Thump thump.
Thump thump.
The dominant sound in the room didn't come from the corpse on the floor. Nor from anything outside. It was a heartbeat—two heartbeats, in fact. Both Fri and Goren were the same. Heart pounding. Breath quick and shallow. The lingering sensation that they'd stared down a beast ready to devour them, only to be spared.
"I think we probably shouldn't ask what the hell that was," Goren said. His voice trembled. The middle-aged man was kneeling on the floor, one hand pressed to his chest, the other bracing against the tiles as he caught his breath.
Fri didn't answer right away. He stood still, hands slightly shaking. His fingers felt numb, like the air itself was thicker than it should be.
"The fragment… it was its fault the whole time?" he murmured. His voice barely rose above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might bring the nightmare back.
Goren nodded slowly, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Yeah. And that thing used it to turn his own mind into a prison. Like the fragment had... will. Or memory."
Fri turned his gaze to the paintings lining the walls—each bearing the same face. Alexander. Younger. Older. Triumphant. Broken. Each one a piece of the man's fractured mind.
"That 'monster' at the end. The one in the armor," Fri said. "Did you get a good look?"
"No." Goren stood up carefully. "Just the shape. The smoke. But yeah. He was watching. Not from outside. From inside."
A silence stretched between them, heavy and unnatural.
"You think he came for the fragment? Or just took advantage of us doing the hard work?he looked far stronger than Alexander, even the one on the nightmare"
"I don't know. But if he can walk in and out of a mindscape like that... he's not just another Awakened."
They locked eyes.
"Whatever he is, he let us live. For now."
Fri stepped toward the ornate door. This time, it wasn't locked.
"We can't stay here."
"Do you have a plan?"
"Yeah. Find answers. Something tells me if we follow the trail of more fragments, we'll find more like him. Or worse. And besides, he mentioned we still have something left to do here. Maybe we'll figure out what."
Goren's expression lit up, as if struck by a sudden realization.
"Of course! The plan Alexander was talking about during the nightmare—he was having a conversation with someone. It sounded like something big is going to happen in Cassio."
At that moment, footsteps echoed from the corridor.
Someone was finally coming into the admiral's room.
Now a tomb.
They had to leave. Fast.
The streets of Cassio were quieter now. Not silent—no city ever truly was—but the kind of quiet that comes just before dawn. A calm painted over chaos, pretending nothing had happened. As if the world hadn't just nearly ended for two people still struggling to understand what they'd survived.
They moved quickly, cutting through alleys and backstreets, avoiding the main roads. Goren knew the city better than Fri did—he led them with purpose, even if his hands still trembled slightly with the aftermath.
Eventually, they stopped before an old workshop wedged between a bookshop and an abandoned bathhouse. Its shutters were closed. The sign above it had no name, just a faded symbol Fri didn't recognize—half a gear, half a sun.
A long silence. Then a mechanical click. The door opened.
Inside was a small, dimly lit room lined with shelves stacked haphazardly with mechanical parts, scrolls, maps, and old relics. A kettle boiled gently on a small stove in the corner. The air smelled of oil, metal, and faintly—lavender.
'So he did have a place to go back to after all. And to think we spent a week sleeping wherever we could while planning the attack. Sure, he seems to know quite a few people in the city, but I probably shouldn't trust any of them.'
Then, a young girl appeared before them. Without saying a word, she threw her arms around Goren, hugging the man whose face could probably make most children cry on sight.
'Maybe I'm being a bit too dramatic with his appearance,' Fri thought, revising his inner judgment of the poor man.
"Maria, are you alright? I've been busy these last few days—I'm sorry I haven't come by sooner."
The girl answered with happiness on her eyes. She kept hugging him, it was clear she understood his words were true, and it didn't matter that he hadn't been able to come. "Welcome back brother"
"I was wondering when you'd show up," an old voice muttered from the far side of the room.
Goren gave a short bow. "Good to see you too, Mirra. And… thanks for taking care of my sister."
Mirra was already pouring tea before either of them spoke. She was old—very old, maybe older than she looked—and she moved like someone who had long since stopped being surprised by the world. Her hands were steady, and her eyes sharper than either of them would have liked.
"You look like you got spat out by the sewers themselves," she said, setting the cups on a crooked metal table. "Drink. Talk. Then I'll decide if I should start packing or locking the doors."
Fri took a seat, still trying to adjust to the relative calm. The warmth of the cup in his hands felt unreal, but he didn't drink a single sip of the hot liquid.
"We assaulted Admiral Alexander. We got his core—the fragment I needed to awaken," Goren said. "But something strange happened. It turned cursed after we got it. Then we ended up inside a real nightmare. When we got out, someone was waiting for us."
Fri nodded. "He wore armor. Black, tight to the body, like it was part of him. Smoke. Voice like it didn't belong in the world. We had to give him the fragment that came from killing Alexander."
Mirra raised an eyebrow. "And you're alive."
"We think he let us go for a reason."
Goren leaned back, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "He said we still had something left to do here. That we'd know when the time came."
Mirra stood and pulled an old map from a nearby drawer. She slapped it onto the table, smoothing it out.
"Then start from what you do know. The man who had the fragment—Alexander—what was he working on? Who was he talking to before the nightmare broke?"
"There was a plan," Fri said. "We heard him talking to someone. Couldn't see who. But whatever it was, it's still in motion. And it's big. Cassio might be the starting point."
Goren pointed to a marked district on the map. "Alexander had connections here. Military contacts. Researchers. Possibly Awakened like him. If we track them, we might find the others."
"Or draw them to you," Mirra said, not looking up.
Fri sighed. "That's fine. We need to find more fragments anyway. Whether they come to us or not, I need to awaken before the next gate to Ominis opens. And I don't have much time left."
"You can stay here for today. I'll prepare some things for both of you. At the end of the day, only an Awakened like me can forge the best of the best equipment," the old woman said while waving her hand, telling the two men to go get some sleep.
While on his bed, Fri started to think:
'Looks like these people are not normal. I wonder what Goren's story is. I haven't known him for long… but I'm not gonna sleep much. I can't trust these people. But they're my best bet to awaken and continue with my objective,I have to use them.'