I was surrounded, the man with the skull emblem looming directly in front of me. Shadows closed in on all sides, faint lights pulsing under their skin like veins, each figure shrouded in an unnatural darkness that seemed to swallow the dim city glow. I scanned the area, but there wasn't a single soul beyond them. The part of the city I'd stumbled into felt like it had been swallowed whole, sealed off from reality, leaving me and these figures alone in the night.

I realized with a start that the pulse in my chest had faded. The warmth of my rune had vanished, leaving an odd chill behind. But there was something else… something warm, wet. I glanced down to find blood seeping from beneath my cloak. Blood? I clutched the fabric to reveal my chest—where my rune should have been. But instead of the familiar glow, there was only an open wound, blood trickling out, staining the inside of my cloak. And yet, despite all the gore, the pain was barely there, more like a dull, distant ache.

The cloak seemed to sense the injury. It tightened against my chest, threads stitching, trying to seal the wound, drawing my blood back in to restore me. But my mind could barely grasp what was happening before a shadow appeared at my right, gliding past me as if I didn't exist. In its hand, it held a yellow stone. My rune.

The shadow passed the stone to the man with the skull emblem. He took it, turning it in his hand as if it were no more than a trivial object. Dull and lifeless, the rune no longer pulsed like it had when it was with me. He raised an eyebrow, his gaze unreadable.

"What a surprise," he said finally, his voice flat, devoid of any hint of malice or kindness. "Not only do you wear the cloak of the Sable Order… but one that belonged to the Seventh Master."

The title struck me, foreign and hollow. I had no idea what he meant. The cloak had belonged to The Sable Order. I'd known it was tied to them, but this "Seventh Master" was a name I hadn't heard before. I swallowed, searching for words.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I stammered, keeping my voice steady despite the terror coiling in my gut. "This cloak was given to me by a friend. I don't know anything about the 'Seventh Master.'" I tried to sound unthreatening, submissive, hoping it would be enough. "I… I can give it back to you. Take it and the rune. Just… spare me, please."

He looked at me, dispassionate, as if weighing my words before his gaze flickered dismissively. "Not only do you possess the cloak of the Seventh Master," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken, "but also a rune that emits zero aura. It's no wonder you went unnoticed for so long."

His indifference chilled me. He wasn't even considering my offer to hand over the cloak and the rune. The shadows moved again, and another figure materialized behind him, carrying something—or rather, someone.

I froze, my breath catching as I recognized her—the woman from the bar. Blood streaked her face, her bandages torn and stained. Her once-bright eyes were glazed, half-open but vacant. She was still breathing, though barely. My stomach twisted at the sight.

The shadow holding her spoke up. "She said this cloak was given to him by someone named Kael. The memory alteration was successful," he added, his voice empty, clinical.

The skull-emblemed man nodded. "Good. Transport her to the other side of the southern city. Leave her in the street and make it look as though she's simply drunk."

The shadow obeyed without hesitation, lifting her limp body and disappearing into the night, as if she were nothing more than a task to complete. I forced myself not to react, suppressing the guilt and anger that rose inside me. They were efficient, emotionless, treating lives like tools and disposing of them when they were no longer needed.

I glanced down, trying to shield my own expression. Was this where it would end for me too?

The man turned his cold gaze on me, and I could feel something shifting behind me. Before I could react, a shadow materialized and placed a hand on my back. In one swift motion, it stripped the cloak from my body. The half-sewn wound on my chest began to split open, slowly, methodically, as though savoring the moment. Blood started seeping out, and this time, there was no barrier between me and the pain.

A scream tore from my throat, raw and desperate. It was unlike anything I'd ever experienced, a pain that went beyond mere injury. If the hammer-like agony I'd felt in the forest had been unbearable, this was that and more—a hammer crashing into my chest, but with sharp iron nails digging into the flesh beneath. I crumpled to my knees, clutching my chest, my fingers slipping on my own blood as I tried, pointlessly, to stop the wound from gaping further. My scream echoed, bouncing off the empty buildings around me, but I was barely conscious of the sound. All I knew was that I wanted it to stop. Death, if it would mean an end to this, was suddenly a welcome thought.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Dimly, I was aware of the man with the skull badge issuing orders, his voice cold and unfeeling as he spoke to the shadows around him.

"Alter his memory," he said, his words precise, mechanical. "Make him mentally unstable. Erase his ability to speak, make him forget anyone he's known, make him forget this city, this level… this game." He paused. "Seal the wound enough to look like it was fought over, then transport him to where the woman was left. Make it look like a lovers' quarrel gone bad. Cleanse the cloak and return it to Master Five. Dismiss."

I barely registered any of it; it was just a distant hum of syllables against the pounding in my skull. But then, something sharp, agonizing, pierced the back of my neck, and everything faded to black. The pain vanished, replaced by a numb, empty darkness, and my last thread of thought dissolved.

The pain was gone, and the city had vanished. I was back—back to the void. Darkness stretched around me, boundless, impenetrable. Silence swallowed everything. I couldn't hear a thing, couldn't see anything but the shadows pressing in on me. So, I sat, staring into the blackness beneath, only to see something startling in return—my reflection.

It was strange, ironic even, seeing myself in the depths of nothing. But the face staring back was not quite mine. It had changed. My skin looked thinner, less pale, as though something had settled within it, something solid. My eyes were dark, so dark they were nearly black, void of the warmth of the brown I remembered. My hair was longer, falling around my neck in uneven strands, unkempt and worn. Beneath my eyes, dull shadows spread, and my cheekbones stood out more prominently than before, giving me a hardened, more mature look.

I reached a hand out, watching as the reflection rippled, dissolving back into the darkness. Alone again, I sat in silence. Though I hadn't fully understood what the man had said, I knew something within me had been changed, warped. They'd altered my memories. I wouldn't be who I once was—whatever they'd left of me would be just enough to roam the streets like some lost shadow, wandering through the poorest part of the cybercity, the southern slums.

I let out a mirthless laugh, echoing back from the depths around me. A "lovers' quarrel," he'd said. What a joke. All my life in my world, I'd known only emptiness. No family. No friends. No one who truly cared. A life without purpose, without connection. But was this new fate any better? Wandering endlessly with an injury that would never quite heal, trapped in a city that didn't care if I lived or died. And in that bleak realization, I thought about the only people I'd known in this world—the old man, my only friend Daniel. I could only hope they were safe.

But there was no escape for me. The cursed "immortality" they'd forced on me would keep me alive, my body clinging to the smallest threads of life even as my spirit faded. I'd be stuck in the streets of the cybercity, suffering for eternity, waiting for the blood to finally drain my life away. I couldn't take it. A sob caught in my throat, and I cried, hot, silent tears slipping down my face. I was afraid, terrified. I didn't want this—I didn't want to die. Not like this.

"No…" I whimpered, a broken plea in the vast emptiness. "I don't want to die." But there was no one to hear me, no one to help. Soon, there would be no one left who even remembered me. I screamed, filling the void with raw, agonized cries, over and over until my voice should have given out. But it didn't, as if I were cursed to scream forever, the sound hollow against the unyielding darkness.

At last, my strength faded. I fell to my knees, hands pressed to the cold nothingness beneath me, and my eyes grew heavy. This was it. When I closed my eyes now, I would lose the last fragments of myself. I would be gone, spirit erased, consciousness snuffed out like a flickering candle. No light, no life. Just a hollow echo in the dark.

My eyes were closed, but my consciousness lingered, like a stubborn ember in the ashes. I'd expected it to fade, to slip away like a whisper in the void. But it didn't. Instead, a faint light danced behind my closed lids, pulsing softly, like the warmth of a dawn piercing through the thick of night.

Curiosity stirred within me, and I opened my eyes. Suspended in the air was a ball of light, wavering as if it, too, had a heartbeat. Without thinking, my hands reached toward it, fingers wrapping around the radiance. The light dimmed, peeling back like mist to reveal something resting in my palm. I sat up slowly, cradling it, feeling the soft hum of energy within.

Opening my hand, I saw it clearly: a metallic eye, framed in sleek purple metal with a jewel at its center—a flawless, iridescent violet, like the edge of twilight. I knew instantly what it was. A Rune. It shimmered, and as if it were alive, its glow intensified, washing over the void in a brilliant purple façade. The emptiness filled with light, illuminating shadows that stretched and shifted, retreating from the eye's powerful gaze.

…and then, everything disappeared. The glow consumed me, drawing me into its depths until there was nothing but the silence of the abyss, and the sensation of being unbound, of slipping through the cracks of reality itself.

In the final moment before the world fully vanished, I felt an odd calmness, as though the light had whispered something only my soul could hear—a quiet promise or perhaps an invitation. Then, like mist burned away by dawn, I was simply gone.

And yet… there was a sense, a fragment of awareness that lingered, like the faintest glimmer in the endless dark.