The Loom of the Last Law

The city didn't sleep.It rusted.

Cael walked past the skeleton of an old transit station — shattered windows, graffiti burned into steel, moss growing across the floor like moldy veins. The lights above flickered weakly, powered by some dying grid no one remembered how to fix.

Neon signs blinked overhead in half-languages."REGR–STER –OW," one read.Another simply buzzed without letters.

They were leftovers.Echoes from before the Frays began. Before the world cracked open.

He ducked into an old storage bay and collapsed against the wall, landing hard.Dust puffed up around him.

His body hurt — all over.Hunger. Cold.The kind of ache that lived in your bones.

He hadn't spoken a word in two days.There was no one to talk to, and nothing to say.

A broken mirror leaned against the far wall.

He looked into it.

What stared back wasn't quite human.Just gray eyes, hollow and shallow.Skin pulled tight against cheekbones.Lips cracked.His hair hung in uneven strands over his forehead, soaked and dirt-streaked.

He stared for a long time.Then looked away.

Sometimes he imagined someone else looking at him — a mother, a sister, a stranger — and wondered if they would even think he was alive.Or if he'd just look like part of the wall.

He pressed a hand against his chest.

That pulse was still there.

Faint.Slow.Wrong.

Like something inside him had been asleep for a long time…and was now waking up.

He didn't know whether to be afraid.

He closed his eyes.Let the dark settle over him like a blanket.

And the dreams came.

Fire.Screams.A hallway of silver glass, bathed in red light.

Two children running barefoot across a lab floor.One of them pulling the other by the hand.

"Don't let go!" she screamed.

A girl with wild hair.Pink at the tips.Eyes too sharp for her age.

She looked back at him with defiance and fear.

Guards ran past them.Scientists shouted orders.Something roared in the distance.

"They'll separate us!""I won't forget! I promise!"

Then everything turned to fire.The ceiling cracked.Metal screamed.

The world turned white.

Cael sat up with a gasp, heart pounding.

Sweat dripped down his back.His hand trembled.

The shadows around him were still.Rain tapped softly on the distant glass.

But something in the dream remained.Not just fear.Not just memory.

A name.

He didn't remember it.But it burned at the edge of his mind, just out of reach.

"…Who was she?" he whispered.

But no one answered.

He stood up slowly.His body protested.Every joint stiff, every limb sore.

He moved to the edge of the building and looked out over the dead city.Crumbling rooftops. Trash fires.Wires hanging between ruins like spiderwebs.

And above it all — the towers.Still whole. Still bright.

Those were where the nobles trained.Where people with Soul Cores learned to survive the Vestige Layer.

He didn't belong there.

He rubbed his eyes.He didn't want to think about her.

Why was he remembering this now?Why now, after all this time?

A voice behind him made him freeze.

"...Still alive, huh?"

Cael turned sharply.

An old man leaned against the doorway.Thin. Cloaked.A face like a cracked plate — lined and pale, but eyes sharp.Too sharp for a slum drunk.

"Didn't expect that," the man muttered. "After what looked at you yesterday."

Cael said nothing.His posture didn't change.

The man chuckled.

"Smart. Don't talk. You've got the look of someone touched by the Fray. I've seen that look before."

A long pause. Rain tapped softly in the distance.

"...But the difference is," the man continued, "they didn't usually live long after that."

He turned and walked away into the alley, coat flapping like old paper.

Cael stood alone again.

The man's voice lingered in his head.

Touched by the Fray…

Had he really been?

He'd never entered one.He'd never been Chosen.Not yet.

But something about that Hollow yesterday — the way it looked at him, and then walked away…

And now the dreams.The pulse in his chest.

He looked at his palm.

It shook.

Maybe something inside him was already broken.Or maybe something was waking up.

He didn't know which was worse.