The rain was falling furiously over the city, as if the sky was trying to wash away its sins with lashings of icy water. Kael walked through puddles that reflected a dying moon, with the girl still clinging to his hand and his clothes clinging to his body like a second skin. He didn't know where he was going. He only knew he couldn't stand still.
The alleys recognized him as one of their own: a marked soul, a survivor. But that night, even the shadows seemed to watch him with respect.
That's when he saw him.
A man in a dark suit, standing under a lantern that emitted no light. His presence was so out of place that he seemed to have been plucked from another world and placed there on purpose. His face was hidden behind a white mask with ancient inscriptions, and from his back hung a black cloak that did not move in the wind.
-Kael. -His voice sounded like restrained thunder.
The boy stopped. He did not ask how he knew her name. He did not ask who he was. Something in his gut already knew. It had been waiting for him.
-You have crossed a threshold from which there is no return. -The man approached, and with each step, the rain moved away from him as if afraid of drenching him. You have fire in your blood. Inheritance of something older than this rotten world.
Kael did not answer. His body trembled, but not with fear. It was the same sensation he had in his dreams. As if a door was opening inside him. As if something was recognizing him.
-You are not an ordinary child. You're not quite human. You know that, don't you? You've felt it.
The man held out his gloved hand.
-Come with me, and I'll show you what you are. What you can become. There is a world that lives beneath the lies of this one. A world of forbidden bloodlines, of powerful blood, of ancient pacts with forgotten entities.
Kael hesitated only a moment. The girl looked up at him, her eyes wide, silent. He squeezed her hand gently, then released it.
-I will come for you," he promised her.
And then she took the man's hand.
The world changed in an instant.
The city blurred. The lights became distorted, as if they were underwater, the ground shook. The ground shook. And suddenly, they were not in the same place.
They had crossed to the other side.
A subway temple rose before him, built of black stone that pulsed with energy. Statues of beings that were neither man nor beast guarded the entrance, and ancient runes glowed dark red on the walls. It was a place out of time. Out of logic.
-Welcome to the Refuge of the Fallen," the man said. Here your true path begins.
Inside, others waited. Some young. Others as old as mountains. All different. All... abnormal.
And there, in the center of the room, a circle engraved with blood called out to him.
-If you wish to know the truth," the man said. If you wish to be able to... you must seal it.
-Seal what? -Kael asked hoarsely.
The man removed his mask. His eyes were completely black. There was no sclera, no iris. Only darkness.
-A blood pact.
Kael approached. He knelt before the circle. His heart was pounding furiously. The air seemed to burn. He cut his palm and let the blood drip into the center of the seal.
The runes ignited.
The earth trembled.
And in his mind, a voice spoke. Ancient. Immensely powerful. The same voice from her dreams. Feminine. Melancholic.
Kael... at last you have found me.
The boy cried out as a massive energy surged through his body. His back arched, his veins burned like rivers of lava. Marks appeared on his skin, like living tattoos, and his eyes turned golden for an instant.
When it was all over, he fell to the ground panting.
And he smiled.
Because he was no longer just a lost child.
Now he had a purpose.
And a blood debt to something that slept in the bowels of the world.