Rain lashed against the cracked windows of the dormitory. The midnight storm howled like a wounded beast, its cries swallowed by the endless hum of the industrial city. Somewhere in the darkness, a clock ticked on—too slow, too loud.
Alec Rivenhart lay awake in his narrow cot, eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
Sleep had become a stranger to him in recent months. Ever since the dreams began.
No… not dreams. Visions.
They didn't come every night. Only on the darkest ones—when the sky was clouded and the moon vanished. When silence settled so deep it seemed the world held its breath.
In those dreams, Alec stood in a world without sound. A place without stars. The sky was a canvas of shifting ink, and the ground cracked like brittle bone beneath his feet. And always, always, there was the door.
A massive, circular gate made of glass and shadow. It pulsed with ancient symbols, written in a language he didn't know, but somehow understood.
Last night, for the first time, the door opened.
And something on the other side looked back at him.
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Alec sat up, heart pounding. Sweat soaked his back. He blinked, and the dream scattered like ash in the wind—but the name remained.
"Hidden Epoch."
He whispered it aloud, voice dry as dust. It wasn't a place. It wasn't a time. It was a title.
A legacy.
A curse.
His blood still hummed with its echo. He rubbed his hands together, trying to shake off the numbness. The room smelled of rust and mold, same as always, but tonight it felt... off. As if the world itself leaned in, watching.
He reached for the notebook under his pillow. Pages filled with half-sketched runes, fragmented memories, cryptic lines he'd scribbled upon waking. His fingers hovered over a fresh page.
And then he heard it.
Click.
The sound came from his door. Not the creak of wood or the groan of hinges, but a deliberate click, like a lock undone from the outside.
He froze.
Another click.
Then silence.
Alec slid off the bed, barefoot, and grabbed the metal rod he kept hidden beneath the floorboard. The dorm was supposed to be secure. No one should be out this late, not in this part of the city.
But something moved behind the door.
Then—a whisper.
Not words. A breath, drawn through a hundred broken mouths. A sound that didn't echo through the room but inside his mind.
"We see you, Veilbound."
Alec stumbled back. The rod clattered to the floor. The whisper lingered, cold and oily, sliding beneath his skin.
And then it was gone.
The lock clicked shut again.
The silence returned.
But something had changed.
The room was darker now. The shadows deeper. The ticking clock had stopped.
Alec's gaze shot to the window.
There—etched in the condensation on the glass—was a sigil.
A circle split by seven lines, like spokes on a wheel. At its center, an eye.
His father had once drawn that very symbol in the margins of his old journals. A symbol he'd called "The First Sign of Awakening."
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That's impossible, Alec thought. He died ten years ago.
The window fogged again.
The sigil vanished.
Alec stood, breath shallow, heartbeat loud in his ears. He didn't know what he had just witnessed.
But he knew this: nothing would be the same again.