Roman was a man of the routine, a young corporate drone cast adrift in the labyrinthine streets of Anchorage. The city swallowed men like him whole, its avenues packed with faces that seemed more like phantoms under the cold glow of the streetlights. Anchorage was a place that breathed; it pulsed with old stone, iron gates, and alleyways that wound like serpents between ancient buildings. The stones were slick with rain, always smelling of something damp and forgotten, a city built on the bones of other cities, each layer a testament to blood and stone. If you stood still long enough, you could almost hear them—echoes of a past that refused to rest.

For Roman, life in Anchorage had dulled to a comfortable numbness. He had carved out his place in the concrete jungle, where every morning was another foray into the monotonous rituals of the corporate world. Anchorage suited men like him. The city’s winding streets were crowded with buildings whose facades looked more like faded memories than architecture, each corner concealing a layer of history. There were churches converted into restaurants, once-grand manors falling into decay, and alleyways that seemed to whisper old secrets if you walked them alone at night. He worked in a sleek, high-rise tower of glass and steel, as anonymous as a raindrop in a storm. There was nothing remarkable about him: almost handsome, just enough charm to make an impression, but nondescript enough to pass through a crowd without drawing a second glance. He was a man of quiet features, his dark eyes deep and often distracted, as if caught on a thought he couldn’t let go, and he moved with the hunched shoulders of a man who’d spent too many hours under flickering fluorescent lights. His ambitions were simple. A pay raise here, a promotion there, enough money for an occasional night out. He was a face in the crowd, and in a city like Anchorage, that was as close to survival as one could get.

But even the most innocuous routines can break. And in a place like Anchorage, when they did, the city had a way of rearing its head to show its teeth.

It was on a night after a rainstorm, the streets shimmering with oily puddles that glinted under the pale streetlights, that Roman’s life veered into shadow. He’d left the office late, head buzzing with half-remembered spreadsheets, and walked the winding streets, the night heavy and alive around him. He turned down a side street, dark and narrow, where the cobblestones rose and fell like the breath of some slumbering beast. It was there, half-buried beneath a pile of damp leaves, that he saw it — a small, black stone, nestled in the gutter like a piece of lost jewelry.

It wasn’t the sort of thing you’d stop for. But there was something about it, something that glinted beneath the layers of soot and grime, a faint, inner glow. It drew him in, inexplicably, as if he’d been called to it. The stone was smooth to the touch, warm in a way that defied the chill of the night air. It fit perfectly into the palm of his hand, and when he held it, he felt a strange pulse, like a heartbeat. But it wasn’t his heart that was beating.

Roman pocketed the stone, thinking little of it. Perhaps some primitive, childish part of him liked the feel of it, the promise of some small mystery to carry with him. He trudged the remaining streets to his apartment, climbed the creaking stairs, and collapsed into bed, the stone forgotten in his pocket.

But that night, his dreams shifted. He found himself in strange corridors, endless halls of dark marble and gold, lit by flickering torchlight. He walked down those halls, his footsteps echoing, as he felt the cold gaze of unseen figures. He awoke with a start, his heart pounding, and felt an ache in his veins that left him restless and hollow.

The next day, the world seemed sharper, more alive. His senses were dialed up, tuned to a frequency he didn’t recognize. In the office, he could hear the rustle of papers from desks away, the faint hum of whispered conversations that usually blurred into the background. The light stung his eyes, and sounds crashed into his skull like waves against stone. He thought it was fatigue at first, some lingering symptom of a sleepless night. But days passed, and the intensity remained, growing with each hour.

It wasn’t until he met Philip that he started to wonder if the strange things happening to him were more than just figments of his imagination.

They’d crossed paths before in the office, where Philip had a reputation for being unusually perceptive. His presence was hard to ignore; he had a way of looking at people as if he were dissecting them with his eyes, peeling back layers to see something they themselves couldn’t. Roman had always dismissed Philip as the type who knew too much about everyone, the office mind-reader, the man who somehow always seemed to know things without anyone telling him.

But one evening, Philip cornered him in a small bar tucked away on Anchorage’s north side. Roman hadn’t planned to be there; he’d wandered in on a whim, drawn by the quiet, shadowy atmosphere, hoping for a drink to dull the odd feelings that had been gnawing at him. Philip found him in a secluded booth near the back, the other patrons’ conversations dulled into a soft hum that seemed to retreat around them.

“You’ve felt it, haven’t you?” Philip’s voice was soft, but it cut through the room’s noise like a knife, settling in Roman’s bones. It wasn’t a question as much as a statement, and the strange thing was, Roman understood exactly what he meant.

Roman was silent, weighing his words carefully. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, but his voice sounded hollow, unconvincing even to himself.

Philip’s mouth curved into a slight, knowing smile. “You’ve noticed the shifts. The sharpness of things that weren’t sharp before. The feeling that something is… waking up.”

A shiver ran down Roman’s spine, and he clenched his fists to steady himself. The way Philip spoke made him feel exposed, as though he were suddenly stripped bare, his secrets pulled into the open. “What do you want from me?”

“It’s not what I want, Roman,” Philip said, his voice almost gentle. “It’s about what you want. Answers. An explanation.” His gaze bore into Roman, steady and unyielding. “You’re not the only one who’s… changed. There are others. People who understand what you’re going through.”

Roman hesitated, drawn and yet hesitant. Something about Philip’s tone struck a nerve, a familiarity he couldn’t explain. Against his better judgment, he found himself nodding.

And that was how Roman was pulled into a world hidden within Anchorage’s dark corners, where old powers mingled with forgotten histories. Philip took him to places he had never noticed before, dimly lit rooms filled with people who, at first glance, looked ordinary. But they weren’t ordinary; each one had an air about them, a strangeness that defied easy explanation. There were Bianca and Dante, two figures who seemed to hold their secrets like shields.

Bianca had a presence that demanded attention, with flame-red hair and eyes that sparked like embers in the dim light. She would toy with fire in her palm, a small, contained blaze that would flicker out as soon as she lost interest. And Dante, with his brooding silences, always watching, his gaze piercing and unnerving. He had a gift — if that’s what you could call it — for manipulating people’s minds, bending their emotions to his will with unsettling ease.

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But it was Eva who struck Roman the deepest.

She was quiet, her voice soft and measured, but there was a resonance to her words that tugged at Roman in ways he couldn’t explain. When they locked eyes, he felt an electric connection, a pull that went beyond words. It was as if she, too, sensed the darkness that had begun to coil inside him. She could slow time, she explained, though she treated her power like a fragile thing, something precious and dangerous in equal measure.

And Roman couldn’t ignore the feeling that Eva, in some way, already understood him. She watched him with eyes that seemed to see beneath his surface, a knowing look that left him unsettled and yet strangely at peace. She didn’t ask about his powers, nor did she pry into the strange resonance between them. But Roman felt it, unmistakable and pulsing, like the stone in his pocket, calling to him.

“Let’s all have a seat for the next part” Philip urged.

The room filled with shadows that seemed to crowd around them, listening as if the walls themselves hung on every word. Roman sat in a worn armchair across from Philip, his gaze drawn to the man’s quiet intensity. He could feel the others’ eyes on him—Bianca flicking her lighter, Dante with his stony silence, and Eva, who lingered near the window, her presence a comfort that calmed the restless energy in his chest.

Philip leaned forward, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, yet every word cut through the silence like a blade. “You’re wondering where all this came from. The powers, the strange pull you feel. It’s no accident, Roman.”

Roman nodded, a mixture of anticipation and unease tightening in his stomach. He wanted answers, but some part of him feared what he was about to hear.

“It goes back over a century,” Philip began, his fingers tracing patterns on the edge of the table as if tapping into some unseen current of energy. “Anchorage was different then. Less of a city, more of a small, isolated port. And during that time, a team of researchers arrived—scientists, alchemists, people on the fringes of the respectable world. They set up in the mountains just outside the city, in a place now known as the Old Keep.”

“An experiment?” Roman asked, unable to keep the skepticism from his voice.

Philip nodded. “More than just an experiment. They wanted to push the limits of human potential, to draw out… traits hidden in the blood. Powers, if you want to call it that. They started with prisoners, then vagrants, anyone they could buy or steal from the streets. They called it the “Archon Veil Exploration”.”

The name lingered in the air, ancient and heavy. Roman could feel it settle into his bones, the weight of it pressing down as if it had been waiting there all his life. His mind raced: Was he the next step in the experiment, or the end of it?

“They used rituals, chemicals, methods that would be unthinkable now,” Philip continued. “It wasn’t science as we know it—it was something darker, something no one fully understood. And though most of the experiments failed… some of the test subjects survived. And when they did, they changed.”

Roman felt a shiver run through him, his mind racing. He looked at the others, each of them carrying that strange, haunted look, as if they too had been touched by something unspeakable.

“But why? Why would they do this?” Roman’s voice was hoarse, the question sounding hollow even to his own ears.

Philip’s eyes narrowed, a hint of something darker creeping into his gaze. “Power. Immortality. Control. They wanted to touch the fabric of life itself, to master it, to hold it in their hands. But they underestimated what they were dealing with. The survivors… they escaped, scattered into the city. And while many of them hid, their blood carried the echoes of those experiments. Their descendants… us, Roman. We are their legacy, a broken lineage that stretches back to the Old Keep.”

Roman’s mind reeled, the enormity of it threatening to overwhelm him. “So, we’re just… accidents?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

“Not accidents,” Philip replied, his tone firm. “Survivors. Their intentions might have been twisted, but what we have is ours. They failed to contain it, failed to control us. We are here, still standing, because whatever they awakened inside us wasn’t theirs to keep.”

Bianca flicked her lighter, the small flame casting flickering shadows across her face. “They tried to trap us, bind us to their experiments. But we broke free, and we won’t let anyone take that from us again.”

Roman looked around, seeing his own face reflected in the group’s expressions. This was his world now, this dark and hidden lineage that stretched back through shadows he could barely comprehend.

Each of them bore their powers with a quiet torment, a sense that they were prisoners of their own bodies. But Roman sensed they knew something about him, something they dared not say. When they spoke to him, they kept their words light, skimming the surface, but he could feel their glances, the quiet exchanges between them, like ripples in a still pond. He was the outsider, yet they watched him as if he were the answer to a question they hadn’t dared ask.

The days passed in a haze, each one revealing new fragments of a world he’d never known existed. Anchorage was no longer a city; it was a puzzle, each street and alley a piece of a map leading somewhere he was meant to find. And with each passing day, the darkness inside him grew more insistent, a hunger that gnawed at him, whispering things he didn’t understand.

Roman tried to keep his routine — to go to work, to blend in — but the ordinary world now felt distant, like a memory. His nights became restless, filled with cryptic dreams of forgotten cities and a war fought in darkness. He would wake in a sweat, feeling the weight of unseen eyes upon him. And every morning, the stone he had found pulsed hotter, its surface colder to the touch, as though it were drawing power from his very being.

One night, as he lay awake staring at the ceiling, he heard it — a soft, insistent tapping at his window. He froze, his pulse thundering, as the tapping grew louder. He moved towards the window, his breath caught in his chest, and threw open the curtains.

“You’re the last of the old blood,” it said, its voice like silk and smoke, curling around him. “You are neither science nor magic. You are something else entirely.”

The figure spoke of darkness, of a legacy that reached back through generations. Roman’s powers, it whispered, were not the result of an experiment, nor the byproduct of some ancient mistake. They were a curse, born of a lineage that had been touched by something beyond mortal ken.

In that moment, Roman understood that he was bound to a path darker than he’d ever imagined. And for the first time, he felt truly alone, as if the city itself had turned its back on him, and he was left adrift in the dark. Anchorage was a city of shadows, and he was about to become one of its deepest secrets.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door, sharp and insistent. Roman froze, a strange dread prickling at his skin. He opened it cautiously, half expecting to find nothing on the other side.

But there, in the dim hallway, stood Eva, her face shadowed and unreadable. She didn’t speak, but he felt the weight of her presence, the unspoken words between them. She took a step closer, her eyes fixed on him with an intensity that made his breath catch.

“You’re not alone in this,” she whispered, her hand reaching out to touch his, her fingers cold and grounding.

But before he could respond, the hallway filled with a flicker of shadows, a figure cloaked in darkness appearing behind her, its face hidden but its intent unmistakable. Roman felt the stone pulse in his pocket, the same ancient hunger filling him, as though something inside him recognized the figure, something deep and primal.

Eva, standing by his side, clutches Roman’s hand, her gaze unflinching as she faces the looming figure. The figure steps forward, and Roman feels a visceral, gut-wrenching pull, the weight of eons pressing down upon him.

“You have a choice, Roman,” the figure breathes, its voice laced with centuries of anger and pain. “But the path you choose will bind you for eternity.”

In that instant, shadows rise from the floor, tendrils of dark energy wrapping around him, and Roman senses a thirst within that he can barely control. He can feel Eva’s heartbeat pounding through their clasped hands, a single tether to reality, but he knows if he lets go, he will be lost to the darkness.

As he tries to fight it, his fingers slip from Eva’s grasp, and the last thing he sees is her horrified face fading into the shadows.

The door slams shut, and he is alone with the ancient figure.