The Loom of the Last Law

The rain hadn't stopped.It never really did in this part of the city.It simply changed shape — from mist to drizzle to downpour, then back again. A cycle without meaning. Like most things.

Cael sat beneath a rusted service bridge, knees to his chest, hands buried deep in the folds of his coat. His breath came out in shallow wisps. Slow. Controlled. Almost too slow, as if he were afraid of wasting the air.

Not that anyone would care if he did.

The cloth beneath him was soaked. He didn't bother shifting. His skin had long grown numb to wetness. To cold. To pain.

He'd heard once that people used to cry when things hurt.Cael couldn't even remember what that felt like.

Around him, the slums continued their quiet symphony — a leaking pipe dripped near the corner, somewhere far off a metal shutter slammed, a distant scream came and went like a passing bird. Common sounds. Familiar ones.

And the silence between them was even more familiar.

He stared at the wall across from him. Not at anything on it — just the gray color of it, the cracks, the mold crawling up its edges. His eyes didn't blink often. They stayed open, dull and colorless.

Once, someone had asked him if he was blind.

He wasn't. He just didn't see things the way others did.

His stomach ached.

It had been two days. Maybe three. He couldn't remember. He didn't count anymore.

He'd tried stealing a bun once — months ago. Got caught. They broke his arm.It had healed crooked.

He didn't steal after that. Didn't fight. Didn't beg. He just faded further into the background.

The world didn't make space for people like him.But it didn't care enough to kill him, either.It just… forgot.

He pulled his coat tighter around his thin frame and rested his head against the wall. Water dripped down his neck. The sting didn't bother him. What did sting — faintly, distantly — was the memory that he used to hate the cold.Now he didn't hate anything.

He didn't feel much at all.

Then the air shifted.

Not a wind. Not a breeze.A pressure.

Soft. Wrong.

His body tensed. Not with fear — but out of some quiet instinct, like a wounded animal sensing another predator.

He didn't look up immediately. He just listened.

Silence.Then a faint crack.Like bone.Like something trying to remember how to walk.

When he finally lifted his eyes, he saw it.

Across the alley, half-concealed by hanging cloth and shadows, something was moving.

It was wrong.

Too thin. Too long. Too… human.

Or what used to be.

Its head twitched violently. Its arms hung in crooked angles. Its jaw was open — not in hunger, not in rage — just open, like a puppet whose strings had frayed.

A Hollow.

He didn't scream.

Most people did, the first time.

The Hollow stepped forward, dragging a foot through a puddle, eyes blank and wide. Its face was almost intact. A teenage boy. Maybe seventeen. Maybe younger. The same age Cael was now.

But the eyes… the eyes weren't real.They were painted things.Glass pretending to be alive.

Somewhere nearby, a door slammed. Someone had seen it. Alarms buzzed faintly across the sector.

"HOLLOW!""Sector 7 — active Hollow!"

The creature didn't care.

It turned — not toward the sound. Not toward the lights.But toward him.

Cael didn't move.Didn't breathe.

The Hollow stared straight at him from across the rain-slick alley.

For a long moment, the two were still.Both of them broken.Both of them forgotten.Both of them cold.

Then the Hollow… twitched.

Its head cocked. Its leg stepped forward — once.Then it stopped.

Its eyes — if you could call them that — seemed to… hesitate.

And then it turned away.

It ran toward the nearest noise.

Screams rose. A blast of Soulfire lit the sky. Guard patrols responded quickly — too quickly. They must've been nearby already. The Hollow shrieked, then went silent.

Cael remained in place.

His back against the wall. His hands numb. His throat dry.

He didn't speak. He didn't think. He didn't even feel relief.

Only one thought passed through him, like a whisper in the cold:

"Why didn't it come for me?"

He stood, finally, as the shouts faded.

Water sloshed underfoot. The slums returned to their usual rhythm: fear, followed by forgetting. No one would talk about the boy who died. No one would bury him. Life here moved too fast for memory.

Cael stepped out into the rain, his hair clinging to his forehead. He didn't know where he was going.He never did.

But for the first time in days — or maybe longer — he noticed something.Inside his chest.

A pulse.

Quiet. Slow. Strange.

Not hunger. Not pain.

Something else.

He placed a hand over his heart and stood there for a while.

He didn't recognize the feeling.Didn't like it.Didn't trust it.

But it was there.And it was new.

And in this world — new things never came for free.

He kept walking.Eyes low. Steps silent.Rain washing away the moment.

No one would remember the Hollow.No one would remember the boy it killed.And no one would remember Cael.

But something had looked at him today… and chosen not to attack.

Something inside him stirred.

And the world, whether it wanted to or not — had noticed.