The city of Umbra stands like a dark skeleton against the night sky, its empty, crumbling buildings whispering stories of a forgotten past. Among its narrow, silent streets, shadows dance in the wind, like specters waiting in the gloom. Umbra is the city where nothing can be seen; where danger lurks behind every corner and surviving it's almost impossible without taking the lives of those that surround you.
In this terrible context, a boy is trying to kindle a fire without success. It's a cold night, and now that winter is calling through the stone doors lying in ruins at the age of the unknown, mortality is rising as high as the invisible moon itself.
In another part of town, Adrik walks confidently through the streets of Umbra, his golden eyes glinting in the darkness. He knows every corner of the city like the back of his hand, every dark alley and secret hiding place. To him, the night is not just a cloak of darkness, but a silent companion that has embraced him for as long as he can remember. His footsteps lead him to the heart of the city, where the towering figure of the Clock Tower stood.
Once a beacon of light and hope, it now looms as a monument to desolation, its walls covered in cracks and weeds hiding the true horrors living inside: creatures of the night capable of destroying you with one simple bite. No, they aren't vampires. Those died thousands of years ago. No. These are far more dangerous, at least Vampires had the decency to have common sense.
"They'll be here in a few minutes... Everything has been prepared," Adrik tells himself.
Adrik enters the clock tower and respects the silence around him. He needs to control every sound; every detail. Then he drops down on a step so he can rest a bit and calm his spirits.
"Get up, you bastard!" he says to himself. "This is no time to get lost in your fantasies."
Adrik gets up and opens one of the two windows that decorate the base of the tower, observing the coastal part of Umbra covered by a considerable tide.
It drags a countless multitude of corpses forming impossible expressions.
If he had known that such a tsunami would strike his city, he would not have lost his home.
"I hate the human race. A set of pretentious, destructive hominids who think their existence has some significance on the scale of the universe. You self-centered fuckers, you don't understand anything."
Adrik washes his face with salt water, as he can access it too easily. Everything seems to be in order. He then begins to climb the clock tower to the top.
His firearm, a rifle made of wood and quartz, is leaning against the wall, right where he has left it; as if it were a typical friend ready to cover your rear.
The sound of several footsteps approaches the tower. The time has come.
An invisible shadow invades all of Umbra, corroded by the ego of its top leaders.
"They're coming..."
Adrik hears the first footsteps and reaches for his rifle. They continue to climb, smashing doors and shouting like a bunch of hooligans. Their illiteracy is admirable, though understandable. A little girl begins to cry in the distance. They won't do anything to her. These bastards aren't the same ones who tried to abuse her.... until they ran into him.
"I still remember all the blood that emanated from his crotches."
Finally, a group of five people reaches the edge of the gate. Adrik does some routine stretching, takes off his trench coat, which dances in the breeze, and waits for them as if he were an inhabitant of Luminara on a sunny afternoon.
They effortlessly break down the door only to be met with a first bullet.
One dead, only six left.
They penetrate the top of the clock tower as if they were the Inquisition in search of a heretic. Adrik dodges their onslaught to grab a single barrel cannon he had hidden and opens fire. The gunpowder amputates two hands with a single shot, leaving two of his opponents offside. Now it is two women who try to kill him...
They do not succeed.
Adrik gives them an overdose of gunpowder and they fall from the top of the tower like stones in a river.
Only one last assailant remains and he, in the face of such a spectacle of majesty, drops his weapon. He will not try to fight. I invite him to come in and make himself comfortable. If someone comes to see you you should be polite and courteous, Adrik thinks, or so my former colleagues taught me.
Adrik watches his prisoner with interest, but not confidence. He knows he is already dead, and yet he tries to cling to the slightest hope that he will spare his life.
"How little he knows me," Adrik thinks. "He signed his death warrant when he decided to attack me, knowing who I am. Now let him take the consequences."
"Who gives you orders?", Adrik asks incisively.
The prisoner does not answer.
"And here I thought we could come to understand each other."
Adrik opens fire with his rifle and embeds a bullet in the assailant's knee, which causes him to start screaming like a pig being led to slaughter. Adrik can't stop a faint smile from playing on his battered lips.
"Should I repeat the question?"
"I cannot give you the information you ask," says the prisoner with a trembling voice.
His second knee is also damaged, causing him to fall heavily to the ground and begin to lose consciousness from the pain. Adrik lights a cigarette, takes a tasty puff, stands up, and does what his victim will never be able to do again: kneel.
"You can attack me every day if you want, but I'll still be here.... Waiting for your boss."
The bandit's face is deformed by the terror of Adrik's eyes, who fills them with golden embers. He then grabs his hostage by the neck, drags him to the window, and, at his pleas, pierces his head, throwing his body into the sea as if he were throwing an object into the landfill.
However, Adrik still hides his rifle, for he is aware that one last person is listening behind what was once a door. A woman of exotic beauty whom he would gladly seduce... but tonight she is his enemy and he is her prey.
"You can go take my answer to Rekulus."
Without a word, the woman leaves the building with a face blanched in fear.
Adrik wipes the remaining blood from the walls to disguise the strife that has taken place in a site that could sum up what the inhabitants of Luminara think of Umbra.
Without hesitation, Adrik lights the second cigarette of the night. The corpses of the bandits begin to sink into the sea, of which his window is a lookout.
He raises his eyes to the sky to observe some stars that seem to return his gaze.
Everything is in order again. He will sleep well tonight...
"Now is not the time to sleep..." Adrik says to himself. "I didn't remember my appointment, one I must keep without fail."
Adrik picks up his rifle, hides his barrel again, and sets course for the exit of the clock tower. On his way out, he checks with his golden eyes that no creature is waiting to ambush him and that there are no more bandits. It is a good time to get lost in the ruined streets of Umbra.
A few steps ahead, Adrik contemplates the home of a girl he has had to save more than once from different predicaments. When he enters to check if she is all right, he finds her corpse stretched out on the floor, as if she were sleeping peacefully. Those sons of bitches did not even deign to close her eyes, which Adrik takes care of.
It is one thing to be cold and another to be disrespectful, never confuse these two terms. Adrik leaves the apartment and when he begins to meditate on how to cross the black lake he realizes that he has been lucky: yesterday's bandits left his boat moored on some stairs. His was destroyed in a raid he had to carry out a week ago, so is it very convenient that those bastards came precisely by boat so that he could benefit from it? Surely, but in this life, a lucky break every now and then is appreciated.
Without a second thought, Adrik climbs into the boat, grabs the half-submerged oar, and sets course for his destination.
Adrik always takes the opportunity to reminisce about his past when the oars dictate the rhythm of the conversation. He thinks he remembers a man who was his father, who used to joke about what went on in the streets during such racy nights. His mother was not convinced by these jokes, but his old man would turn red with laughter.
"Nowadays, if you don't fuck a sardine, happiness escapes you."
Adrik contemplates how most of the people who live in this area have not yet risen from their beds, although in Umbra one never quite knows how the passing of the hours works and they sleep by inertia. When you are tired, you cover yourself with the sheets, regardless of what time of day you are, although here only the night is known; eternal and drained of all warmth.
The bandits that make up the gang that dominates this territory often use Lekos, humanoids that move around like cockroaches, to do the dirty work that humans find degrading. The problem is that during the winter hours, the nights are too cold for ordinary citizens, who must remain in their homes until the temperatures stabilize again after an indeterminate period of time.
Adrik's arms are starting to ache, as he has been paddling for half an hour, pushing aside the debris in his path. A very difficult task if you are starving.
Adrik climbs down from his new boat, tying it securely to a nearby lamppost, and enters a block of apartments where you always have to go down, never up. It is unwise to interrupt the meetings taking place in the attic of this decaying building. At the end of the doorway is a metal flap that he lifts with precision, again revealing a staircase that complements the drab architecture of this place.
Seawater does not reach here, so there is no risk of an aquifer being created where he's headed.
Descending a flight of stairs he knows by heart, Adrik is greeted by two girls who are physically beautiful but who have never been able to articulate a single word. The doctors say it's because of past trauma, but Adrik believes the Lekos are responsible for the scars that cover their necks.
The tavern he has just entered was built a year after the tsunami that devastated the city. He surmises that people needed a place with a minimum of privacy to drink, tell their sorrows, and become adulterers while escaping the horrors of darkness.
The inhabitants of Umbra are practically unable to move through its streets. Not being able to use torches or any kind of light for fear of being hunted by Helirics, winged creatures that can detect light sources and move at the speed of sound, or Sokobûns, demons capable of tearing a human apart in one single bite; the urban centers are concentrated in very specific areas and, unless you are like Adrik and his peculiar ability, you can spend a lifetime without knowing your neighbors.
What attracts Adrik most to this place is that it makes him feel that little nostalgia, that recurring lie that he does not live in the city of misfortune and that humanity is not rotten.
In this tavern, they have not saved on wood to decorate it, in addition to the fact that they serve jugs of effervescent yeast that cause an increase in the belly in two days. To make matters even better, since there is no electricity in the city, everything is lit with candles made by the owners themselves.
Adrik does not find anyone he knows... at least at first glance. His contact likes to hide in the shadows, he thinks he will be safe there. What he has not yet learned is that in this city you are always found, whether you are out in the open or your own home. No one escapes the Order of Nikran. Better to be like me, Adrik muses, and clear the street of riffraff and monsters.
Being a pacifist only complicates your life.
Adrik finally finds his contact and approaches him while ordering a pint from the landlord, Rengis, someone whose morale is not to be messed with, as he has a shotgun bigger than his rifle under the bar. There may be still pieces of his last victim's brain scattered on the walls.
"Adrik..." says the contact. "I thought you weren't coming..."
"Have I ever failed? -Adrik responds without putting irony aside.
"How many?"
"Six. I killed them an hour ago."
"Did you recognize the band they belonged to?"
"Rekulus..."
A disturbing shadow licks the gaze of the contact.
"I see you continue to obsess over him..."
"Whistleblowers must take the consequences..."
"You know that wasn't exactly what-"
"I didn't come here to be lectured. They are at the top of the clock tower."
"I'll send one of the golden ones to clean up. And no, before you ask, I don't know where Rekulus is based."
"Being one of the agents you should be able to find out where they're coming from, right?"
"Even we have limits."
There is a short silence in the conversation.
"I did not summon you here to talk about Rekulus, Adrik...."
His tone has changed, Adrik thinks, and when he does that one must be attentive because he is about to say something important.
"What's wrong?" inquires Adrik.
"The other day a colleague and I were patrolling The Sewers, near here, when we saw a graffiti that.... you see..."
"Will you tell what you saw or do I have to torture you?"
The Agent takes a breath before he can answer.
"I saw... the symbology of a head impaled with two spears..."
Of all the possible things the agent could announce, this was the one Adrik least expected. He had heard rumors a month ago about possible territory moves by the Order of Niktra, but he never imagined the situation to be so delicate.
"Have you been able to spot any signs in other areas?"
"Not directly, that's why I'm telling you...."
"Why should I waste my time helping you?" Adrik adopts a condescending tone of voice.
"Because if we don't reduce this threat, if it really exists, we will have a guerrilla war like we had fifty years ago."
Adrik finishes his pint in one gulp and lights a cigarette with the help of the candle in the center of the table.
"I will take care of looking for information regarding the subject, but I already warn you that if one of your colleagues interferes with my work I will not make it easy for him..."
"Understood... At the end of the day, it is more important to solve this problem than the lives of other agents.... But try not to kill them, the last thing we want is for this information to reach the circle..."
The circle... Every time Adrik hears this word all his senses bristle to empower his reflexes, for some memories can be sharper than the best of swords forged before lunar dissociation.
"I prefer not to talk about it anymore."
Adrik cordially shakes the agent's hand, paying for his drink as well. He then leaves the tavern without drawing attention to himself.
After a return trip where he couldn't stop thinking about the subject proposed by his contact, Adrik goes back to his apartment to be able to sleep once and for all.
The sun appears in the sky, reflected by the seawater.
How fucked it is not to have curtains at this moment...