Adil opened his eyes.
For a moment, that was all he did. Just breathed — slow and careful — testing whether his lungs still worked. They did. His chest ached with the effort, but he was alive.
Alive was enough.
Where am I?
He pushed himself upright and looked around.
The room was wrong in every direction. The ceiling light flickered weakly, throwing uneven cage-like bars of pale light across walls of bare, cracked, concrete — damp and stained, the kind of walls that hadn't seen daylight in decades. Ahead, a heavy iron gate loomed in the shadows, its bars rusted to the color of old blood. A single chain hung loosely from the ceiling, swaying with each flicker of the bulb, though there was no wind to move it.
The floor was wet beneath him. He pressed his palm down, and it came away coated in thick, slow, black liquid pooling across the concrete and soaking into his uniform. Not water. Not sewage.
Something about the color nagged at him. He'd seen it before. Recently.
In a cleaning bucket.
He tried to stand. His foot slipped on the slick surface, and he went down hard, spine hitting concrete, the cold floor pressing against him with a weight that felt almost deliberate — as though the room itself had decided he should stay down.
The gate opened.
The figure that stepped through was massive. Black cloak, hood drawn low, hiding everything except two points of faint purple light where eyes should be. He moved like the darkness had taken a shape and learned to walk, and the air changed when he entered — thicker, heavier, pressing against Adil's ears like a held breath.
Rusted chains dangled from his left arm, clinking softly with each step.
And on his chest — embroidered into the black fabric — a single golden eye. Narrow. Long. Its slit pupil was surrounded by jagged rays extending outward like a sun that had never seen light.
Adil's thoughts stopped.
He knew that shape.
He didn't know how. He didn't know where. But somewhere behind his eyes — in the place where things lodge themselves before you understand them — that symbol had already been waiting. The exact design that had carved itself into his classroom wall not an hour ago, burning gold in the grey evening light.
It had followed him here. Or he had been brought to it.
"Get out, Number 999," the figure commanded. His voice was deep and resonant, each word rolling off the concrete walls in separate heavy waves.
Adil got to his feet slowly, putting distance between them, fists loose at his sides. "Who are you?" A beat. "Where are my friends"
The figure's purple eyes moved — just slightly, just once — toward him. Then away. As though the second question didn't exist.
That non-answer sat heavier than silence.
What is this place? The thought lasted half a second before the sheer physical reality of the room answered it. This was no dream. Dreams didn't leave blood on the floor.
The figure raised one hand. Purple light radiated from his palm, and chains materialized from nothing — snapping around Adil's wrists, dragging him downward with a weight that had no business existing.
TACK.
His face hit the floor. Blood from his nose spread thin and dark across the concrete. The light shifted, the weight eased fractionally, and Adil dragged himself back upright with his wrists still bound and blood dripping from his chin.
The cloaked figure watched him struggle. For a single almost imperceptible moment, something moved in those purple eyes. Not concerned. No hesitation.
Amusement — and beneath it, something unpleasant. The specific expression of someone who has just confirmed something they already knew and finds the confirmation satisfying in a way that has nothing good in it.
He's enjoying this, Adil realized. Whatever I am to him — Number 999, some summoned thing, a piece on a board — he finds it entertaining.
That was more frightening than the chains.
"Follow me," the figure said, turning away.
Play along, Adil told himself, falling into step. No information, no exits, no weapons. Play along, stay alive, figure out the rest later.
The corridor was narrow and suffocating. Walls pressed close on both sides, scarred with deep, dragging gouges — the kind left by claws, by something that had been desperate to go the other direction. Rusted pipes ran along the ceiling, dripping foul water onto the slick floor, each drop landing with a hollow ring like a clock counting down to something unnamed. The stench of mold and iron settled into the back of his throat and stayed.
Chains hung from hooks in the walls, swaying gently in the air that didn't move. Their clinks blended with the steady drag of the figure's own chains into a rhythm that gnawed at Adil's nerves. In the shadows thrown by the flickering bulb overhead, shapes shifted — figures watching from the dark — but every time he turned, there was only bare concrete.
"Does 999 mean there are 998 before me?" Adil said.
"No," the figure replied.
"Then what is it?"
Silence.
The figure walked as though the question hadn't happened, treating him like cargo being transported rather than a person speaking.
Puppet, Adil thought. Someone else's orders.
At the corridor's dead end, the figure stopped. A faintly glowing handprint appeared in the solid concrete.
"Place your hand on it," the figure ordered.
Adil looked at it for one moment. Then pressed his palm against it.
The world went white.
Not gently. Violently — an invasive flash that poured through his eyes and didn't stop there. Corrupted symbols cascaded across his vision in broken glitching streams:
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THE EYE ATTEMPTS TO
RENDER ITS VERDICT
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
NAME
[ERROR]
NUMBER
999
VERDICT
████████████
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
LAW
[ERROR]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
ACTIVE FACULTY
[ERROR]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
INHERENT FACULTY
[ERROR]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
BOUNDARY
[ERROR]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
OBSERVATIONS
[ERROR]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SUBJECT DOES NOT EXIST
WITHIN KNOWN PARAMETERS.
THE VERDICT
CANNOT BE RENDERED.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
THIS RECORD
SHOULD NOT EXIST.
...
Why are you still here?
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Then absolute silence. Then nothing.
Adil pulled his hand back, breathing hard. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"
The figure's purple eyes narrowed — that flicker again, unpleasant. Like a man confirming something he already suspected and finding the confirmation worse than expected.
He said nothing. Instead, he gestured toward a jagged hole in the wall, its edges rough and dripping with shadow, the darkness beyond so complete it looked solid.
"Enter," he said. The chains dissolved into purple smoke.
"Why would I go in there?" Adil muttered. The darkness stared back at him with the patience of something that had been waiting a long time. The figure's silent stare pressed against his back like a hand. "Okay. Fine. I'm going."
He stepped toward the opening.
SMACK.
A kick from behind caught him square and sent him pitching forward into nothing — cold, rushing dark swallowing him whole.
"Damn you—!"
His voice dissolved before it could finish.
He fell for longer than the hole should have allowed. The darkness was total and freezing and oddly loud — a pressure against his ears carrying the sensation of something vast existing just beyond sight. Then, far below, a single point of light appeared. It grew. It rushed upward to meet him.
He hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop on his back in a cloud of dust.
He stared at the ceiling.
How many times, he thought, have I hit the floor today?
He got up.
He was in his classroom. Or something wearing the shape of it — the dimensions were right, the layout was right, but the substance was wrong. The walls bled into shadow at their edges, dark particles drifting off the surfaces like ash. The desks were half-real, half-suggestion. The chairs were outlines of chairs.
He moved to the window.
The city was gone.
Not destroyed — replaced. A thick mist had swallowed every street, reducing skyscrapers to grey shapes without detail. Through the fog, pale translucent forms drifted without direction — not people, not animals, moving the way things move when they no longer have anywhere to belong.
No sound came through the glass. No wind, no traffic, nothing. Just silence pressed flat against the world like a hand over a mouth.
Adil looked at the mist. At the spirits drifting through it. At the skyscrapers reduced to ghost shapes against a sky that had forgotten what color it was supposed to be.
Well, he thought. That's not great.
He sighed and lay down on the floor, staring at the ceiling.
"Now let me think," he said, to no one in particular. "I got kidnapped, dragged into a different dimension, and got an verdict which contain error."
A pause.
"So maybe Garu and Jake got pulled in, too."
He stayed on the floor for exactly three more seconds. Then he got up, because lying on the floor wasn't going to answer anything, and the ceiling had nothing useful to say.
Then he turned back to the room and noticed the blackboard.
Strange text covered the entire surface — glowing faintly, shifting at the edges, written in a script with no alphabet he recognized. Something about its shape felt ancient. Not old like history. Old like something that existed before history needed a name.
Well, he thought. At least something in here looks like it has opinions.
What is that?
He reached out before he'd decided to.
The moment his finger touched the surface, the current hit — sharp and total, traveling from his fingertip through his arm and branching through his chest and skull simultaneously. He stumbled back, but the connection refused to break.
It pulled.
Not gently. Not in sequence.
The language tore itself into his mind like it had always been there and was only now being uncovered — symbol by symbol, pattern by pattern, each one landing with the weight of something absolute. Not learned. Not taught. Installed. As if someone had reached into the part of his brain where language lived and quietly rearranged everything without asking permission.
Then the vision came.
It lasted less than a second. It felt like a lifetime.
His hands. He was looking at his own hands — but they were wrong. Soaked. Dark red soaking through every crease of his palms and between his fingers, dripping from his knuckles in slow, heavy drops onto ground he couldn't see. He didn't know whose blood it was. He didn't know if it was his. He couldn't tell if he was the one who had spilled it.
He looked up.
Above him, where a sky should have been, hung a moon. Enormous. Close enough to feel. Its light was the deep bleeding crimson of something wounded and ancient, washing everything beneath it in red — his hands, the ground, the air itself.
He had never seen it before in his life.
He already knew it meant something terrible.
Then it was gone.
Ripped away without warning, the vision dissolving like smoke, leaving nothing behind except the language now permanently carved into his mind — and the faint phantom sensation of wet warmth still clinging to his palms.
He couldn't find his voice to scream.
His knees hit the floor. Breath came in shallow pulls. The classroom swam back into focus — bleeding walls, ashen air, pale drifting things beyond the glass.
He looked down at his hands.
Clean. Dry. Unmarked.
He stared at them for a moment longer than made sense.
Was it a vision, or a memory? Were those my hands — or someone else's? Had I already done something terrible, somewhere I couldn't reach, and simply not remembered it yet?
Then he stood.
He looked at the blackboard.
The script that had been completely alien seconds ago now sat in his mind like something he'd always known. Every symbol. Every word. As natural as reading his own name. The script didn't hold. The symbols fractured — rearranging, collapsing, cycling through configurations that almost resolved into meaning before dissolving again. Then, without warning, they stopped.
He read what it said.
But his hand — still feeling the ghost of something warm and red — slowly closed into a fist.