THE AURELIAN CHRONICLES SHARDS OF DAWN

The smell of dust and rotting plywood stung the nose. Arthur kicked the door of the old library open and pulled Lyra inside by force. He shut the door as fast as he could, leaning against it with heavy, ragged breaths. His St. Oakhaven boarding school uniform was drenched in sweat and the heavy rain from outside the building.

Out in the hallway, the sound of Higgins's footsteps echoed. The discipline teacher was definitely carrying his signature thick wooden cane, searching for the two delinquent students who dared to set off fireworks in the teachers' lounge.

"You are out of your mind, Arthur," Lyra said, leaning against a bookshelf and trying to catch her breath. Her black hair was a messy, wet mop covering half her face. "If Higgins catches us tonight, we are dead meat. I am not scrubbing the dorm toilets for a month just because of your stupid idea."

Arthur scoffed quietly, peeking through a crack in the wooden door. "Just chill for a second. Besides, the fireworks idea was to cover up the fact that you stole the history exam answer key, right. Don't act all innocent in front of me."

"It is still crazy, wtf," Lyra snapped, rolling her eyes lazily. "You lit five firework rockets at once inside his desk drawer. What if the school burned down."

"That is great, we get a day off," Arthur replied dismissively.

"Your brain is seriously fried."

"You asked me to create a distraction. Now you are the one complaining."

"I asked for a small distraction, not bombing the teachers' lounge, wtf."

"Same difference." Arthur chuckled softly to ease the tension. "You got the test paper, right."

Lyra patted her skirt pocket and nodded firmly. "Got it. But my heart is still pounding like crazy."

Both of them fell silent instantly as the sound of Higgins's heavy boots stopped right outside the library door. Arthur's heart hammered in his chest. If the old man opened the door right now, they would definitely get caught. Arthur jerked

his head toward the dark end of the room. He urged Lyra to step further back into the shadows of the shelves to stay out of sight.

They tiptoed past rows of dusty bookshelves covered in white sheets. In the furthest corner of the room, sat a giant wooden filing wardrobe. Its size was completely unnatural. It was nearly ten feet tall, featuring bizarre carvings of vines and fierce animal faces that looked terrifying under the dim light.

"Get in there," Arthur whispered softly, pointing at the wardrobe.

"Are you insane. This thing smells like dead rats mixed with mothballs," Lyra

flatly refused, holding her nose tightly.

"Get in, or Higgins's cane is going to break your ribs tonight."

"I would rather take a beating than step into that spider nest. Besides, if we get caught, the worst we get is running laps around the field tomorrow morning."

"You forgot Higgins brought his wooden cane. Your hands will swell up if you get hit by that thing. Get in right now, damn it, stop making excuses."

Arthur didn't wait for Lyra's approval anymore. He pulled the giant wardrobe doors wide open. Pitch black darkness greeted them from inside. Strangely, there was no dead rat smell like Lyra had imagined. Instead, a bizarre, cold gust of

wind blew hard from within the cabinet. The wind felt like it was coming from a massive freezer. Arthur grabbed Lyra's arm and shoved her inside first, ignoring her angry cursing. He quickly followed her in and shut the wardrobe doors tight

from the inside.

The two of them were trapped in a cramped, pitch black space without a single speck of light.

"Scoot over a bit," Lyra grumbled in annoyance. "You are stepping on my shoes, wtf."

"You complain too much. It is dark, wtf, I can't see anything." Arthur felt around for the wooden wall behind him. His hands only touched empty air. He kept stepping backward to find the back wall of the wardrobe to lean on. His back didn't touch any layer of wood at all. He kept stepping back. One step. Two

steps. Five steps.

"Arthur, where are you," Lyra's voice started to sound panicked in the dark. "I can't see you."

"I am right here." Arthur reached his hand out, but he didn't touch anyone.

"Where is the back of this wardrobe anyway."

"Do not mess with me. Hold my hand right now."

"I am not messing around, idiot. This wardrobe doesn't have a back wall."

Instantly, the wooden floor beneath their feet simply vanished, as if it had been forcefully yanked away.

Arthur lost his balance completely. The sensation of free fall instantly gripped his stomach, making his heart feel like it was leaping into his throat. He screamed at the top of his lungs, piercing the darkness. Beside him, Lyra was also shrieking hysterically. The pitch black darkness around them was suddenly shattered by a blinding flash of white light. The stuffy library air instantly turned into a battering storm wind as cold as ice.

Thud.

Arthur slammed into the ground extremely hard. Pain immediately shot through him, feeling like his back was broken. His mouth was full of something cold and wet. He spat it out and realized that the stuff was snow. Actual, heavy falling snow. A violent wind howled loudly, deafening his ears. He opened his eyes and saw an endless expanse of giant pine forest blanketed by a severe blizzard. The sky above had no moon or stars. There was only a swirling mass of thick black clouds that looked like a giant bruise in the atmosphere.

"Where the hell are we, wtf," Arthur cursed, struggling to get up. He hugged himself as he started shivering violently. The thin boarding school uniform he was wearing was completely useless against this blood freezing extreme temperature. The air here felt incredibly thin. Every time Arthur took a breath,

his lungs felt like they were being stabbed by thousands of sharp ice needles.

"Arthur," Lyra groaned not far from him. The girl was sitting helplessly on top of a thick pile of snow. She looked around with a pale face and lips that were slowly turning blue. "This is not the school basement. Where are we, damn it."

"I don't know either." Arthur limped closer to his best friend. "Get up. We have to find shelter, or we will freeze to death tonight."

"You think it is that easy," Lyra replied, trying to stand, but her legs were shaking too badly to support her weight. "This is a blizzard, Arthur. It was just regular rain at school earlier. How did that damn old wardrobe bring us to a snowy mountain."

"You are asking me, who am I supposed to ask." Arthur yanked Lyra's arm roughly to force her up. "Let's just start walking. Stop complaining so much."

"I can't walk. My feet are frozen."

"Do you want to die a stupid death out here. Move."

Before they could take a single step away from their drop zone, a low growling sound echoed from behind the dark trees. The sound wasn't that of a wild dog. Nor was it a bear or a hunting wolf. The sound was exactly like a rusty hacksaw

slowly scraping against human bone.

"What is that sound," Lyra whispered, taking a step back. Her eyes widened in terror as she stared into the dark forest ahead of them.

"Shut up," Arthur hissed, trying to sharpen his hearing while ignoring the roaring wind. "I don't know."

Arthur turned toward the source of the noise. From the shadows of the largest pine tree in front of them, a tall figure slowly crawled out. The creature didn't have a solid physical form at all. Its body was like thick black smoke frozen in the air. A pair of glowing red eyes stared directly at Arthur's face

with dense murderous intent. The claws on its hands were incredibly long and curved, resembling sharp, rusty scythe blades.

"Run," Arthur yelled, his voice cracking.

He shoved Lyra's back with all his might. "Run fast. Do not look back."

Lyra tripped over a snowbank, but she instantly got up and ran wildly through the storm. Arthur tried to follow her in a panic. Unfortunately, his legs were too stiff and heavy from the freezing temperature. The shadow creature moved to

chase them at a speed that made zero sense. The monster seemed to glide smoothly over the snow without touching the ground at all. In the blink of an eye, the monster had dashed to cut off Arthur's escape route, towering right in front of him.

The air around the monster had a pungent smell. It smelled like dried blood and rotten meat left to decay for days. Arthur instinctively crossed both his arms over his chest to protect his face from a fatal attack.

Slash.

An overwhelming burning sensation suddenly tore through Arthur's stomach. He didn't even have time to let out a scream from the shock. The monster's shadow claws pierced his school uniform and shredded the skin and flesh of his abdomen as easily as cutting wet paper. Fresh blood immediately spurted heavily into the air. The blood stained the blanket of white snow beneath his feet with a horrifying, dark red color.

Arthur's body was thrown six feet backward from the sheer force of the claw strike. He slammed hard against a pine tree trunk and collapsed face down on the cold snow.

"Arthur," Lyra shrieked hysterically from a distance. She stopped running and turned around, intending to go back and help her dying friend.

"Do not come over here, idiot. Run away," Arthur yelled a warning as he coughed up fresh blood from his mouth. His throat felt like it was on fire.

Arthur's breath hitched instantly. His vision started to blur with black spots. The pain in his stomach was so brutal and real that it made his brain stop

thinking clearly. Arthur could feel the freezing wind blowing in, touching his exposed internal organs. He flipped over with great difficulty and leaned helplessly against the tree trunk. He clutched his massively torn stomach. His fingers desperately tried to hold his intestines and internal organs inside so they wouldn't spill out of his abdominal cavity.

His right hand shook violently and uncontrollably. Fresh blood kept pouring heavily through the gaps between his fingers, soaking his school pants. The blood felt incredibly warm in stark contrast to the bone chilling air.

"Fuck," Arthur groaned, holding back the excruciating pain until his eyes watered. "I do not want to die here, wtf."

The shadow creature was in no rush to end his life. It walked slowly like the grim reaper approaching Arthur. Its glowing red eyes stared at him as if looking at a piece of worthless scrap meat. The monster slowly raised its claws, which were now coated in Arthur's blood. It prepared to deliver a final slash that would sever Arthur's head from his neck.

"Damn you," Arthur cursed with a weak, trembling voice. He swallowed his saliva, which already tasted like thick blood. He tried to find a defensive weapon nearby. A rock, a tree branch, or literally anything he could throw. But his hand only scooped up an empty pile of snow. His muscles had gone completely numb and he couldn't move anymore due to the massive blood loss.

I am going to die. Arthur thought desperately inside his loudly ringing head. I am really dying a stupid death all because I walked into a damn wardrobe.

The shadow monster let out a horrifying laugh. A laugh that sounded exactly like the scratching of a broken vinyl record. Its sharp claws were raised even higher, blocking out the dim light in the night sky.

Right as the shadow monster's claws prepared to swing down and execute Arthur, time around him seemed to slow down drastically. The deafening roar of the raging blizzard suddenly faded into silence. The brutal pain in his stomach abruptly turned slightly numb. In front of his fading and darkening vision, a transparent neon blue box screen suddenly flickered and appeared floating right in the air before his face.

The mysterious screen emitted a bright glow that blinded Arthur's eyes. Bright white text appeared one by one on the screen, accompanied by mechanical typing sounds that echoed loudly inside his skull.

[SYSTEM AWAKENED]

[Subject Analysis Complete. Species Human. Age 18.]

[HP Status 12 out of 100. Category 3 Fatal Bleeding.]

[Skills None. Combat Potential Extremely Pathetic.]

The blue screen blinked twice rapidly before instantly turning blood red to indicate critical danger. New text appeared again at high speed, sweeping across the screen.

[MAIN QUEST: Survive or Die a Stupid Death Here.]

[Objective: Evade execution by Level 15 Wraith.]

[Reward: 10 EXP and a Dirty Bandage.]

[Failure: An incredibly embarrassing death forgotten by the world.]

[Time Remaining: 3 seconds.]

Arthur stared at the glowing screen with the last of his consciousness, which was thinning out, eroded by pain. His brain, deprived of oxygen and blood, tried hard to process the sarcastic writing mocking him as it floated in front of his

face. The damn blue screen. Instead of giving him protective magic powers or a deadly sword like in fantasy comic books, this thing was actually giving him a countdown to his own death.

The Wraith in front of him swung its sharp claws through the air, aiming straight for Arthur's neck with full force to decapitate him.

Two seconds.

One second.