Shadows Coil—Time Slows Before the Attack
Elmer felt it before it happened.
The air grew impossibly thick, pressing against his chest like an unseen weight. His pulse pounded against his skull, his vision darkening at the edges. The tavern, once a place of whispers and hushed tension, no longer felt real.
The flickering remains of the shattered lanterns cast jagged, uneven light, illuminating the curling tendrils of shadow rising from the floor and walls like living creatures.
The unnatural stillness stretched.
And in the center of it all—Kaspar hadn't moved.
He stood poised, his cold gaze never leaving Elmer. Not alarmed. Not surprised. Just... waiting.
Elmer's throat felt dry. "What... what is this?"
Kaspar tilted his head slightly, his voice eerily calm. "Your awakening."
The moment the words left his lips, the tavern cracked.
Not literally—but reality itself seemed to shift, warping at the edges.
The shadows lurched forward.
Elmer's body moved before his mind could catch up.
His instincts screamed at him to run, to flee into the cold night—but his legs refused to move.
The darkness closed in.
A cold touch brushed against his wrist, and his entire body locked in place. It wasn't solid—it wasn't even human—but the sheer force behind it paralyzed him.
A whisper slithered through his mind.
"Not yet."
Elmer's breath came in ragged gasps. The feeling—this feeling—wasn't new. It was something buried deep inside him, something clawing its way to the surface.
The Ruinbrand.
His chest burned—not from pain, but from something more primal, untamed.
His left hand twitched, and for a split second—the shadows recoiled.
The air around him distorted.
Not much. Just a flicker, a shift in temperature, a brief pulse of something not meant to exist.
The darkness hesitated.
Kaspar's lips curved slightly—not quite a smirk, but something close.
"Good," he murmured. "It's still there."
Before Elmer could even process his words—
The shadows struck.
Pain. Cold.
The tendrils of darkness latched onto his limbs, his chest, his throat.
Elmer gasped, struggling against them, but they weren't physical. It was like fighting against the weight of a nightmare—something intangible, yet suffocatingly real.
He was sinking.
His surroundings blurred, the tavern fading as if being swallowed by an unseen force.
No—he was being swallowed.
Something wanted him gone. Something ancient. Something that recognized him.
The voices returned, echoing from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"Not yet. Not yet. Not yet."
This wasn't just an attack.
It was a test.
A test he was failing.
The pressure built, his limbs growing numb, his mind flickering on the verge of shutting down—
Then, heat.
Familiar.
Deep.
Something inside him snapped.
The moment it happened, Kaspar moved.
With a single step forward, the shadows halted.
Elmer collapsed onto the tavern floor, gasping for breath. The pressure, the sinking feeling—gone.
His vision spun as he looked up, trying to process what had happened.
Kaspar stood over him, one hand extended slightly.
His expression remained unreadable, but his eyes—they weren't cold anymore.
They were calculating.
"You're not ready," he said simply.
Elmer swallowed, his hands trembling. "What—what the hell was that?"
Kaspar didn't answer immediately. Instead, he exhaled, glancing toward the ceiling where the last wisps of shadow slithered away like smoke.
"The beginning," he finally said. "And the end."
Elmer's breathing was ragged. He could still feel it—the remnants of something clawing at the edge of his mind, whispering, waiting.
Kaspar's gaze flickered down at him.
"There's more coming, Ruinbrand."
Elmer froze.
He knows.
He knows.
Kaspar turned toward the shattered doorway, stepping out into the night without another word.
For a brief moment, Elmer was tempted to follow.
But something told him he wouldn't like the answers waiting for him outside.
And so he stayed, surrounded by the ruins of a tavern that no longer felt like it belonged to this world.