CHAPTER EIGHT: IN THE HOLLOW BETWEEN NAMES
(Point of View: Luther)
There are doors in Eden that don't open with keys.
Only memory.
Luther had never walked this path before. Not consciously. Not in any way that he could name. But as his boots carried him deeper into the under-chambers of the city, as sanctified white stone gave way to blackened metal, and metal gave way to something stranger... veins of ash-colored alloy humming faintly in the dark.. something beneath his skin began to remember.
It was not thought. Not emotion.
It was instinct.
He descended in silence. No guards... No cameras, No prayers or songs. Only the weight of gravity pulling harder with every level, and the stale, copper-heavy air pressing close.
The corridor twisted sideways. Then downward.
He should have felt lost. Instead, his hands knew what they'd do before he told them. Every corner, every slope, every unmarked fork of passage, his body chose before his mind caught up.
Until, finally, he stood before a circular doorway at the very end.
No locks. No symbols.
Only a faint hum, like a heart beating underwater.
Luther raised his hand.
The metal was cool beneath his fingers, though it vibrated faintly... alive, in some alien way.
It opened.
Inside was no throne room.
No light to speak of.
No ceremony waiting to crown him or strip him bare.
Just a room.
And the man who waited in it.
Rei Kagami stood in the center of the chamber.
As if he had been there his whole life.
"You found me Luther," Rei said without turning.
His voice was softer than Luther expected. Not cold. Not cruel.
Just… tired.
Luther stepped inside, his hands loose at his sides.
"I wasn't looking," he said.
"That's why you found me," Rei murmured.
The door hissed shut behind him, sealing the two of them in silence.
A faint light fell from somewhere above, diffuse, colorless, barely enough to see by... but it revealed Rei's outline.
A long, dark coat. Skin pale as memory. Hair black and ragged, like spilled ink on wet paper.
No weapon. No fear.
"You've been watching me," Luther said after a long moment.
Rei's head tilted slightly.
"Everyone watches you," he replied. "I'm the only one who doesn't pretend not to."
"Why?"
This time, Rei turned.
One eye shimmered silver... catching the faint light like a blade. The other was black. Not just dark, but void.
"Because," Rei said quietly, "I know what it's like. To be created.... Not born."
The silence that followed stretched thin and sharp.
Luther stood still... Didn't flinch. Didn't blink.
"What do you know?" he asked.
Rei stepped closer, his boots making no sound.
"I know Mr. P doesn't tell you the whole truth. I know Zero sees you as nothing more than an offering. I know you've begun to wonder if the things you've killed… the things you've been ordered to kill… were more human than the one who made you."
Luther's fists tightened slowly at his sides.
"So why tell me this?" he said. His voice was lower now.
Rei stopped only a few feet away.
"Because," he said, "when the gods play chess…" He leaned just slightly closer. "…pawns die screaming."
Luther's voice came out like a growl.
"And what are you?"
Rei's gaze sharpened... just a glint, a flash, a barely visible edge in the void of his eyes.
"I'm the piece," he said, "that doesn't belong on the board."
He began to move then. Slow, deliberate circles around Luther, like a predator testing the shape of its prey.
"Zero thinks I'm a mistake," Rei continued. "A shameful bastard. A mere fracture in his prophecy. Something he failed to erase."
"Are you?" Luther asked, quiet.
Rei stopped in front of him.
"No," he said.
Then, softer.. a whisper only Luther could hear:
"I'm the only thing in this city that wasn't written into the pattern."
Luther felt it then.
Not the cold. Not the dark.
The weight.
The metaphysical pressure of the space around him, coiling in tighter with every breath.
Rei was more than shadow.
He was the place where certainty ended and doubt began.
And something in Luther recognized it.
Not fear. Not rage.
Recognition.
"Why did you bring me here?" Luther asked at last.
Rei didn't move.
"To ask you one question," he said.
"Then ask it."
"When the moment comes," Rei murmured, his voice impossibly even, "when you finally see Elian… and you remember why you were made… will you still save him?"
Luther stood slient for a second.
"Whose Elian".
Because he didn't know.
Because lately, when Naomi whispered in his sleep, her words had changed.
Because every time he looked into his reflection, he saw less of a savior… and more of a blade.
Rei stepped back then, and the room lightened slightly... enough to reveal a second doorway carved into the back wall, previously hidden.
"This place," Rei said, "was built by Zero before the Rupture. A sanctum. For secrets he never wanted seen."
"What kind of secrets?" Luther asked.
Rei's face darkened just slightly.
"The kind even gods can't bury forever."
He turned then, walking slowly toward the exit. At the threshold, he stopped... right beside Luther.
Not as a threat.
As a mirror.
"They fear you," he said.
Luther's lips curled into the faintest shape of a smile.
"Good."
Rei's head tilted ever so slightly.
"They should."
The door opened behind him. Light spilled in, long and white.
Rei's shadow stretched wide across the chamber floor.
"When you're ready to stop being their sword," he said, "come find me again."
And then he was gone.
Luther stood in the hollow between the doors. Between names. Between what he'd been made and what he might yet become.
He didn't move.
Didn't speak.
In the silence, something whispered through him.
Not Naomi. Not Rei. Not even his own thoughts.
Just this:
Here we go. This is where the god begins to bleed.
He closed his eyes.
And listened.
...
END OF CHAPTER 8