Joy. Joy and laughter rippled through golden fields, soft as silk. The wind carried the scent of blooming flowers, of warmth, of home, and fingers brushed through tall grass, the sun above a gentle guardian. There was peace here, real, tangible, complete.

  A little distance away stood a boy, dark-haired, green-eyed, and happy. He waved, calling out, his voice lost in the breeze. A name formed on his lips, his name, but the moment never arrived. The memory refused to take shape, and then, the world shifted.

  Lightning struck like a blade and the sky split open, unraveling like flesh. The sun blackened, its warmth curdling into rot. Laughter warped into screams, the grass shriveled into brittle veins, and the figures he once walked beside collapsed into hollowed husks.

  The boy stepped forward, his skin peeled, his smile blackened, his body no longer his own.

  He ran, ran faster than he ever had, and then, came a hand. Not his own, not anymore.

  It rose from his shadow, elongated, writhing, stitched from darkness. It gripped his throat, forced his head back, whispered something in a voice that belonged to him, yet did not.

  "Lies and deceit, even memories have a price"

  The dream shattered.

  He awoke, not with a start, but to cold, confused emptiness. His thoughts unraveled, empty where memory should be. The moment he took his first breath, something stirred beneath his skin, not hunger, not thirst. Something deeper, something that watched.

  He knew this place, the prison, and yet. This place was familiar, yet fundamentally wrong. The damp, the blood, these were real, but the rest, hollow, twisted, incomplete.

  He had been here for years, but how, why.

  His limbs felt... wrong, and unstable, like a puppet pulled by unseen strings, its weight not its own.

  He was underground, yet everything floated. The ceiling stones drifted, unmoored from gravity, and dust curled upward, defying sense, and beyond the iron bars of his cell, shadows moved where no light should be.

  A faint crimson glow pulsed through the cracks in the walls, as though the entire structure was veined with living flesh. The air reeked of rust and wet stone, blood and rot.

  He stood, body aching, mind silent. No name surfaced, no past claimed him, but instinct did.

  He stepped forward. The gate was ancient, black iron twisted by time. He gripped it, and his muscles tensed, his bones knew what to do.

  With a low growl, he ripped the gate apart. It crumbled, not with a shriek, but with a whispering collapse. The iron liquefied, black and thick, slithering down his wrist like something alive.

  Wrong, it was all wrong, but his bones had known what to do.

  Something cracked inside him, a flood of voices, whispering, clawing, demanding more.

  "Erased… lost… forgotten. Will you seize it?"

  The first voice was distant, fragmented, a whisper of a whisper. Each syllable dragged across his thoughts, raw and unfinished, but the second voice was different.

  "Awaken. The Eclipse Nexus stirs."

  It rang through his skull, a deep chime reverberating through his very being. His vision swam, his feet were still, yet the prison walls bent, distant torches stretching like melting wax.

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  Then there was silence, and a breath left him, slow and unsteady, as he stepped into the vast corridor beyond his cell.

  A name surfaced, The Sunken Prison, not recalled but branded upon him.

  It stretched before him, an endless maze of rusted metal, stone, and bleeding shadows. Above, a ruin afloat in crimson skies. Ahead, shadows that whispered of answers.

  Inside, something stirred. The shackles were gone, yet something heavier pressed upon him. Something unseen, something living.

  The prison breathed. Rot curled into his nostrils, thick and choking. The stone beneath his feet was slick, not just with water, but with sweat, blood, and piss.

  Gore smeared in long, drying streaks. He stepped over what had once been a man, or many men. They had melted together, flesh sagging like wax, bones tangled in a grotesque lattice. The walls pulsed as though the prison itself had veins, as though it had been fed.

  A cell to his left lay shattered, the iron bars twisted apart like brittle reeds. Within its darkness, something wailed.

  Not a scream of rage, not a plea for help, but a sound made of emptiness. A hollow, wretched noise that slithered up his spine and made his fingers twitch.

  He did not move toward it, he did not need to.

  The thing moved toward him.

  The wail cut short, suddenly too close, impossibly close, a rush of rotting air against the back of his neck. Fingers dug into his shoulders, breath wet and cold against his skin.

  He lunged forward, but cold fingers had already clamped onto his shoulders, breath slick against his skin. Clawing, biting, sinking its teeth deep into his shoulder.

  He twisted, slammed his elbow backward into its head, sending it reeling.

  In the flickering red glow of the prison, he saw it clearly now. A prisoner, or what was left of one.

  Skin blackened, flesh shifting in unnatural spasms, as though something inside it was still trying to escape. Its mouth opened in a rictus grin, revealing too many teeth, all splintered and wrong.

  He had nothing, no weapon, no armor, just his hands.

  It was enough.

  He grabbed the thing’s throat, forced it back against the cell wall, pinned it there even as its nails raked against his arms. The thing did not fight like a man, it fought like something mindless, something starving. It did not protect itself, it did not hesitate.

  He felt pain, a flash of white agony as its free hand clawed through his wrist, deeper, deeper, until something tore, and his right hand fell away.

  His vision blurred, his body reeled, staggering back as blood pulsed from his stump, hot and pouring. The fingers on his missing hand twitched, except they weren’t there. He could still feel them clenching, grasping at nothing, a phantom limb, a phantom loss.

  The prisoner shrieked, lunging again. He caught it, drove his remaining hand into its chest, into the filth and rot, past its ribs, past the muscle. His fingers wrapped around its decayed heart.

  It did not stop moving. Something whispered, not a voice, not a thought, just a knowing.

  "It will not die. Taste it."

  Not with mouth, but with hands, he somehow knew.

  "No. Not this."

  His body ignored him, and instinct moved him. His fingers tightened, pressing deep, pulling, feeling. The prisoner convulsed, shuddering, gasping, but did not die, not yet. Its fingers still clutched, still yearned, and then, slowly, it fell apart.

  Dark vapors erupted, curling, and wrapping. They slithered into his skin, filling him, writhing into the pit of his stomach.

  He felt full, but it wasn’t hunger, it wasn’t power, it was… wrong. Something had changed. No, something had been taken.

  The body slumped, hollow and empty, falling apart before it hit the floor. The hunger receded, but something lingered, curling inside him, threading itself through his bones. Not a presence, not a voice, just… something else.

  He gasped as pain roared through him again, not from loss, but from growth. Flesh surged forward, regrowing, reforming, stretching over new bone, new sinew.

  A new hand, a new arm, and words upon his skin.

  A low hum filled his bones. The words did not appear; they carved themselves onto his flesh. The pain was brief, just long enough to make him gasp, just long enough to make him feel owned.

  "Dark Unveiled."

  And beneath it, in smaller script:

  "Shadowtouched."

  And below that, three words, each with a number beside them.

  Eclipse- 3

  Core- 2

  Assimilation- 1

  He did not understand, but the knowledge sat in his ribs, cold and immovable.

  The sight of it, clear, sharp, and carved into him, sent nausea twisting through his gut. He tried to scream, but his throat clenched tight. He shook his hand, as though he could rid himself of it, as though it was a parasite burrowing into him.

  He clawed at his skin, trying to scratch the words away. They did not fade, they did not smudge, they sat beneath his flesh, like something buried under ice, untouchable and permanent, and then, the numbers vanished.

  His breath came in ragged gasps, his hands trembled, the silence of the prison pressed in once more.

  The prison still breathed, and so did he, but something else was breathing with him now.