Arthur jerked awake, his heart hamring against his ribs. Cold sweat plastered his ragged shirt to his skin as he sat up on the flattened cardboard box that served as his bed. The alleyway stank of rot and urine, but after weeks on the streets, he barely noticed anymore.
The dream had co again. Darkness swallowing everything, draining life from the world like a hungry parasite. Then, sothing even darker erging, consuming the first darkness. Finally, light breaking through, pushing back until light and dark existed side by side in perfect equilibrium. Balance restored.
'What the hell kind of dream is this?' Arthur thought to himself, running grimy fingers through his matted black hair.
He was about to lie back down when pain erupted in his chest — not a normal ache but sothing primal and invasive. It felt like hands were inside him, squeezing his heart and lungs. Arthur curled into a ball, gasping for air that wouldn't co, clawing at his chest.
'Not again,' he wheezed when the agony finally subsided minutes later. 'It's getting worse.'
These episodes had begun as occasional twinges a few weeks ago but now struck daily with increasing intensity. Arthur wasn't stupid; he knew sothing was killing him from the inside. Probably the darkness he'd inhaled during the attack.
Rising unsteadily to his feet, Arthur shuffled out of the alleyway onto the city sidewalk. Even at this late hour, the city pulsed with life—headlights streaking past, neon signs flickering, people laughing and arguing as they stumbled between nightclubs and late-night eateries.
None of them spared a glance for the filthy fifteen-year-old boy in torn clothes. Arthur had quickly learned that in this world, invisibility was a survival skill. Being seen ant being hassled by authorities or worse.
Lost in thought, Arthur collided with soone—a broad-shouldered man reeking of expensive cologne and alcohol.
"Hey, watch it, rat!" The man snarled, his expensive suit catching the streetlights.
Arthur lifted his head slightly, eting the man's gaze with a flicker of defiance that he imdiately regretted.
"What, you got a problem, kid?" The man's face flushed with drunken anger.
One of the won clinging to his arm tugged at his sleeve. "Co on, Danny, let's just go." She shot Arthur a look that mixed pity with disgust.
Danny shrugged off her hand. "No, no. I think this kid has a problem with ." He leaned down, his breath hot and sour against Arthur's face.
In his mind, Arthur saw himself fighting back—landing a perfect punch, watching the man stagger backward. But reality was different. Reality ant rembering how weak he was, how alone.
"No sir, I'm sorry," Arthur mumbled, lowering his eyes before quickly walking away, shoulders hunched against the sha burning inside him.
'Coward. Always a coward.'
Arthur made his way to Blackridge Park, finding the small pond where he often washed when he could. Kneeling at the water's edge, he splashed his face, the shock of cold montarily clearing his mind. In the rippling reflection, dirty features stared back at him—hollow cheeks, sunken eyes, lips cracked from dehydration, his once silky black hair matted and greasy.
'I'm pathetic,' he thought while looking into his reflection. 'Why was I even spared?'
The sound of approaching footsteps made him turn. A mother and daughter walked the path nearby, the little girl skipping alongside her mother, clutching a stuffed rabbit. The girl caught sight of Arthur and smiled innocently, the kind of smile that knows nothing of darkness or monsters.
Sothing in Arthur softened, and his lips began to curl upward in response—his first genuine smile in weeks.
The mont shattered when the mother noticed. Her eyes widened in alarm, and she yanked her daughter closer, hurrying past with a look of revulsion. "Don't stare at people like that," Arthur heard her whisper harshly to the child.
His expression hardened once more as he dragged himself to a nearby bench. Sitting there under the dim park lights, he allowed himself to rember the night his world had ended.
...
One month earlier
"Arthur! Get in the bathroom, now!" His father's voice had cut through the wailing sirens.
"But Dad—"
"NOW!" His mother had shoved him toward the small bathroom of their apartnt, her face ashen with fear.
Gate breaches weren't that uncommon these days. But this breach had happened so fast, the warning sirens blaring only minutes before the first screams began.
Arthur had huddled in the bathtub, hands over his ears, listening to his parents barricading the apartnt door. They had no weapons beyond his father's work tools—a hamr, a screwdriver, things utterly useless against what was coming.
When the creature broke through, Arthur could only see billowing darkness seeping under the bathroom door—a living shadow that brought with it the stench of decay. His parents' screams had been brief.
Then the darkness poured into the bathroom, surrounding him, filling his lungs. Arthur rembered choking, clawing at his throat as the darkness seeped inside him. He'd waited for death, for the monster to finish him as it had his parents.
But it never did. He was saved just in ti by a group of chosen.
When The Chosen finally arrived and beat the monster—the elite warriors tasked with protecting the realms—they'd found Arthur half-conscious among the wreckage of his ho, his parents' mangled bodies nearby.
"You're lucky, kid," one of them had said, not bothering to hide her disgust at having to enter the slums. "Most don't survive direct contact with a void creature"
Lucky. As if surviving while watching your parents die was luck.
...
Now, sitting alone in the park, Arthur clenched his fists. His hatred for The Chosen burned nearly as hot as his self-loathing. If they'd arrived sooner, his parents might still be alive. If he'd been braver, he might have sohow saved them.
Another spasm of pain rippled through his chest, milder this ti but still alarming. Arthur clutched at his sternum, breathing heavily until it passed.
'I'm dying,' he thought. 'Whatever that thing did to , it's killing slowly.'
Part of him had resigned himself to this fate. What was there to live for? Another day of digging through garbage for food? Another night of trying to sleep while constantly alert for threats?
Yet beneath the resignation, terror lurked. Arthur didn't want to die. He just didn't know how to live either—especially not with this constant fear, this crushing cowardice that had defined him his entire life.
As the night deepened around him, Arthur curled up on the bench, too exhausted to return to his alley. The dream would co again, he knew. The darkness, the light, the balance. What did it an? Was it just his mind processing trauma, or sothing more?
Before sleep claid him, Arthur's hand moved unconsciously to his chest, where beneath his skin, sothing stirred—sothing neither entirely light nor completely dark.
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