Iris stood frozen at the threshold of that cursed apartment, barely able to move her limbs. Her mind reeled from the horrors she had witnessed—bodies scattered across the floor, the remnants of violence and possession lingering in the air like a curse. She was completely shocked, her consciousness struggling to process what had happened in this place of nightmares.
Luke lay battered and broken across the ground, his body a testament to the brutality he had endured. He looked up at her with blankly searching eyes, his gaze carrying a desperate hope that somehow, against all odds, she would help him. His entire body was ravaged by the violence of his confrontation with the young man, every movement causing visible pain to ripple across his face.
"Hello..." Luke called out to her, his voice weak and strained, barely above a whisper. But Iris remained frozen, too immersed in her stream of thoughts, her gaze distant and unfocused as she stared at something beyond the room itself. His plea seemed not to reach her, lost in the depths of her internal struggle.
"Hello! Can you please take me to a hospital? I am badly injured from the fight with that old man." His words finally broke through her daze, jolting her awake from whatever dark place her mind had retreated to. Reality crashed back into focus, and she understood what she had to do.
Iris immediately sprang into action with sudden urgency. "Luke! Quickly come with me." She did not allow herself to pause or second-guess her decision. She quickened her pace and began descending the stairs that led away from that apartment, her movements sharp and determined, as though she was trying to outrun something—perhaps her own doubts, perhaps the weight of what she had done.
Luke followed her with difficulty, his injured body parts screaming in protest with each painful movement down the stairs. Every step was an ordeal, a battle against his own damaged frame. He descended slowly and carefully, his hand trailing along the wall for support, then finally departed that building where the apartment had been the epicenter of such terrible conflict and darkness.
When they emerged into the night air, Luke saw a carriage waiting in front of the building. The woman who had saved him sat within it, her silhouette visible through the small window. Her expression carried the profound weight of everything she had witnessed in that cursed place—the bodies, the gunfire, the choice she had made to pull the trigger on creatures that had once been human. She gestured for him to get in, a simple motion that carried more meaning than words could convey. Luke did so, collapsing into the seat with a relief so overwhelming it nearly made him weep.
TAP! TAP! TAP! TAP!
The rhythmic sound of the horses' hooves colliding against the cobblestone streets reverberated through the carriage like a heartbeat. For Luke, who had endured such a terrible ordeal in that apartment, the steady rhythm was strangely soothing, almost hypnotic. Despite his injuries throbbing with each bump of the wheels, despite the trauma his mind had suffered, he felt a sense of safety washing over him as they departed from that cursed place and moved deeper into the city. The simple fact of motion away from that nightmare gave him something to hold onto.
As they rode through the darkened streets, Luke's mind began the painful process of piecing together what had happened to him. When the old man had poured the strange liquid into the mouths of those other people, something had changed within them—they had been affected and transformed into something inhuman, something corrupted. But Luke was different. When he had consumed that liquid, instead of losing himself like the others had, he had gained something. A power had awakened within him, something dormant that the liquid had triggered into existence. That power had transported him to that mythical domain he could barely comprehend or articulate, a place that should not exist in any rational world.
The sensation still lingered in his mind even now, faint but persistent like an echo that refused to fade, like a shadow that had taken root in his consciousness. He could not shake the feeling that something fundamental had changed within him, that he was no longer entirely the same person who had entered this nightmare.
He thrust his hands into his pocket and drew out the sealed container—the liquid that had transferred him to another realm entirely. He had taken it with him as he escaped, guided by some instinct he could not name, sensing intuitively that it might lead him to becoming more powerful, more capable of understanding the forces that were reshaping his existence. The container felt warm in his palm, almost alive.
Iris, who remained unknown to Luke in many ways, sat quietly across from him in the carriage, looking downward with an expression of profound blankness surfacing her normally composed face. The silence between them was heavy and awkward, filled with unspoken questions, regrets, and the weight of shared trauma that neither of them could fully articulate. Neither knew how to bridge the gap between what they had witnessed together and the reality of the present moment.
"Oh, I forgot to ask your name," Luke said finally, his voice cutting through the oppressive silence that had settled between them. He was desperate to break that weight, to establish some kind of connection or understanding with this stranger who had saved his life at such a cost to herself.
"Iris... Iris Sinclair," came her reply, delivered quickly and without inflection. She answered without changing her gaze, her eyes still fixed on the floor of the carriage as though she could not bear to meet his eyes. There was something in the way she said her own name that suggested she was keeping herself at a distance, maintaining a barrier between them even as she sat mere feet away.
At that moment, Luke thrust his hands back into his pocket and drew out the sealed container once more, holding it up in the dim light that filtered through the carriage windows. The liquid inside seemed to catch what little light was available, casting strange shadows across his palm.
Iris immediately cast her gaze upon it, her entire body becoming alert and tense in an instant. Whatever had occupied her mind shifted in that moment, replaced by something sharp and focused. "Where have you gotten this essence?" she demanded, her voice sharp and commanding.
"Is this liquid called essence?" Luke asked, confused by her sudden intensity and the way her demeanor had shifted so dramatically.
"Yes. Tell me what happened there in that apartment. Everything. Do not try to hide anything," Iris said, her tone leaving no room for argument or evasion.
Luke told her about what had happened at that horrible place—the fight with the young man, the impossible strength and speed that had been his undoing, the creatures that had risen from the corpses of those who had consumed the liquid. He described the sensation of being outmatched, of facing something beyond his comprehension or ability to combat. He spoke of the manipulation, the words exchanged, the moment the young man had jumped into the void. But he omitted the details of the mythical domain he had visited, that strange realm that had revealed knowledge he could not explain. Some instinct told him to keep that part hidden, to protect it like a secret that was not his to share.
As he spoke, a sad expression crossed Iris's face, visible in the subtle shift of her features and the way her hands clenched in her lap so tightly her knuckles turned white. She listened without interrupting, her gaze fixed on some distant point beyond the carriage window, as though she was watching something happening far away that only she could see.
"Why do you look like that?" Luke asked quietly, seeing her sadness, needing to understand what it meant.
"SHUT UP! You just don't know anything about him. How good he was, how helpful he was. You know nothing of him, so just shut up," Iris yelled, the words erupting from her with a raw emotion that seemed to surprise even her. Her voice cracked slightly at the edges, betraying the depth of her pain and the effort it was taking her to maintain control.
The outburst hung between them in the silence of the carriage, heavy and real. Luke understood in that moment that the old man had meant something to Iris—not just as a target, not just as a threat to be eliminated, but as someone she had genuinely cared about. Perhaps someone she had tried to save once and failed. Perhaps someone she had lost in ways that had nothing to do with bullets or blood.
For a long time after that, neither of them spoke. The carriage rolled forward through the city streets, the horse's hooves maintaining their steady rhythm. Luke's exhaustion was catching up with him, his injuries throbbing with each bump of the wheels against the uneven ground. The adrenaline that had sustained him was fading, leaving behind a bone-deep weariness that made even breathing feel difficult. He watched Iris in the darkness, seeing how her shoulders had curled inward slightly, how her hands remained clenched in her lap.
"I work for an organization," Iris finally said, breaking the silence that had stretched between them. Her voice was different now—steady, professional, carefully controlled. "We deal with certain threats. The kind most people don't even know exist. The kind that would destroy everything if left unchecked."
Luke wanted to ask more, to press for details and explanations, but something in her demeanor—the rigidity of her shoulders, the way her jaw clenched—warned him to wait. She was giving him information on her own terms.
"There are people who have been corrupted. People who have been touched by something dark, something that changes them at their core. The old man was one of them. He was once good—that part of what you heard was true. But something happened to him. Something changed him. And my job..." she paused, struggling with the weight of what she was about to articulate, "my job is to stop people like him, regardless of what they once were to me. Regardless of what we once meant to each other."
Luke felt the weight of that statement settle over him like a physical thing. She had known him. Perhaps had worked alongside him, trained with him, called him friend. And she had still fired the bullets.
"So what happens to me now?" Luke asked quietly, his voice smaller and more vulnerable than he intended.
Iris turned to face him fully for the first time since they had entered the carriage. Her eyes were cold and calculating, stripped of any warmth or softness. They were the eyes of someone accustomed to making life-and-death decisions. "You were exposed to something that should not have touched you. Something that has fundamentally altered what you are becoming. You need training. You need understanding. You need structure. There is a place called the University of Shadow. You will go there."
"And if I don't?" Luke asked.
"Then you are a liability. A variable that cannot be controlled. I would have to eliminate that variable."
Luke's hands trembled as he gripped the edge of the seat. His palms grew slick with sweat. He had survived the old man, survived the creatures, survived the abyss. But sitting across from this woman, he understood that the real danger was not behind him.
"The university requires an entrance fee," Iris continued as though she had not just threatened to kill him. "Ten cubical tessera. Do you have this amount?"
"No," Luke said.
"Then you need to acquire it. I assume you have some means of doing so, or you would not have survived this long."
Luke thought of his detective work, the scattered memories of information he had gathered over years he could barely recall clearly. "I could gather it," he said.
"Good. We will stop at your previous residence. You can collect what you need there," Iris said, turning back to look out the window into the darkness. "But understand this—the moment you have enough tessera to pay your entrance fee, you will begin your training. And once you begin, there is no turning back. The university does not accept dropouts or resignations."
Luke understood. This was not a choice. He would either go to the university and submit to whatever training awaited him there, or he would die. There was no third option.
The carriage continued forward through the city streets, carrying him deeper into a world he had only begun to comprehend. The horse's hooves maintained their steady, hypnotic rhythm against the cobblestones. Eventually, the carriage slowed and came to a stop in front of a familiar building.
"Here," Iris said simply. "Collect what you need. We will speak again when you have the tessera."
Luke gathered what remained of his strength and prepared to leave the carriage, knowing with absolute certainty that everything had changed. He was no longer a detective operating in the shadows of an ordinary world. He was no longer just a survivor clinging to life by any means necessary. He was now a recruit in a world far older and far darker than he had ever imagined, bound by a threat that felt more real and more immediate than anything he had experienced before.