Cael had never seen the stars
He imagined them sometimes— tiny burning holes in the sky that let the gods watch the world rot. He liked the idea of being watched. Not in a sadistic, perverted manner. But in way that meant someone remembered him. Acknowledge him. It was reassurance of his existence.
A deep tremor passed beanth his feet, rattling the metal grating of Platform 32-C. He crouched instinctively, one hand pressed flat, firmly on the ground, the other holding tight to the worn, rotting leather strap of his satchel. The rumbling began to fade, its wrath swallowed by the groaning underbelly of the city.
He could hear it. The Veil.
A soft murmur beneath the vibrations, like whispers carried on windless air. It wasn't words. It was older than language—sensation without sound. To Cael, it was familiar. Comforting, even.
They called it madness. He called it warning.
The city of Durn hovered above the Veil like a dying lantern. Once a marvel of balance and ascension, it now creaked under its own arrogance—chained to rusting pylons and fueled by breathless hope. A place where nobles fed on lies and laborers disappeared when they stopped smiling.
He'd lived all of his sixteen years in Durn. Not that he remembered much of them. Memory was a fragile thing in the city. Names slipped. Faces blurred. Whole days vanished into the fog of repetition. Most blamed the Veil. Cael wasn't so sure.
"You're in the wrong district, aren't you?"
The voice came from behind. Polished, impatient, trembling at the edges. Cael didn't turn. "I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be," he replied, adjusting his footing near the edge of the platform. A soft crunch of boots against metal. The scent of cedar oil and burned coal—Upper Sector cologne. Military grade.
"You're Cael Isarys," the voice said. "The blind freak."
Cael's fingers tightened around the strap of his satchel. "And you're a child pretending to be a soldier." The boy stepped closer. His presence was sharp, angular. No doubt he carried a stunner or baton, but he didn't move like he'd ever used them. Cael didn't need sight to know that much.
"My father says people like you draw the Veil closer. That it feeds on defectives."
Cael smiled faintly. "Maybe he's right."
The boy hesitated. Then: "They're evacuating the lower platforms. I could report you."
"You could," Cael agreed.
"You're not scared?"
"I'm blind, not deaf. I heard your voice crack three times."
The boy lunged, boots clattering—but another tremor shook the ground beneath them. This one was deeper. Longer. The support beams groaned. Warning sirens began to wail in the distance.
Cael straightened slowly. The metal beneath him vibrated with irregular frequency. Not natural. Not just wear and tear. Something had been broken.
"Go home," he said, turning his head toward the boy.
"What—"
"You have ten seconds."
For a moment, the only sound was the distant howl of sirens and the low thrumm of failing generators. Then the air changed. Denser. Pressurized.
The Veil stirred. The boy ran.
Cael stood at the edge now, barefoot, toes curled around rusted grating. His blindfold was still on—thin gray cloth wrapped twice around his head. He didn't need to take it off. He already felt the truth pressing against his skull.
The city was falling.
The supports beneath Platform 32-C cracked with a sound like bones snapping under god-fingers. A scream echoed above. Then another. The metal gave way beneath Cael's feet.
He didn't resist. He fell.
There was no wind. Only gravity and silence. It wasn't like he imagined falling would feel. It was quiet. Clean. Strangely warm.
Then cold.
Then dark.
And then… not dark at all.
Something opened.
Not his eyes. Those were still bound. Still blind. But somewhere deeper—beneath sight, something awakened.
Cael saw a shape he couldn't describe, coiled around the very concept of perception. It pulsed. It breathed in reverse. And from its thousand invisible eyes, a voice surged into his skull.
"A thread severed… yet still it moves."
He screamed.
But the scream didn't leave his mouth—it echoed outward, across miles of ruined stone, into depths man was not meant to touch.
"We see you, Veilborn."
He struck something.
A jolt passed through his body like broken lightning. He was no longer falling. He was… resting? Lying on something soft, yet unyielding. Moss and steel and bone. He gasped, pulling air into burning lungs. His head throbbed. His fingers twitched. The blindfold was gone. His eyes were open. But what he saw wasn't sight.
He saw names. Threads. Layers of reality woven together like cloth.
He looked at his hand—and where there should have been skin and scars, he saw a line of white stitching running up his palm, each thread humming with half-forgotten memories.
He was… stitched.
Or rather, stitched into something else. The Veil had not killed him. It had marked him. In the distance, something moved.
A shape with no face. No skin. Just an outline—like a man who had been erased from existence but continued walking anyway. It turned toward him. And smiled without a mouth.
"Welcome home," it said, in his voice.