The blinding morning sun beat down on the cobblestones, but Ethan Kane couldn't shake the chill that had burrowed deep into his bones.
His mind was a chaotic blur, his footsteps heavy and dragging as if he were wading through thick mud. He had no memory of the walk back from the Central Square—only the lingering stench of iron and copper, and the image burned onto his retinas.
That woman. Sprawled in a pool of expanding crimson.
The crowd, their faces mask-like and hollow, had shuffled past her corpse with clinical indifference, widening their strides just to avoid stepping in her blood. And then, The Goldlock. The blonde squad leader with his pistol raised, the weapon he had casually kept strapped to his thigh now smoking.
The cold truth of his words echoed in Ethan's mind: It really was for killing.
"Ethan!"
A small, sharp voice broke his trance.
Suddenly, the familiar rotting wood of his own front door materialized in front of him. Before he could even register where he was, a small, fragile weight crashed into his chest. Chloe. She clung to him like a lifeline, her tiny shoulders shaking with silent, desperate sobs.
Behind her, Ryan Cross stood in the doorway. Deep purple shadows bruised the skin beneath his eyes, and his jaw was set tight in that stubborn, "I'm a grown man" grimace, fighting back the tears that Chloe was freely shedding.
"What's with the waterworks? I'm right here," Ethan murmured, his voice thick as he stroked Chloe's hair.
For hours, even under the bright daylight, a cold sweat had coated his skin. But now, holding her close, a spark of actual warmth finally returned to his shivering body.
Ryan's eyes traveled down, his gaze freezing on Ethan's hands. "Ethan... your hands..."
Ethan looked down. His knuckles were a shredded mess of torn flesh, black dirt, and dried, crusty blood. Without tools, he had clawed the Gloomcrawlers out of the frozen earth with his bare fingers, driven entirely by the desperate need for Lumcore money. He hadn't felt it then. The sheer adrenaline of survival had numbed the pain. But now, in the safety of their cramped room, the adrenaline ebbed, and a white-hot agony flared across his palms.
"Just a few scratches. Nothing a little water won't fix," Ethan lied, forcing a grin. He reached into his coat pocket with his less-damaged fingers and pulled out a small wad of bills. "Look what I got."
Seven hundred.
Ryan’s eyes went wide. Chloe peered over his arm, her tear-streaked face instantly lighting up at the sight of the thin paper notes. To them, money wasn't about luxury; it was a physical shield against the dark. It meant food. It meant seven more days of life.
"Ryan, take this and go buy the Lumcore. I need to crash," Ethan said, flicking the edge of the notes. The crisp, snapping sound was the most beautiful music he’d heard all night. "There's twenty left over. Use it to buy something decent to eat. No hoarding, no scrimping. Spend every last coin. We aren't digging through trash piles for scraps anymore."
Despite the bone-deep exhaustion and the lingering horror of the execution, a fierce surge of pride swelled in Ethan's chest. For the first time, he had actually done it. He had carried the weight of his makeshift family.
"For real?" Ryan clutched the money, his chest heaving with excitement. "Can I... can I get those meat buns?"
"Get them," Ethan laughed, feeling like a king. "Get ten of them."
"Yes!" Ryan pumped his fist, his face flushing red as he practically drooled at the thought of hot, savory juice bursting in his mouth.
But Chloe didn't share his joy. Her small hand tugged at Ethan's sleeve. "Are you... are you going back to the Nightharvest?"
The question hung heavily in the air, instantly dampening Ryan's excitement. The boy looked down, realizing the money had come at a terrifying cost.
"Yeah," Ethan said softly, kneeling to look them in the eye. "But don't worry. I figured out a trick last night. I know how to do it safely now."
Neither child truly understood the mechanics of the Nightharvest. Hearing him speak with such certainty was enough to quiet their fears. If Ethan said it was safe, then they could finally stop worrying about the light running out. They could actually eat. It felt too good to be true.
"Alright, I'm dead on my feet," Ethan mumbled, yawning so wide his jaw clicked.
Chloe wouldn't let him crawl onto the mattress just yet. She brought a basin of cold water, gently helping him scrub the worst of the grime from his torn hands and face, and made him strip out of his sweat-drenched shirt before pointing him toward the bed.
The moment his head hit the pillow, he was out.
His heavy, rhythmic snoring soon filled the cramped room. Ryan gave Chloe a quick nod, tucked the money securely into his pocket, and slipped out the door, a massive grin on his face as he headed toward the market.
Time lost its meaning.
Ethan opened his eyes, only to find himself engulfed in absolute, suffocating darkness.
Panic hit him like a physical blow. Every hair on his arms stood on end.
"Ryan! Light the Lumcore! Now!" he screamed, thrashing upward. His immediate thought was that he had slept past dusk. If the light was dead, they were dead. How could Ryan be so careless?
But as the sound of his own voice bounced back to him, he froze.
Lumcore... core... ore...
The echo was too wide. Too hollow. Their tiny, cramped room didn't have high ceilings, let alone an acoustic chamber.
Was he dreaming?
Ethan stood up, his heart hammering against his ribs. He had never experienced a dream this vivid, this sensory. Dreams were supposed to be fragmented, blurry montages. This felt terrifyingly real.
"You knew they wanted the Gloomcrawlers intact," a raspy, wet whisper slithered through the dark, wrapping around his neck. "Why didn't you warn me? Why didn't you say it again?"
An icy dread locked Ethan's muscles. He knew that voice.
It was the woman from the square. The one the Duskwarden had executed.
Is she... haunting me?
"I did warn you!" Ethan yelled into the void, his voice trembling. "I told you! You didn't listen! How is this my fault? Why are you coming after me?!"
He squeezed his eyes shut, praying to wake up from this nightmare. But the voice only grew louder, multiplying, echoing from every corner of the blackness.
"We were both rookies... why did you get seven hundred, and I only got one hundred?"
"My little girl is waiting for me. I was supposed to bring home the Lumcore. What happens to her now?"
"She's only six! How is she supposed to survive alone in this city?"
"Why couldn't you just share some of your money with me? Why?!"
Even with his hands clamped tightly over his ears, the voice bypassed his skull, whispering directly inside his brain, scraping against his sanity.
"Because I have to fucking live too!" Ethan screamed, his composure shattering. "I warned you! You chose not to believe me! If you were that terrified of dying, you shouldn't have signed up for the Nightharvest! You shouldn't have talked back to the Duskwardens!"
Normally, Ethan was a master of self-control. He was the anchor for two kids; he couldn't afford to be reckless or emotional. But here, in the isolated vacuum of his mind, the dam broke. The trauma, the exhaustion, and the sheer terror of the past twenty-four hours poured out of him in a raw, violent torrent.
And it worked. The moment his echo died down, the woman's voice vanished.
Silence settled over the void. Ethan lowered his hands, slowly opening his eyes.
The dark remained absolute, but as he stared into the emptiness, a faint disturbance caught his eye. A ripple shimmered in the blackness, rising from the floor like a silent, vertical wave.
He had seen this before. During the Nightharvest, right before the shadows stirred. He had tried to tell the Duskwardens, but they had laughed him off.
Just a dream processing memories, he reasoned, trying to calm his racing pulse. It made sense. The brain took fragments of stress and wove them into surreal narratives.
But a deep, morbid curiosity tugged at him. If this was his own mind, could he touch it? What would it feel like? There was no danger here. It was just a dream.
He took a step forward. Strangely, though there was no ground beneath his feet, he felt the physical sensation of stepping, the distance closing between him and the rising ripple.
Ethan reached out, his hand trembling as he drew closer to the anomaly.
Whoosh.
A faint sigh of wind brushed his ears. His fingertips met the ripple, and a shocking, icy chill jolted up his arm. The sheer physical feedback made him gasp.
At his touch, the ripple reacted. The shimmering waves accelerated, pulsing with a sudden, erratic energy.
A bizarre thought flashed through Ethan's mind: It's happy.
It felt like a stray dog lean-pressing into a warm hand, begging for more. For a boy who had spent his entire life fearing what lurked in the dark, this eager, almost affectionate reaction from the shadow was deeply unsettling—and strangely fascinating.
Urged by instinct, he pressed his entire palm flat against the undulating surface.
The ripple went wild. It surged and thrashed against his hand, the faint wind howling in his ears.
Then, the primal alarm bells in Ethan's head finally went off. The warmth of curiosity shattered, replaced by stark terror. He tried to yank his hand back.
It wouldn't budge.
His palm was fused to the shadow.
"Let go!" Ethan grunted, grabbing his right wrist with his left hand and bracing his feet. He pulled with everything he had, his muscles straining, but his hand remained locked to the empty air.
Then, something began to flow.
A freezing, liquid, invasive energy poured through his palm, surging up his arm and straight into his chest. It wasn't just cold; it was an absolute, life-extinguishing zero. His lungs seized. His vision went white as the phantom frost devoured his core temperature, reducing him to a violently shivering wreck.
Wake up! Just wake the fuck up!
He screamed internally, cursing his stupid, reckless curiosity.
But the dream didn't end. The vertical ripple began to shrink, folding in on itself as it poured directly into his skin.
After what felt like an eternity of agonizing frostbite, the last of the shadow vanished into his palm. The freezing pressure in his chest dissipated, and his right arm fell limply to his side.
Breathing heavily, Ethan raised his hand, staring at his palm in the gloom. It looked completely normal. No marks, no frostbite, no dirt.
Then, the skin of his palm split.
A thick, oily black liquid bubbled up from the center of his hand. It pooled and rose, defying gravity as it coalesced into a perfect, pitch-black sphere the size of an iron shot put.
"What..." Ethan whispered.
The sphere quivered. Slowly, a horizontal crack tore open across its middle. It peeled back, revealing two neat rows of razor-sharp, translucent teeth.
A mouth.
"Voidstrider!!"
Ethan bolted upright, his eyes bloodshot as the scream tore from his throat.
In the corner of the small room, Chloe flinched, dropping the wet shirt she had been wringing out. She stared at him with wide, terrified eyes.
"E-Ethan? Did you have a nightmare?"
Ethan panted, his chest heaving as sweat poured down his neck. He looked at the cracked, moldy plaster of the walls. He inhaled the familiar, comforting stench of damp wood and old copper.
It was a dream.
The tension drained from his shoulders in a long, shuddering exhale. He forced a weak, self-deprecating laugh.
"Yeah... just a bad dream, Chloe. Sorry to scare you," he muttered, rubbing his face with his left hand.
Still chuckling at his own paranoia, he casually opened his right hand to look at his palm.
His laughter died in his throat.
A thick, black liquid was weeping from his pores. It pooled in his palm, cold and heavy.
A terrifying, cellular dread seized his entire body, freezing the air in his lungs.
It wasn't a dream.
"Ethan?"
Chloe's soft voice shattered his paralysis. Instinctively, Ethan snapped his hand shut, clenching his fist so tight his knuckles popped.
"Y-yeah?" he stammered, his face pale, eyes darting to her.
"Is the Nightharvest... is it really safe?"
She was young, but she wasn't stupid. Watching Ethan wake up screaming, his body trembling, she knew something was wrong. If the Nightharvest was so safe and paid so well, why wasn't everyone doing it? Why was he so terrified?
"It is," Ethan lied, his voice tight as he fought to keep his breathing steady. He couldn't let her see his panic. If she knew what he was harboring, she would lose her mind. "I'm just tired. How long was I out?"
"Only about three hours," Chloe said, her brow furrowing. "But Ryan has been gone for a really long time. He should have been back by now."
Ethan frowned. Knowing Ryan, the idiot was probably standing in front of the bakery, agonizing over which specific buns to buy. A few extra coins in his pocket was bound to make him reckless.
"I'm going to go look for him," Ethan said, pushing himself off the mattress. "The air in here is a bit stuffy anyway."
"I'll come with you—"
"No, stay here," Ethan interrupted, his tone uncharacteristically sharp. Seeing her flinch, he softened his voice. "I just need a quick walk. Stay inside and wait for Ryan."
He pulled the door open, only to freeze.
A small, slumped figure was huddled against the dirty plaster wall of the dim hallway. The boy's face was cast in shadow, but the metallic tang of fresh blood immediately hit Ethan's nose.
"Ryan?" Ethan stepped out, the door's weak light spilling over the boy.
His heart stopped.
Ryan sat with his knees pulled to his chest, his face swollen, bruised, and smeared with dirt and crimson. He was shivering, his shoulders shaking with silent, exhausted sobs.
The moment he saw Ethan, the dam broke. Tears cut clean tracks through the grime on his cheeks.
"Ethan... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry..."
Ethan’s gaze dropped to Ryan’s empty, trembling hands.
No Lumcore. No meat buns. Nothing.
The truth hit him like a physical blow.
"They took it," Ryan wept, his voice cracking into a desperate howl. "They stole the Lumcore... Ethan, are we going to die?"