Whispers of the Forgotten

The bridge was behind him now, a broken memory swallowed by the mist.

Aren moved through the abandoned streets like a ghost, unseen and untouched, though blood still dripped steadily from the wound at his side. Each step left a faint, dark smear on the cracked pavement.

The city stretched out before him —

a corpse of glass and concrete, rotting under the endless downpour.

Skyscrapers, once proud and glittering, now stood like jagged teeth under the stormy sky. Windows shattered. Doors hanging loose on rusted hinges.

No life.

No light.

Only the heavy, suffocating sound of rain and the quiet crunch of Aren’s boots on debris.

He wasn’t just running.

He was searching.

Somewhere in the ruins lay the answer — the reason they wanted him dead, the truth buried under layers of lies and time.

His vision blurred. The wound throbbed harder now, each heartbeat a hammer against his ribs.

He needed shelter.

He needed time to think.

Up ahead, through the mist, he spotted an old diner — its neon sign long dead, the windows boarded up.

Good enough.

Aren staggered to the door and shouldered it open.

The hinges groaned like a dying animal. Dust and rot filled his lungs as he stepped inside.

It was a graveyard of forgotten lives.

Booths torn apart, tables overturned, broken glass glittering on the floor like a carpet of tiny knives.

Still, it was shelter.

Still, it was silence.

Aren sank into a corner booth, letting the broken katana rest across his knees. He ripped a strip of cloth from his shirt and pressed it against the bleeding cut at his side, gritting his teeth against the pain.

He needed to think.

He needed to remember.

"You already know," the assassin had said.

But Aren didn’t know. Not yet.

Only fragments remained — memories jagged as broken mirrors.

He closed his eyes, forcing himself back into the past.

There had been a boy.

Younger than Aren, bright-eyed, laughing despite the rain.

There had been a promise, whispered in the dead of night:

"We’ll escape this place. You and me. Someday."

A name flickered at the edges of his mind.

Kade.

The boy's name had been Kade.

Aren’s stomach twisted.

He hadn’t thought about Kade in years — had buried that memory under layers of anger and survival.

But now it clawed its way back up, raw and bloody.

Kade had been taken.

Dragged away into the darkness of the city’s underbelly — the place Aren was never meant to survive.

He remembered screaming.

He remembered fighting.

And he remembered the men who had come for him after.

The same men who wore masks.

The same blades gleaming in the night.

His hands trembled as he opened his eyes.

It wasn’t random.

It never had been.

They were cleaning up.

Tying loose ends.

And Aren, broken sword or not, was a loose end they could not afford to leave behind.

A sudden creak jolted him back to the present.

The diner door.

Opening.

Slowly.

Quietly.

Aren's fingers tightened around the katana.

A figure stepped inside, silhouetted against the storm.

Not masked.

Not armed.

A girl.

Small, soaked to the bone, hair plastered to her face.

She hesitated when she saw him — the blood, the blade, the raw violence leaking from his skin.

“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said, voice trembling but strong enough to cut through the rain.

Aren didn’t lower the sword.

Not yet.

“Who sent you?” he rasped.

The girl swallowed hard.

“No one. I’m... I’m running too. From them.”

She stepped closer, hands raised.

“They’re not just after you. They’re hunting anyone who knows.”

Knows what?

The question burned Aren’s throat, but he didn’t voice it.

Not yet.

He watched her, reading the fear in her eyes, the desperation.

It was real.

She was like him — another broken piece trying to survive the storm.

Finally, Aren lowered the katana.

The girl sagged in relief, crossing the ruined diner floor and sliding into the booth across from him.

“My name’s Abil,” she said.

Aren said nothing.

Names were dangerous.

Names were promises.

And he had no more promises left to give.

But something inside him — something stubborn and unfinished — refused to look away from the way Abil’s hands shook, the way her eyes darted to every shadow as if expecting death at any moment.

He knew that kind of fear.

He lived it every day.

Abil leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper.

“They’re building something, Aren. A city beneath the city. A place where no light reaches, where the forgotten are used and thrown away like garbage.”

Aren’s heart hammered against his ribs.

“Who?” he demanded.

Abil’s eyes glistened with rain and terror.

“The Architects,” she whispered.

Aren felt the blood drain from his face.

The Architects.

He knew that name.

He had heard it once, long ago — in the screams of the lost, in the silence of the dead.

The rain outside roared louder, as if the storm itself recoiled at the name.

The Architects were real.

And they were coming.

Aren leaned back against the booth, the broken katana heavy in his lap.