The cage doors opened to a world of steel and shadow.
Kael stepped out into a circular chamber carved deep beneath the earth. The air smelled like rust and ozone, and the ceiling pulsed with pale red lights. Symbols glowed on the floor—runes, maybe. Or warnings.
Two guards stood silent, rifles gripped tight. Not that they needed them. Everyone who made it this far had already been broken in some way.
Five of them. Five Marked.
Kael glanced at the others. A girl with silver eyes who looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. A muscled guy with bandages around both arms. A boy even younger than Kael, shivering. And a tall, elegant figure who wore the Mark like a crown—black curls, a scarred face, and eyes that studied the rest of them like prey.
Then, she walked in.
"Welcome to the Riftline."
She didn't wear a mask.
She was tall, dressed in dark armor laced with obsidian veins. Her voice echoed, sharp and unfeeling. On her neck, the Mark shimmered like oil on water—alive.
"You are the chosen few. Not because you're special. But because the Rift thinks you're useful."
She walked past each of them slowly.
"You've been Marked. That means you belong to us now. To this place. You will train. You will bleed. And if you survive, you will fight in the Hollowfront."
Kael didn't flinch. He couldn't afford to.
"If you run, we'll kill you. If you turn Hollow, we'll burn you. If you lose control… we'll watch."
She stopped in front of Kael. Her eyes lingered on his arm—on the eclipse Mark.
"Veil Echo," she muttered. "Rare. Unstable."
Kael met her gaze. "I'm not unstable."
"No," she said. "You're scared. That's worse."
They stripped them of their clothes and gave them black training gear—tight, synthetic, designed to monitor vitals. No names. No identities.
That night, they were taken to the Pit.
It wasn't a test. It was a massacre.
They dropped them into a collapsed tunnel with two Hollow drones—weaker than real ones, but still lethal. No weapons. No instructions.
The boy who'd been shivering? Gone in seconds.
The strong guy fought like hell, but the Hollow cracked his skull against the wall like glass. Kael couldn't breathe. The Mark burned on his skin like a scream.
Fade.
He didn't know where the word came from. Not his own thought.
But he obeyed.
His body flickered—like smoke caught in wind. His skin darkened, edges softened, shadows bent toward him.
The Hollow passed by him. Couldn't see. Couldn't sense.
He moved. Quiet. Precise.
When it turned its back to the girl with silver eyes, Kael tackled it. She screamed—and drove a metal shard straight into its head.
Silence.
Only three remained.
Kael. The girl. The one with the scarred face—who hadn't lifted a finger.
They were pulled back out by drones.
The instructor watched from above, nodding once.
"Survival rate: 40%. Acceptable."
That night, Kael sat in the dark, staring at his trembling hands.
He'd survived. He'd used the Mark.
But something in him had changed.
The moment he faded, he'd felt something inside… watching him back.
And it had whispered.
"More."