2025-11-16 20:01:32The hunter lunged. His bone-forged blade cut through the rain, slicing the air with a shriek that echoed off the alley walls. Marco yanked Chris aside just in time. “Move!” Marco barked.
“I am moving!” Chris shouted back, slipping on wet concrete.
The blade crashed into the ground where his head had been a second earlier, sending cracks spiderwebbing across the pavement.
The hunter straightened. Rain dripped off the ivory edges of his armor, hissing like steam. “You cannot escape,” he growled.
Marco swung his shock baton, striking the hunter’s shoulder with a crack of electricity. Sparks burst. The hunter barely flinched. “Primitive weapon.”
“Yeah?” Marco swung again. “But it annoys you. And I’ll take what I can get.”
The hunter caught the baton mid-swing, one-handed. Marco froze. “Oh. That’s bad.”
The hunter jerked it from his grip and threw it aside. Chris backed away until his spine hit the brick wall. “Marco, he’s going to kill us”
Marco stepped in front of him. “He’s here for you, not me.”
“That doesn’t help!”
“Not meant to.”
The hunter advanced. Chris’s breath lodged in his throat. His hands shook violently. “I—I don’t want to fight him,” Chris whispered.
“You don’t have to,” Marco said. “You just have to survive.”
“How?”
“By not dying.”
“That’s not a strategy!”
“Better than nothing!”
The hunter lunged again. Chris ducked, and once more his palms sparked, a pulse of invisible force erupting without warning.
The shockwave blasted outward, throwing the hunter across the alley and slamming him against a dumpster so hard the metal dented inward. Marco blinked. “You did that?”
Chris stared at his shaking hands. “I didn’t mean to!”
The hunter rose, armor cracking and repairing itself with grotesque clicks.
“You are awakening faster than expected,” he snarled.
“Stay DOWN!” Marco shouted, grabbing a broken pipe and swinging. “Seriously, just quit!”
The hunter slapped the pipe aside without effort. Marco stumbled. “Okay—uh—Chris? Any more shockwaves? Now would be great.”
Chris shook his head wildly. “I can’t control them!”
“Try being terrified. That seems to work!”
“Marco!”
The hunter strode toward them, implacable. “You cannot run from your bloodline,” the hunter said. “You cannot run from fate.”
Chris trembled. “I don’t have a bloodline! I’m nobody”
“That is the lie they fed you.”
The hunter bowed his head briefly, then lifted his blade. “You carry the marrow of the Bonekeeper Princes. You are the last heir of the forbidden line. And it is my duty to erase you.”
Chris whispered, “Why? Why erase me?”
“Because your existence threatens the city.”
Marco snorted. “The nobles threaten the city. Chris can barely threaten a sponge.”
Chris shot him a look. “Marco!”
“I call it like I see it.”
The hunter swung. Marco grabbed Chris and dove sideways. The blade tore into the wall, sending bricks crashing around them. “You cannot protect him,” the hunter growled.
Marco pulled Chris behind a dumpster. “Chris. Listen. You gotta use whatever’s inside you.”
“I can’t!”
“You already did it twice!”
“That was an accident!”
“Good. Do it again accidentally!”
“I CAN’T CONTROL IT!”
The hunter’s footsteps grew louder. Closer. Bone scraping pavement. Marco gritted his teeth. “Kid, if you don’t react, we die.”
Chris swallowed, nausea twisting in his stomach. “I don’t know how to make it happen.”
The hunter rounded the dumpster. Chris’s heart stopped. “There is no place left to hide,” the hunter said.
He raised the blade for the killing blow. Chris shut his eyes. “No… no, please… I don’t want to die…”
A whisper slid through him, soft and ancient.
Then rise.
Chris gasped. His eyes snapped open. A deep vibration moved under his skin, like something old, buried, waking.
“Chris?” Marco whispered. “What’s happening to you?”
Chris didn’t answer. His heartbeat thundered, fast, heavy, shaking the air around him. The hunter paused mid-strike. “Your pulse, impossible.”
Light, pale, bone-white light, began to pulse from Chris’s chest. Marco shielded his eyes. “Holy, Chris??”
Chris clutched his shirt over his sternum as if something inside was blistering outward. “I—I can’t—Marco—help”
The hunter’s voice sharpened. “The Bonekeeper core. He is manifesting it.”
“I WHAT?!” Chris shrieked.
The hunter lunged to strike him before the transformation completed, but the pulse hit. Not a shockwave. Not an explosion. A rhythmic force, beating outward in concentric rings, like a heartbeat echoing through the very air.
The hunter was thrown back, armor splintering. Marco was knocked to his knees. Chris floated. Actually floated, lifted inches from the ground by the pulsing light.
Rain parted around him, droplets splitting as they touched the shimmering aura. Chris screamed. “MAKE IT STOP!”
The hunter roared, shielding himself. “No—NO—this is not possible”
Marco stared in disbelief. “Chris… you’re glowing!”
“I DON’T WANT TO GLOW!”
His voice cracked with terror. The pulse intensified. The bones in the surrounding buildings vibrated. Streetlamps flickered violently. Cracks spiderwebbed across the pavement. And for the first time…
The hunter retreated. “This is not over,” he snarled. “Bonekeeper.”
He vanished into the rain with unnatural speed. Chris collapsed as the light snapped off. Marco lunged forward and caught him before he hit the ground. “Hey—Chris—stay with me”
Chris shivered violently. “I—I didn’t mean to, I don’t know what that was, I don’t know what’s happening to me”
Marco steadied him. “You just awakened something ancient. Something powerful.”
“I’m not supposed to have power,” Chris whispered. “I’m not supposed to be anything.”
“Well,” Marco said softly, “seems the universe disagrees.”
Chris’s breath shook. “He said I was a prince.”
Marco squeezed his shoulder. “Yeah. That part’s complicated.”
“No—no, princes don’t get thrown into corpse-washes,” Chris said, voice breaking. “Princes don’t get betrayed by their wives. Princes don’t get hunted.”
Marco sighed. “Kid… you’re not wrong. But you’re also not just some nobody.”
Chris squeezed his eyes shut. “I want all of this to stop.”
“Chris…”
“I want to go back,” he whispered. “To before today. Before everything broke.”
Marco didn’t answer. Because there was no going back. Footsteps splashed from the far end of the street, soldiers approaching, responding to the explosion. Marco pulled Chris up. “We have to move.”
Chris stumbled. “Where?”
“Somewhere safe.”
“There’s nowhere safe,” Chris whispered.
Marco hesitated. Then he said: “There is. But you’re not gonna like it.”
Chris’s stomach twisted. “Where?”
Marco met his eyes. “The Bonekeeper catacombs.”
Chris’s blood went cold. “The WHAT?!”
Marco grabbed his arm. “Move. Now.”
Behind them, the hunter’s voice echoed faintly through the rain: You cannot run forever, Prince.
Chris’s fear spiked. But so did something else. Something new. Something waking. And for the first time, He wasn’t sure if the fear belonged to him, or the hunter.
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CHAPTER 12 — The High Marrow Enforcer
The High Marrow Enforcer stepped into the chamber like a nightmare sculpted from steel and bone. Its armor was carved from fused vertebrae, polished to a mirror sheen.Null-runes crawled across its gauntlets like living veins. Its skull-like helmet glowed with cold blue fire.And in its hand, a null-forged execution blade, humming with lethal precision.Chris staggered backward, breath broken. “W-why… why would she…? Why would Jenna want me dead?!”The Enforcer’s hollow voice echoed beneath the helmet.“She has offered your marrow as tribute.”Chris felt something inside him crack. “No… no, that’s not.... Jenna wouldn’t... she couldn’t... ”Marco grabbed Chris’s arm. “Kid, listen to me. We believe what the evidence says, not what your heart wished it was.”Chris shook violently. “I loved her… she was my life… she... she took care of me... she.”Lira snapped sharply, “She played you.”Chris flinched like she’d struck him. Lira’s mother, the ghostly imprint, stepped between them. “Chr
CHAPTER 11 — The Forbidden Stair
The hidden marrow door closed behind them with a thud that echoed like a warning. Chris flinched. “That door isn’t opening again, is it?”Lira traced its surface. “Not unless the corrupted Bonekeeper opens it.”Marco exhaled sharply. “Great. We’re locked in a crypt with a traumatized giant serpent, a corrupted bone-zombie, and whatever nightmare the nobles buried down here.”Chris swallowed hard. “Can you not list it out loud…?”Marco grabbed his shoulder. “Relax. In my professional opinion, we’re. ”“You’re not a professional anything,” Chris said.“Exactly,” Marco said. “So trust me.”“…That doesn’t help.”“It wasn’t meant to.”The corrupted Bonekeeper, still bowed, still trembling, turned silently toward the newly revealed stairway. It pointed down with its broken hand, bone shards clicking softly.Chris whispered, “Is he… leading us?”Lira nodded. “He remembers what happened.”“But his mind is…” Marco gestured vaguely at the creature. “Very crunchy.”Chris glared. “Marco. ”“What?
CHAPTER 10 — The Lower Sanctum of the Slaughtered
The deeper the bone serpent carried them, the colder the world became. Not cold like winter, cold like a grave that still remembered its dead.Chris shivered violently, gripping the serpent’s spine as it slid along the ancient tunnel. Bone-lamps embedded in the walls flickered to life at its presence, lighting the descent with eerie pulses of white flame.Marco muttered behind him, “I swear, if this thing suddenly decides it’s hungry” “It won’t,” Lira said.“It might,” Marco insisted. “Everything down here tries to eat him.”Chris’s voice wavered. “Please don’t say that right now…”The serpent hissed softly, almost… amused. Lira touched one of its ribs. “It understands fear. It was designed to respond to it.”Chris swallowed. “Designed by who?”Lira didn’t answer. The tunnel widened as they descended deeper, the walls expanding into a cavern so large Chris couldn’t even see the far end.Faint echoes drifted through the darkness, whispers that felt older than language. Chris’s breath h
CHAPTER 9 — The Fall Beneath the Bones
Chris didn’t fall. He plummeted. The fissure swallowed him in darkness, air ripping past his ears. He screamed until his voice cracked, arms flailing, nothing to grab, nothing but blackness spinning around him like the throat of a beast. “MARCOOOO !”Marco’s voice echoed somewhere above him. “STOP SCREAMING, KID, YOU’RE MAKING ME PANIC!”“I’M ALREADY PANICKING !”“PANIC QUIETER!”“That’s not how panic works!”Lira’s voice cut through the darkness, calm as stone: “Brace yourselves.”“FOR WHAT?!” Chris shrieked.The ground slammed into them. Except, it wasn’t ground. It was water. Cold, black water swallowed Chris whole, flipping him end over end. He broke the surface screaming, thrashing wildly.“HELP—HELP—I can’t—I can’t swim in the dark !”“Calm down!” Marco surfaced beside him. “You’re fine!”“NO, I AM NOT”Something yanked him under. Chris choked on water, kicking violently as something wrapped around his ankle. Panic exploded through him.He fought upward, breaking the surface wit
CHAPTER 8 — The Prince the Bones Chose
The moment Chris said “I accept,” the marrow-crystal obelisk detonated. Light, blinding, bone-white, violent, burst through the Chamber of Names like a shockwave from the heart of the earth.The walls shook. Dust rained from the ceiling. Bones embedded in the stone hummed so loudly it felt like the catacombs themselves were screaming.Chris staggered backward, covering his eyes. “WHAT’S HAPPENING ?!”Lira grabbed his arm. “You answered the call! The chamber is attuning to your marrow!”Marco ducked behind a half-collapsed pillar. “CAN WE UN-ATTUNE!? Because the ceiling looks like it’s thinking about killing us!”The obelisk split completely open, bone-light pouring from its core like molten energy. The ancestral specter, the crowned figure of swirling bone-dust, rose higher, expanding, gaining form, gaining presence.And then, it looked at Chris. Only Chris. Its voice thundered through the chamber:The prince has accepted his marrow. The bond must be sealed.Chris yelled, “I don’t kn
CHAPTER 7 — The Chamber of Names
The catacombs shook as the echo of the purge squad’s defeat faded. Dust drifted from the ceiling. Bones embedded in the stone walls vibrated with a low, ominous hum, like they were warning Chris to run faster.Marco helped Chris stand. “Can you walk?”“I—I think so,” Chris whispered, legs trembling. “My body feels like it’s made of jelly.”“Good,” Marco said. “That means you’re alive.”“That’s your medical diagnosis?” Chris croaked.“Hey, I’m not a healer,” Marco said. “I just pretend to know things.”Lira stepped in front of them, expression grim. “Move. We don’t have time.”Chris staggered after her. “Are more soldiers coming?”Lira didn’t slow her pace. “Not soldiers. Worse.”“Worse than purge squads?!”Marco muttered, “Depends on your definition of ‘worse.’”“Marco!”“Look, some things down here don’t need armor to kill you.”Chris paled. “Marco, please tell me you’re joking.”“You ever known me to joke at the right time?”“…No.”“Then yes, I’m serious.”Chris groaned. “I want a r
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