out. Yet wasn't waking up.
Dawn desperately searched for a wound. Her attribute [Observer] enhanced her perception; she saw no severe life-threatening wounds until she looked at his shadow.
Cowering from the lights of the borderlands between the inner city and outskirts. It seemed weak and hanging onto his body. Dawn understood that the assassin had attacked his shadow rather than Kade himself.
It seemed to have worked wonders; another attack on it, and Kade would meet death.
Breaking from her concerned focus, she started to summon [Origin]; the sparks of shimmering essence started to weave themselves into reality. The surroundings she had forgotten came back to her, and she witnessed the shadows surrounding the street darken.
Her eyes locked onto a figure cloaked above, who watched the chaos with glee.
Unaware of the assassin, a crowd of people were shocked by the sudden screaming and impact of a young man and woman; the fear they built up to see their broken bodies, but when their curiosity burnt, they saw them relatively in one piece.
The crowd started to gather around the two who had fallen, the pressure from the gathered pushing anyone who would help them up, but through the murmurs. A man in his early 20s confidently broke apart the crowd, a shaggy cameraman following behind his entrance.
He strode to Dawn and the fallen Kade before gesturing to the crowd.
"Alright, alright—easy now, folks!" His voice cut through the noise, charismatic and practiced. "Let's not suffocate the poor souls, yeah?" The crowd were unsure of what to do, following the words that gave them any direction, with respondatory murmurs.
"Is that Leo Striker?" "Who"?" A Dreamscape Broadcaster, he's the one who popularised the roaring lion style!
The noise was deafening in Dawn's ears. All of her focus was on the assassin above. Her entire body was ready to act with all of its power. Gritting her teeth as she controlled the fear and anxiety and fuelled it into anger and purpose, [Origin] finally formed into the brilliant Crystal pike.
Clutching onto the memory, Dawn stood above Kade's fallen form, like a watchful sentinel.
She wouldn't let him touch Kade. Not after all he had done for her.
Dawn's pride wouldn't allow it.
Even if, deep down, she was standing against something she couldn't hope to stop.
That didn't matter if Kade could do it.
So could she!
Leo knelt beside her, his ignorant concern going unnoticed.
"Hey, kid, are you okay? I called emergency services—they should be here soon for your free—"
THERE!
The silver gleam of a dagger.
Dawn reacted instantly. [Origin] surged forward, the crystal pike intercepting the shadowed blade mid-flight. It shattered on impact—an explosion of resonance that silenced the street.
The assassin's dagger spun through the air, landing with a solid thunk into the pavement—just inches from a bystander's foot.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. Curious murmurs turned to anxious retreats as people instinctively stepped back. Leo quickly took a step back, alarm written on his face, summoning his memories.
He finally followed the dawn's eyes, subsequently widening them at the sight of the shadow assassin, along with two more daggers flung toward them. Dawn, having repaired [Origin] with her innate ability [Reminiscence], brought it back to her hands.
She roared in exertion, deflecting the first blade into the air again. But the second one followed behind, straight at her forehead, but with [Origin] shattering once again, she had no weapon nor the time to defend herself.
The silver tip filled her vision—until a sleek grey sabre cut across her field of view, intercepting it with a sharp clang.
Leo now stood before her, draped in radiant azure armour. The same man who had been casually chatting moments ago now wore the look of someone entirely elsewhere—a Dreamscape streamer no longer.
He faced the assassin directly. The memories he once danced through for entertainment now weighed heavy in his limbs. This wasn't a simulation.
This was real.
And the awakened trying to kill the sleeper was a reminder of what he'd left behind.
Above, the assassin moved again.
Below, the crowd—finally seeing the third dagger sink into the pavement—panicked. Screams erupted. They scattered down the streets in a wave of chaos and frightened breath. Leo's cameraman is sweating bullets as he realises the danger.
Yet he stuck around, his entire body shivering around the camera, which he kept stabilised. The thousands of viewers who tuned in to watch a nice street vlog spamming the chat in shock and disbelief.
The cameraman was almost tempted to run away, but the retention shown weighed his feet down like an iron shackle. He grimly raised the camera for a better view and let his companion Leo do his magic.
"Come down and face me instead of a sleeper! Leo shouted, determination powering him to stand tall. "Or are you too afraid?!"
Leo positioned himself in front of Dawn and Kade, maybe subconsciously, for a better view for watchers.
The assassin seemingly scoffed, his ragged form plunging from the edge, bringing the shadows with him as he crashed into the pavement of the empty street, the shattered concrete breaking off into the air and subsequently raining down.
Leo strengthened his stance, and Dawn gazed at the new awakened, relief flowing over her slightly; she was very much still in danger, along with Kade, but another awakened was exactly what they were looking for.
Yet, she didn't think it in her heart that he would be enough.
The assassin emerged from the dust and darkness, his tattered cloth that draped over militaristic leather wavered in the nightly breeze. Annoyance painted his expression as he twirled daggers in each hand.
"Another one, huh? The spell likes making killing the girl more complicated than it had any right to be."
He glanced at the warrior in front, unamused.
But his gaze drifted to Dawn, standing guard over Kade's crumpled form.
Something shifted in his dead eyes. A slow, sadistic intrigue.
When he spoke again, his voice was softer, laced with rasp and cracked amusement.
"The boy survived me… I've never had anyone do that before."
Dawn gripped the reforged [Origin] with new fury. And Leo took another step forward and another. Getting closer and closer to the assassin. His face was stalwart with determination.
"You mean to tell me you killed people on numerous occasions?"
The assassin's lighter mood instantly soured at the bland heroics.
"Yes, you daft fool, do you want to join that list? You'll be near the bottom of any importance there."
Leo ignored the insult, raising his blade with as much bravado as he could summon under the crushing weight of the moment.
"I'm Leo Striker—" he declared, voice ringing with defiant pride, "—and I challenge you, monster!"
The assassin's brow twitched. Without hesitation, he launched two shadow-forged daggers at Leo, his patience spent. His shadows shunned the street of lights with his vicious presence.
A clash between Awakened rang out across the empty street. The assassin struck first, gaining an immediate edge—his daggers fuelled by frustration and venom, each swipe a lethal promise.
But Leo held his own. The Dreamscape warrior danced just outside of death's reach, his swift footwork and practiced reflexes keeping him alive.
Despite the reach advantage of his sabre, the assassin dictated the rhythm. Each exchange ended with Leo yielding ground, step by step closer to Dawn and Kade.
The cameraman chanted for Leo's victory, his voice shaky but hopeful. Meanwhile, the stream exploded across the network—viewers from around the globe tuning in, stunned by a real, unsanitised clash between Awakened.
Something that the propaganda would never show.
Dawn sensed the danger building between their clashing powers. She couldn't join—not without leaving Kade vulnerable. Gritting her teeth, she hooked her arms under his and dragged him farther from the assassin, each step a struggle, but one worth taking.
She took him as far away into the relative safety behind a parked personal transport. For just a moment, clutching Kade close. Propping his head up on her legs, like Kade had done for him with the coat. The noise of battle faded as she leaned down, focusing once again.
It was still there, weak but noticeably better than when he fell.
"What am I even doing here?"
Muttering to herself, she thought back on the events that had taken place in her life; it was a bloated mass of unfortunate events one after another. Working with her father under clang song as an aid had kept her living well for her entire life.
But he had overheard a certain plot they had created; he told Dawn to hold information about the hidden plot, just in case he was found out by the enforcers and diviners that managed the united front of one of the largest forces in humanity.
They found out that he knew, and soon some of the clan elites were at his door; he managed to distract them long enough for Dawn to get away. To run and escape into a place no one would ever find her.
Deep in the outskirts. The nightmare spell decided to curse her only days after; she awaited its trial, scarred and afraid for the future, for being alone until Song gave up their quiet hunt for her.
The assassin showing that they clearly weren't ready anytime soon.
The thought slipped out as a whisper.
Her mind swam back to the life she'd left behind—her place under Clang Song, working quietly as an aide beside her father. A stable life. A privileged one, by most standards.
Until he overheard something he wasn't meant to.
A plot.
He told her to keep it secret to protect what he couldn't once they came. And they did—enforcers, diviners, cloaked in authority and certainty. He'd bought her time, stalling the clan elites long enough for her to vanish.
Out into the Outskirts. Alone. Days later, the Spell found her.
She waited for its trial in silence, battered by fear and uncertainty, hiding while Song combed the edges of civilisation for her trace. And now?
The assassin's presence was proof. They were far from done.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Kade, from within his pained rest, felt something warm and padded comfort his neck, the sensation bringing him back to his senses within the dream. a dream where he simply felt unmeasurable pain he had experienced when his shadow was struck.
He had faced the familiar grasp of it many times, even recently being stabbed in the lungs from his trial, yet drowning in his own blood had nothing in comparison to the burning feel of his soul being severed from his own body.
The concept that tied the two together, the thing that helped him perceive existence between the ideas. Turns out what was brutally wounded; existence shifted from a purely natural experience to every stimulus being something that hurt.
The sheer pain dropped him flat, even with [Never Ending Fury] active—his brain doing whatever it could to preserve itself. His brain is finally now starting to reboot itself back to new.
The pain didn't vanish. But something else cut through it—a warmth beneath his cheek, a steady rhythm against his chest. Not burning. Not darkness. Just breathe.
A hand stroked back his hair. His eyes fluttered open, the light hurting less than he expected.
Dawn stared down at him, eyes wide, a quiet disbelief on her face.
Kade blinked, bewildered and earnestly befuddled.
"Is this heaven?"