Chapter 1: Baptism of Blood
Tick.
The sound slithered through the cold, stagnant air, an old clock hanging somewhere beyond the single light overhead. The chain around Silas' wrist rattled as he shifted, the metal cutting into his skin—though the pain felt distant, almost unreal. The room smelled of rust and stale breath, a scent that clung to his lungs like oil.
Across from him, a figure sat in the darkness, unseen but undeniably present. The voice came slow at first, smooth and careful.
"State your name."
Silas exhaled through his nose. He tried to lift his gaze, but the light above was too harsh, leaving everything beyond its circle in a void of black. He had the feeling that, even if he could see, there would be nothing there—just a mouth that spoke, detached from the reality around him.
Silence stretched, thick as tar.
Then, the voice again. "State your name."
A demand, not a request.
Silas smirked bitterly, licking the dry corner of his lips. "Why?"
The chains snapped taut as a force yanked his arms forward. His breath hitched, but he didn't struggle. He only listened to the ticking of the clock, counting the seconds between the question and the next inevitable command.
"State your name."
It came sharper this time, a knife carving into his thoughts. The pressure in the room shifted, the air thinning, the weight of something unseen pressing against his ribs. The sensation was suffocating, yet familiar.
He had been here before.
Hadn't he?
Silas frowned, his heartbeat a steady drum in his ears. No, that wasn't right. He couldn't recall ever being caught, ever being questioned like this. But the chains on his wrists, the chair beneath him, the voice—it all felt like a memory long buried and unearthed too soon.
The figure leaned forward, just enough for Silas to see the faintest hint of movement in the dark.
"Who do you serve?"
The words wrapped around his mind, cold and commanding. They slithered deeper than before, threading through something that had been left untouched for too long.
A migraine bloomed behind his eyes, sharp and unrelenting. The room pulsed. He felt his pulse in his throat, in his fingers, in the aching pull of the chains.
Then, something changed.
A drop of liquid splattered onto the table between them.
Silas blinked. Water? No.
A second drop. Then another. The scent of copper filled the air.
Blood.
It dripped from above, slow and deliberate, forming a small, growing pool. His chest tightened. He could feel it—something was wrong.
Tick.
The clock struck the hour.
And then, the world split open.
The chains rattled violently as Silas was jerked forward, his arms forced taut against the table. His breath hitched, but he refused to react beyond that. The unseen figure in front of him exhaled sharply as if barely restraining something much darker beneath the surface.
The air thickened.
"Who do you serve?" the voice repeated, this time sharp enough to cut through bone.
Silas clenched his jaw. His fingers curled into fists, nails digging into his palms.
"You're awfully persistent for someone too cowardly to show their face," he muttered.
The response was immediate.
A loud crack split through the room—an unseen force slammed into Silas' gut, knocking the breath from his lungs. He gasped, doubling over, the chains rattling violently as he struggled to pull himself back upright. The taste of iron flooded his mouth, warm and bitter.
"You think this is a game?" the interrogator hissed. "You think your defiance means something?"
The pressure in the air mounted. Silas felt it pressing against his skin, crawling up his spine like invisible fingers threatening to crush him from the inside out. His muscles tensed, his breathing shallow.
"You're going to tell me everything," the voice continued, slow, deliberate. "Every. Single. Thing."
Silas lifted his head, red eyes burning against the harsh light. "What makes you think I even know anything?"
Another strike—this time to his ribs. The pain flared, but it was distant, dulled by something deeper. Something familiar.
"Enough."
The weight in the room shifted. The pressure eased, just slightly. The interrogator exhaled, the aggression peeling back like a mask being lowered. The voice, though still sharp, took on a quieter, almost inquisitive tone.
"Let me ask you something else."
Silas coughed, spitting blood onto the table. He didn't look away, though.
The figure leaned forward, still hidden in the shadows. "Is this how it all played out?"
Silas froze.
A pulse ran through his skull, a sensation like static crawling beneath his skin. His fingers twitched against the cold metal of the table.
What?
The words struck something deep, something that sent ripples through his already fractured mind.
The clock ticked. The blood dripped. The chains rattled.
The question hung in the air, heavier than any of the interrogator's previous demands.
And for the first time, Silas had nothing to say.
Silas' breath hitched. The room—the chains, the table, the interrogator—all of it shattered like glass in a storm.
The world around him twisted, colors bleeding into each other before snapping into sharp, brutal focus. Reality hit like a hammer.
The heavy scent of iron flooded his senses. The roar of chaos swallowed his thoughts.
He was no longer in that suffocating room.
He was here.
Bodies ran. Bodies fell. The ground trembled under a weight too monstrous to comprehend. A scream—inhuman and wretched—ripped through the air, shaking his very bones.
But through it all, one voice cut through the madness.
"Move your FROGGING feet, you ROTTING piece of toast!"
Silas blinked, his dazed mind fumbling over the words. Frogging? Toast?
He turned his head, sluggish, like his body wasn't his own. His gaze landed on a man sprinting toward him. Blonde hair, sharp eyes filled with unfiltered panic.
"MOVE, YOU DUST-EATING DUNCE!"
Dust-eating?
Silas barely had time to process the bizarre swears before the blonde slammed into him, tackling him to the ground with a force that knocked the breath from his lungs.
A split second later, the world shook.
A monstrous foot crashed down where Silas had just been standing. The impact sent debris flying, the shockwave rattling his bones.
His heart pounded as he lay there, momentarily stunned.
The blonde was the first to move, pushing himself up and grabbing Silas by the collar. His sharp, wild eyes glared down at him.
"Are you TRYING to get turned into strawberry jam, you abyss-fondling lunatic?!"
Silas stared and chuckled.
Not at the insult. Not at the man.
But at the sheer, monstrous shadow looming above them.
"So let me get this straight!" The blonde dragged Silas along, his grip like iron around his arm as they dodged between the towering, mangled remains of the battlefield. "You stood there, practically screaming to the sky about how if you died, the world was coming with you—"
A massive, gnarled hand swung down, crashing into the ground behind them, sending a wave of shattered stone and blood-soaked dirt flying.
"—And then you just STOOD there like a brain-dead MUFFIN waiting to get stomped?!"
Silas barely ducked under a twisted, metal carriage hurled through the air, his breath ragged. "What the hell is a brain-dead muffin?!"
"Oh, I don't know," the blonde snapped, yanking Silas aside as another brutal carnage wall slammed down in front of them—a barricade of bone and corpses, sculpted by the towering Giants of the Wake. "Maybe it's SOMEONE WHO YELLS DRAMATIC LINES AND THEN FREEZES LIKE A STUNNED GOOSE?"
Silas gritted his teeth, his legs burning as they weaved through the ever-shifting battlefield. "Oh, shut up! You're seriously trying to act like this is normal?! You're out here tossing around family-friendly swears like a damn children's book narrator!"
The blonde scoffed, vaulting over a mound of ruptured bodies, dragging Silas up with him. "Forgive me if I don't waste my last words on ACTUAL cursing, you slimy ARMPIT FUNGUS!"
"Armpit fungus?! What does that even—"
BOOM.
The ground lurched violently as another giant's foot crashed down, sending a wave of force that ripped the air from Silas' lungs. They barely avoided being caught in the blast, tumbling through the debris as the battlefield shifted again, the monstrous coliseum of death sealing off their exits one by one.
Silas coughed, rolling onto his hands and knees. "I—" he wheezed, forcing himself upright, "—I cannot take you seriously right now."
The blonde, still clutching Silas' arm, gave him a flat, dead-eyed look. "Oh, I'm sorry—IS MY VOCABULARY DISTRACTING YOU FROM THE FROGGING CARNAGE?!"
Silas was about to snap back, but then—
A shadow fell over them.
They looked up just in time to see another giant raising its arm, a colossal slab of grotesque muscle aimed straight at them.
And there was nowhere left to run.
The ground shook violently, the deep rumble rolling through the battlefield like a warning drum. The titanic creatures behind them—hulking giants of twisted flesh and bone—pressed forward, their weight causing the cracked terrain to buckle.
Silas and the blonde sprinted toward the only escape in sight—a bridge, massive yet barely stable, stretching across a canyon of black abyss. It was their last chance.
The air trembled with another thunderous impact, and Silas nearly lost his footing as the ground beneath them fractured.
"MOVE, YOU BRISKET-FRIED DONKEY!" the blonde roared, grabbing Silas by the collar and hauling him forward.
Silas didn't get a chance to retort before a monstrous shockwave rippled outward, sending jagged stone and bodies hurling into the void. The bridge shook, its ancient structure cracking apart, stone by stone, under the combined weight of the battle and the advancing titans.
Then—
The ground beneath them gave way.
Silas felt the sudden drop, but before he could react, a hand shoved him forward—hard.
He was airborne.
For a heart-stopping second, he was suspended over the abyss, weightless, before slamming onto the bridge's ledge. His fingers barely found purchase as he scrambled to pull himself up.
But when he turned—
The blonde was still falling.
His golden hair flickered under the storm-lit sky, his face as unreadable as ever. Just before he vanished over the crumbling edge, he locked eyes with Silas.
"What's your name, family-friendly?" Silas called, lungs burning.
The blonde grinned, even as the abyss dragged him downward. "Felix." Then, before Silas could respond, Felix shot back, "And what's yours, deer-in-headlights?"
"…Silas."
Felix gave him a look, somewhere between amused and exasperated. "Well, Silas—you better not die before you have the power to do the obnoxious things you say."
Silas let out a rough laugh, just as the bridge began to collapse under his feet. "You better not die before I hear your uncensored speech."
Felix's laughter echoed, cut short as the chasm swallowed him whole.
Silas ran.
Stone crumbled beneath his heels, the last remnants of the bridge giving out as he launched himself toward the other side—the last survivor to make it across before the entire structure shattered into nothing.
But as he stood there, panting, staring at the void where Felix had fallen—
He knew.
That bridge wasn't even part of the first stage.
Escape was still impossibly far away.
Silas ran.
The land ahead was barren, an endless stretch of shattered stone and sand—a land that had been trampled by titans and torn apart by things far worse. The air reeked of iron and decay, and the only sound beyond his own breathing was the screams of the dying.
He saw them—the ones who had sprinted ahead of him—falling like insects to the twisted creatures that lurked between the ruins. Deviants.
One moment, they ran. The next, they were nothing.
Silas kept running. His body burned, his lungs felt like they were filled with broken glass, but he refused to slow down. He'd made it this far—he wasn't going to die because he followed the crowd.
That was the fastest way to the grave.
So he turned.
Not toward safety.
Safety was an illusion here.
He veered left, away from the slaughter, toward an area far worse than the ruins—a stretch of gnarled trees and jagged rocks. A place where even the monsters hesitated to tread. It wasn't a forest, not really. It had no name, only whispers from those who'd passed by and never returned.
But Silas didn't hesitate.
Survival meant running where others wouldn't dare.
He sprinted into the darkened landscape, his heartbeat pounding like a war drum. The presence of death grew thicker, heavier, as if the very air was watching him.
But he never turned back.
And he never noticed the two figures who had broken away from the main group, following in his shadow.
Silas didn't know they were there.
Survival was the only thing on his mind.