Pain.
A deep, splitting pain.
Wei Chen's mind reeled as if a steel spike had been driven through his skull, twisting deeper with every heartbeat. The world was a haze of agony and muffled whispers, fragments of a dream shattering into darkness.
He tried to move—turn over, clutch his head, anything—but his limbs felt numb, unresponsive, as if they belonged to someone else. Trapped in a fog of confusion, he hovered between sleep and waking, unable to grasp the edges of consciousness.
Am I still dreaming? Or is this the moment before death? Wei Chen's thoughts drifted, scattered, slipping away like mist. He fought to focus, to gather the remnants of his will, but his mind kept spiraling into random, feverish images.
Why does my head hurt so much? Did I collapse at my desk? A stroke? Or… is this how it ends?
No, not yet. I have to wake up. Now.
The pain slowly dulled, fading from a stabbing agony to a relentless, throbbing ache. Wei Chen felt the world returning—sensation, weight, the cold bite of reality. He forced himself to sit up, or at least tried to, but his body was sluggish, foreign.
Gradually, his senses sharpened. He blinked, and the darkness peeled away, replaced by a deep, crimson glow.
He opened his eyes.
A battered wooden desk stretched before him, its surface illuminated by a strange red light. At its center lay an open notebook, the pages yellowed and rough, a single line scrawled across the top in bold, black ink.
To the left, a neat stack of books—eight in all—leaned against the wall, which was threaded with tarnished brass pipes and a heavy, ornate lamp. The lamp's glass was frosted, caged by black iron, and unlit.
Beneath the lamp, a squat ink bottle glimmered in the red glow, its surface embossed with the faint outline of an angel. Next to it, a dark fountain pen rested beside a heavy, antique revolver.
A revolver? Wei Chen's heart lurched. None of this was familiar—nothing from his cramped Shanghai apartment, nothing from the world he knew.
He stared, transfixed, as the desk, books, and gun shimmered beneath a shifting veil of crimson light that spilled through the window.
Slowly, he raised his head.
Outside, suspended in a velvet-black sky, a blood-red moon hung high and silent, its glow suffusing the room with an eerie, otherworldly hue.
Wei Chen's breath caught. Panic surged through him. He tried to stand, but his legs buckled beneath him, and he collapsed back onto the hard wooden chair.
Thud.
He gripped the edge of the desk, forcing himself upright, and turned, scanning the room in a daze.
A narrow chamber, two brown doors, a wooden bunk pressed against the far wall. Between the bed and the left door stood a battered wardrobe, its top doors open, drawers below. Beside it, a tangle of pipes fed into a strange mechanical contraption—gears, levers, and dials exposed to the air.
In the corner, a coal stove and a jumble of pots and pans. Across from the right door, a tall mirror, its surface cracked in two places, the frame carved with simple, swirling patterns.
Wei Chen caught his reflection: black hair, brown eyes, a linen shirt, a thin, angular face—unfamiliar, yet undeniably his.
He stared, numb, as memories not his own began to surge and swirl, flooding his mind.
Emil Weiss. Citizen of the Free City of Helmsgart, once heir to a minor house, now disgraced. A scholar, a recluse, a man who'd lost everything in a single, tragic night...
A father lost to the revolution. A mother gone to illness. An older brother struggling to keep them afloat. A younger sister, bright and hopeful, depending on him.
He'd studied history at the Imperial University, learned the dead languages—Elder Sigil, Old Veylan—used in ancient rites and forbidden texts.
Wei Chen's hand trembled as he reached for the notebook. The words on the page shifted, first alien, then slowly resolving into meaning he could read:
"All things end in silence, even me."
A chill ran down his spine. He recoiled, nearly knocking over the ink bottle. The air seemed to thicken, filled with faint, whispering voices.
He forced himself to look away, breathing hard. His gaze landed on the revolver—a question flickered in his mind. How could Emil's ruined family afford such a weapon?
Then he saw it: a dark, bloody handprint smeared across the desk's edge.
Wei Chen turned his right hand over. Blood stained his palm and fingers, sticky and fresh.
The pain in his head flared again. Did I hit my head? Was I attacked?
He stumbled to the cracked mirror, peering through the crimson gloom. A thin, scholarly figure stared back at him, haunted and pale.
He leaned closer, turning his head. There, at his temple, was a jagged wound, rimmed with blackened burns, blood trickling down his cheek.
Wei Chen staggered back, mind spinning. The crimson moon hung outside, silent and watchful.
He was Emil Weiss now, in a city of secrets, with a past not his own and a future shrouded in silence.
In the fractured glass, Wei Chen saw a stranger's face—blood trickling from a charred wound at the temple, the crimson moonlight flickering across skin that no longer felt like his own.