He pulled up a chair.
"Alright," he muttered. "Then start from the top."
---
Ren didn't hesitate. He reached under the table and pulled out a small, beat-up notebook—torn pages, burned edges, smudged ink. The kind of thing you'd find in a bunker after the world ended. Kade half expected it to reek of blood and ash.
"This is everything we know," Ren said, flipping it open. "Or at least, everything that hasn't gotten someone killed."
Kade leaned over, peering at the first page. Symbols. Circles. Scribbled lines drawn like someone was half-mad and half-desperate. Some of them looked familiar—sharp curves and etched loops that matched the markings burned into his wrist.
"What is all this?" he asked, his voice low.
"The curse," Ava answered softly, like saying it too loud might wake something nearby. "The one we carry."
Ren kept flipping. The sketches got darker, more frantic. Bodies twisted into shapes that didn't make sense. Creatures with hollow eyes and jagged spines, like they'd crawled out of someone's nightmares and stayed too long.
One sketch snagged Kade's attention. A tall, narrow thing with spindly limbs and a mouth stretched too wide.
"That one," he said, pointing. "I saw that one last night."
Ren nodded grimly. "That's a Class Three Hollowborn. We call it a Skiver. They're hunters. Track by scent. Memory. Rage. Once one's been summoned into a space, it leaves a scar behind. A trail. A wound in the world."
Kade's fingers curled around the edge of the table. The edges of the wood bit into his palms.
"So it wasn't just after me. It was coming back to the scene."
Ren looked up, meeting his eyes. "No. It was after you."
Kade's stomach turned like he'd swallowed nails. A slow, creeping sickness rose in his chest.
Lila cut in, arms crossed tight. "When the artifact chooses someone, the Hollowborn know. It's like blood in the water. You shine now, Kade. Whether you like it or not."
"Great," he muttered. "So I'm a damn flashlight for nightmare fuel."
A faint, bitter smile tugged at Nico's mouth. "That's one way to put it."
Kade stood and started pacing. It didn't help. The warehouse felt smaller suddenly—walls too close, ceiling too low, like the air itself was pressing in.
"But I don't get it," he said. "You said the artifact came from the thing that was supposed to keep these creatures sealed. So why does it make me glow like a target?"
Ren hesitated.
Then he shut the notebook with a quiet thump.
"Because we think the artifact wasn't just a key to seal them in," he said. "It was bait. A lure. Something to keep them in one place. Attracted to it. Bound by it."
Kade froze mid-step.
"So you're saying I'm walking around with a Hollowborn magnet fused to my skin?"
"Yes," Ava said gently. "But you're also something more."
"Yeah? Like what?"
Ren leaned back against the wall, arms folded. His shadow stretched behind him, longer than it should've in the dim light. "You're not cursed. The rest of us… we all touched artifacts too. Different ones. They gave us power, sure. But at a cost."
Kade narrowed his eyes. "What kind of cost?"
Lila didn't say anything. Just pulled up her sleeve.
Underneath, her skin shimmered with small lightning-shaped cracks, pulsing with a dim, unnatural light. They looked like something that should've torn her apart, like veins made of fire.
"Every time I use my power, it hurts," she said. "Burns through me like wire. You learn to live with it. But you never stop feeling it."
She let the sleeve drop and stared at Kade like she was daring him to look away.
Nico stepped forward, flipping a small silver coin between his fingers. For a second, his form flickered—glitchy, like a bad transmission. Then it steadied again.
"My illusions fray my mind," he said. "Too much, too fast, and I start seeing things that aren't there. People who aren't alive. Things that whisper when no one's around."
Ava stayed silent for a long moment. Then she slowly pressed her palm to her chest, over her heart.
"I can feel pain," she said quietly. "Everyone's. Physical. Emotional. Doesn't matter. When you're bleeding, I feel it. When you're breaking inside, I feel that too. All of it."
Kade blinked. His voice caught before it could come out.
"Jesus."
"It's a curse," Ren said flatly. "Wrapped in power. Or maybe power is the curse. Doesn't really matter anymore."
He stood and walked toward the center of the warehouse, fingers dragging along the metal wall. Sparks didn't fly, but it felt like they should have.
"You're the first one we've seen that the artifact accepted without backlash," he continued. "No burns. No seizures. No screaming. Just… claimed you."
Kade looked down at the metal band on his wrist. It felt heavier now. Like it was listening. Like it was waiting.
He didn't feel chosen.
He felt like bait on a hook.
"What does it want?" he asked. "Why me?"
Nobody answered.
The only sound was the low hum of city noise bleeding through the steel walls—sirens in the distance, a car door slamming, the buzz of neon.
Then Ren turned.
"Maybe it wants to win," he said. "And you're its best shot."
Kade let out a sharp, bitter laugh. "Me? I barely made it out of that alley. I don't know how to fight. I don't know how to use this thing. Hell, I don't even know if I want to be part of this."
Ren tossed something across the room.
Kade caught it out of instinct—a wooden staff. Worn at the edges, splintered down the sides, but solid. Heavy. Real.
"You don't have a choice anymore," Ren said. "They're gonna keep coming. And if you're not ready, someone else dies next time. Maybe one of us. Maybe someone you care about."
That last part stuck like glass in Kade's chest.
He looked at the staff. Tightened his grip.
"Then show me," he said. "Show me how not to die."
Ren nodded once, slow.
"We start now."
He turned toward a large set of double doors at the far end of the warehouse—thick, bolted, scarred with long, deep claw marks. Kade stared at them like they were the edge of a cliff.
Behind those doors, something was moving. Metallic clanging. Concrete cracking.
"The training room," Ren said.
Lila stepped forward and unlocked the door with a loud click. It swung open on rusted hinges.
She didn't look back.
Kade followed.
He didn't know what was waiting for him inside.
But for the first time since this nightmare started, he wasn't walking alone.
---
To be continued...