Nyx ran. He didn't know where he was going, only that he had to get away. His heart pounded against his chest like a drum, the beat of survival, of desperation. His hoodie clung to him, soaked with blood and sweat. His ribs ached, his vision blurred with every turn, but he pushed himself forward, the adrenaline keeping him moving.
The streets were a blur. The chaos. The sirens. The sound of the monster's roars still echoed in his ears, but worse, far worse, was the memory of his own actions his Will, the power that shouldn't have been his, the thing he couldn't understand or control. But he couldn't think about that now. He had to run.
Every step felt heavier. He ducked into alleyways, avoiding the soldiers, their boots heavy on the ground, their voices loud and commanding. They were looking for him, for the Unmarked boy who shouldn't have had power. They wouldn't stop until they found him. And if they did, they'd tear him apart.
He turned a corner and found himself at the entrance to an old, rusted manhole. It was half-hidden behind piles of garbage and broken crates, a forgotten part of the city. The streets above were filled with military vehicles, the sounds of radios crackling and soldiers shouting orders. He had to disappear.
Nyx grabbed the iron ladder, his hands trembling as he climbed down into the darkness below. The smell of stale air and dampness hit him, thick and sour. His feet landed on the concrete of the underground tunnel, and he quickly pulled the manhole cover back into place, sealing himself off from the world above.
The underground was a different world, a place where the law didn't reach. It was dark, the only light coming from flickering lamps hung haphazardly along the tunnel walls. The air was heavy, filled with the scent of decay and desperation. Nyx's footsteps echoed through the corridors, the sound swallowed by the oppressive silence that hung in the air.
He wasn't alone, though. As he walked deeper into the labyrinth of tunnels, he could hear voices low murmurs, whispers in the shadows. He wasn't sure if they were talking about him or if they were just talking in general. The people down here didn't care much for strangers. They were the Unmarked, the outcasts, the ones who had nothing to offer to the System. They had been forgotten.
Nyx found himself in a large, open area, an abandoned part of the city's underbelly where the forgotten ones gathered. There were groups of people here some with faces burned by the years, others with eyes that spoke of broken promises and lost hopes. There were the Unmarked, the Black Ones, the ones who had been left behind, left to rot in the shadows.
The military's influence didn't reach this place, but that didn't mean it was safe. Nyx saw the fear in their eyes, the way they looked over their shoulders as if someone might come for them at any moment. The air was thick with a kind of uneasy tension.
In the far corner, there was a fire burning in a barrel. A group of older men sat around it, passing a bottle between them. Their laughter was low, but there was a bitterness to it, like they were trying to forget something that never really left them.
Nyx sat down against the wall, his back pressing into the cold concrete. He couldn't stay here long. The underground was no place to hide forever, and the longer he lingered, the more likely it was that someone would recognize him for what he was a boy who had done the impossible, who had broken the rules, who had used Will without a Mark.
But there was no way back. He was trapped. And worse, he was terrified of what came next.
His mind flashed back to the monster, the way it had stalked him, hunted him, like it knew something he didn't. His hand instinctively went to his chest, where the raw skin of his wound still burned. How had he done it? How had he used Will? Was it just instinct, or was it something deeper, something that had been waiting inside him all along?
The underground felt like a cage. It was a place where everyone had given up hope. Nyx could feel it in the air, in the way they all moved through life like ghosts, just waiting for it to end. But not him. He couldn't afford to give up. Not when he had just discovered something so dangerous, so powerful, something that could change everything.
He didn't know what to do with it. The Will. It was a gift, a curse, a mystery. He wasn't supposed to have it. He wasn't supposed to be special. He wasn't supposed to matter.
Yet, here he was, still alive, still moving. Still holding onto a spark of something that might just be the thing that could burn the world down.
And for the first time in a long time, Nyx felt something inside him stir a purpose, a reason to keep going.
But even as he thought about the future, he knew it wasn't going to be easy. The world wasn't kind to the Unmarked. It wasn't kind to the weak.
And as he sat there, his eyes scanning the shadows, he heard the distant sounds of boots again, and the rumbling of military vehicles overhead. They weren't gone yet. The search was still on. And soon, they'd start looking for him down here, too.
He couldn't stay. He had to move. He had to find a way out before the System realized what he had become.
You could see the guard's beating up a husband and rapping his wiffe but Nyx could do nothing...