Rain fell in thin silver needles, slicing through the darkness as Kain Obasi sped down Lumino City’s narrow back roads. His motorbike engine wheezed beneath him like it shared his exhaustion. Midnight shifts were always rough, but tonight felt heavier like the air itself was warning him to turn back.He didn’t listen.The last delivery of the night dangled just ahead of him, pinned on his cracked phone screen: “Drop-off: Block 17, East Dusk Street.”A neighborhood most riders avoided after sunset. But Kain needed the money. He always needed the money.The rain intensified, making the roads glisten like spilled oil. His jacket thin, faded, and no longer waterproof clung to his skin. The cold bit deeper with every mile. He tried to focus on the rhythm of the road, on the familiar hum of the engine, on anything except the dark thoughts creeping at the edges of his mind.Rent was overdue again.His landlord had left another warning note.His phone bill was three days from disconnection.A

Kain didn’t sleep.He sat on the cold wooden floor of his apartment, back against the wall, the metal card resting on his palm like a living thing. Every so often, it pulsed faintly, as if reacting to him or calling to something inside him.He didn’t understand it.He didn’t understand anything anymore.His father.The Echoes.The man in the black coat.The hunters.Everything felt unreal, but the fear in his chest was painfully real.Don’t ignore the next Echo…He shivered.The room was silent, except for the low hum of the fridge that never fully closed and the faint whistling from the cracked window. Outside, the city moved on, unaware of the chaos unfolding in one tiny apartment.Kain’s eyes burned with exhaustion.When he glanced at the time, it was 3:42 a.m.He rubbed his face and stood. His body felt heavy as if the new truth pressed down on him with invisible weight.He stared at his reflection again. The same tired young man looked back… but something in his eyes was differen

The sound came again.A heavy, metallic bang that echoed through the underground garage like a hammer hitting the bones of the earth. Dust slipped from the ceiling. The fluorescent lights flickered once… twice… as if they too felt the presence of whatever was coming.Kain’s breath hitched.Aria reacted instantly.Her hand flew to the back of her belt, pulling out something that shimmered faintly under the dim lighting somewhere between a blade and a piece of folded black metal.It unfolded with a soft, almost organic sound.A weapon that didn’t belong to this world.“What is that?” Kain whispered.“A last resort,” she said without looking at him.Her eyes stayed fixed on the entrance ramp hard, calculating, and deadly calm. She stood like someone who had walked into war too many times and didn’t fear its face anymore.Kain’s heartbeat thundered in his ears.The ramp at the far end of the garage still dark still empty felt like a throat waiting to swallow them whole.Bang.This time, t

The room was quiet when Kain opened his eyes again quiet in the way a storm becomes quiet just before it destroys everything in its path. The dim lantern Aria placed on the floor flickered, throwing soft gold across her face. She sat with her back straight, but her hands… her hands wouldn’t stop trembling.Kain noticed.“You’ve been watching me,” he whispered.Her eyes lifted slowly, and for a moment, she didn’t speak. She only stared at him as though studying every breath he took, every blink, every movement. As though afraid he would disappear if she looked away.“I needed to make sure you were still breathing,” she responded, voice low.Kain struggled to sit up. Pain shot through his shoulder, but it was nothing compared to the heaviness inside him questions piling in his chest like stones.“Aria,” he said softly, “what aren’t you telling me?”Silence.The kind of silence that stretches and vibrates and dares the truth to break through.She finally exhaled. “Kain… there are things

Kain wasn’t falling.He was floating.Weightless.Suspended in a darkness too thick to be shadow, too quiet to be silence. The forest, the explosions, Aria’s voice they all faded behind him like echoes slipping under water.Only one thing remained.The voice.His father’s voice.Kain… get up.Kain spun toward the sound, but there was no ground beneath him, no air, no horizon. Only darkness stretching endlessly, pulsing with faint veins of silver light.This place didn’t feel real.It felt familiar.“Where am I?” Kain whispered.The silver veins brightened like something was waking.Not where, the voice replied. Between.The darkness shifted. A silhouette stepped forward, shaping itself from mist and light. Broad shoulders. A familiar stance. And when the face formedKain’s breath caught in his throat.“Dad?”The figure smiled gently, and the smile hit Kain with a pain sharper than any wound.“Hello, son.”Kain’s knees weakened. “This… this isn’t possible.”“I know.” His father stepped