Chapter 1- the city that followed

  In another life, Bell had been an Evildoer.

  A monster shaped in service to a force most humans could not even fathom.

  Transformation rarely left the body untouched.

  That was why Bell stood in the cramped bathroom, studying his reflection in the mirror bolted to the wall.

  At first glance, there was nothing unusual.

  He leaned closer, tilting his head, then raised his hands and pressed his palms together. Slowly. Deliberately. He searched beneath the skin for resistance, fissures, hardened patches, anything that did not belong.

  There was nothing.

  No dust-like residue. No stone-like texture. His skin felt warm, flexible, alive. Ordinary.

  Too ordinary.

  The scar on his arm, a pale line from a childhood accident, remained unchanged. No distortion. No reaction. Bell traced it with his fingers, his expression tightening.

  The force behind the apocalypse was pervasive. It did not overlook details.

  “If nothing changed,” he murmured, “then it’s hiding.”

  The thought settled heavily in his mind.

  Bell stepped out of the bathroom and returned to his room, sitting cross-legged on the bed. The space was neat, but only because there was little to arrange, a low-budget student rental stripped to its essentials.

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  Outside, the city followed its usual morning rhythm. Footsteps on pavement. Engines rumbling. Somewhere nearby, a couple argued in hushed voices, unaware of how fragile the world already was.

  Bell closed his eyes.

  His breathing slowed, slipping into a rhythm that no longer belonged to the waking world.

  The sensation came gradually, not the lightness of flight, but the absence of weight. As if something unseen had taken hold of him.

  When he opened his eyes again, the room was gone.

  He stood above a city.

  The road below was cracked and broken, concrete split by deep fissures that ran through the streets like veins. Buildings rose in warped silhouettes, their outlines swallowed by shifting layers of shadow. Height lost meaning. Distance became unreliable.

  Nothing here obeyed familiar rules.

  The shadows moved.

  They rose from the ground like black mist, twisting into shapes that resembled people, flying, writhing figures frozen in anguish. Faces layered over faces. Mouths open in silent screams.

  The sound followed an instant later.

  Not noise, but pressure. A howling force that pierced directly into his mind.

  Bell staggered, pain lancing behind his eyes, his vision blurring.

  So this was it.

  Not a change in his body, but something bound to him all the same.

  “I need to stay calm,” he muttered.

  He forced his thoughts into order, suppressing the instinctive surge of fear.

  Slowly, reluctantly, the shadows retreated. The mist sank back into the cracks of the city, as if obeying an unseen command.

  The silence that followed felt artificial.

  Bell exhaled.

  Then he noticed the distant sensation of his body, still sitting on the bed. Anchored. Waiting.

  A projection.

  “Which means I can leave,” he concluded.

  The realization brought no relief.

  He moved through the city, his footsteps echoing softly against fractured ground. Nothing approached him, yet the sensation of being observed never faded.

  Not hunted.

  Evaluated.

  Like prey that had not yet been claimed.

  Bell entered a nearby building.

  Inside, the structure defied logic. The walls were cracked and dust-covered, yet they stood without visible support. Broken furniture lay half-buried beneath layers of shadow, as if the city itself were trying to erase its past.

  As he explored, fatigue crept into his thoughts.

  Not physical exhaustion, something deeper. Mental strain. The longer he remained, the heavier his consciousness became, as though the city resisted his presence by existing.

  This place would drain him dry if he stayed too long.

  Bell stopped.

  Curiosity was dangerous. Especially here.

  He focused his thoughts once more.

  The world snapped back into place.

  Bell’s eyes flew open.

  He was back in his room, chest rising and falling rapidly, a dull headache pulsing behind his temples. Other than that, his body felt intact.

  Normal.

  Too normal.

  He lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  The dreams had given him fragments, memories of a future self. But this city was different.

  It wasn’t a memory.

  It was a domain.

  Something attached to him.

  Something that followed.

  Bell closed his eyes again, not to sleep, but to think.

  Ignoring it was not an option.

  And whatever he had once been, whatever he might become again,

  This city was proof that the past, or rather the future, had not finished claiming him.