Dust In Lies

Gasp.

My eyes flew open like someone had ripped me out of death. Cold air stabbed my lungs. I sucked it in, coughing, wheezing, gasping like a man clawing out of a grave. My heart pounded like it was trying to escape my chest.

“Ngh—what the fuck…?”

Blood.

Sticky. Dry. All over me. My shirt was torn down the middle, stained rust-red. The cloth hung in tatters, crusted around my chest. But when I touched the skin beneath it—nothing. Smooth. Intact.

No wound.

But the pain was still there. Deeper. Like the memory of being torn open still lingered inside my nerves.

I blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of where I was. The chamber was silent. No wind. No voices. No presence.

The man in black… gone.

The weight he carried—gone too.

“Celis…”

Her name fell from my lips before I could even think. I turned.

She was crumpled on the floor a few feet away. Still. Pale.

My breath hitched.

I tried to move. My body screamed back. My legs gave out. I hit the ground hard. The jolt rattled my ribs.

The pain wasn't just from the fight. It was in my soul. I still felt that place—the white nothing. The void. That thing. That spirit.

I dragged myself across the stone floor, each movement like dragging my body through glass. My fingers scraped the ground. Blood smeared beneath me.

“Just—hold on…”

It took everything. Every ounce of strength. But I made it to her.

I turned her over gently, cradled her in my lap. Her head lolled. Her breathing was shallow.

“Celis. Come on. Say something.”

Nothing.

I felt like I was going to fall apart. Right there. My hands were shaking. My heart was in my throat.

I opened her bag. Rummaged through it with clumsy hands.

Herbs. Poultices. Wraps. I didn’t know what I was doing—but I had to try.

I chewed one leaf, pressed another into the wound that no longer bled. My abdomen pulsed with heat and nausea.

“Ah—fuck—”

But the pain began to dull. Just enough.

I sat there for a while. My back against the cold wall. Celis in my arms.

I looked around.

Still silence.

But then—

Wind.

A breeze, faint but unmistakable, brushed my skin.

I froze mid-step. Every hair on my neck stood up. There was no wind in this place. No sky. No surface. No vents. It wasn’t possible. And yet—I could feel it.

It was cold. Gentle. But it carried a scent I couldn’t place. Old. Metallic. Like air that hadn’t moved in a thousand years suddenly remembered how.

I turned slowly, as if expecting to see someone behind me. But the corridor was empty. The silence, however, had changed. It wasn’t passive anymore. It watched.

The breeze curled along my jawline, brushing past like a whisper that didn’t belong to any mouth. My skin prickled, not with cold, but anticipation.

I stood, legs trembling, and tried to push forward. My left leg protested with searing pain, and I let out a strangled grunt. Still, I limped on.

I had to know. Had to follow the wind.

The corridor narrowed into a spine-like hall, the floor uneven with patches of broken stone and shattered symbols. My footsteps echoed—too loud, too alone.

Each time my foot hit the ground, it was like something echoed it back a second later.

I kept moving.

And then I saw it.

A room—not like the rest. Not carved. Constructed.

Its walls weren’t stone but seamless metal, almost liquid in its smoothness. It wasn’t just placed here—it was grown inside the ruin, like a tumor of forgotten technology.

The surface shimmered faintly, covered in swirling glyphs that seemed to shift when I wasn’t looking at them directly. My chest tightened. I remembered those symbols.

Celis. The Thousand-Year Lore. The language of the sealed ones.

I ignored her once when she tried to explain them to me. Dismissed it as myth. Stories. Ritual garbage.

Now they were glowing softly before my eyes.

And they were humming.

And they were alive.

Celis had told me. And I hadn’t listened.

Now those words glowed softly across the walls, pulsing in a rhythm that matched something in my chest.

I approached the door.

Hesitated.

Something in my blood told me not to.

But I had no choice.

I pushed it open.

A blinding light roared out. Pure and angry.

I shielded my eyes. Blinked until I could see.

And when I did—

There it was.

A strange, metallic hatch was embedded into the stone floor—its surface aged, but untouched by decay. Heavy, reinforced, and slightly ajar, like it hadn’t been opened in centuries but had recently stirred. There was no seal, no glowing rune—just silence and pressure, like the space itself was bracing for something beneath it to awaken.

Above it: a crystal. No, not a crystal. Something older. Alive.

It pulsed.

And then—

Dchrnk… dchnrk…

The hatch groaned.

Movement. From below.

I stepped back.

Fingers. Pale. Slipping through the gap.

Bent. Sharp. Wrong.

I choked.

“No—no no no—”

I ran to the exit.

It slammed shut.

Locked.

I was trapped.

The fingers twisted in the gap, knuckles bending backwards, bones cracking into positions they shouldn't have been able to reach. Nails—no, claws—scraped the metal rim with a high-pitched screech that shot through my spine like a needle.

Something behind that hatch wanted out.

It didn’t rush. It didn’t roar. It waited. It knew.

A second hand joined the first. Thin. Veined. Pale like wax and trembling like it remembered life and was trying to mock it.

I screamed.

Louder than I thought I could.

I stumbled backward, dizzy. Blood throbbed in my ears. My knees gave out, not from weakness—but from fear.

"I don’t wanna die again," I gasped. My voice cracked. "Not again... please."

The light from above flared. Not warm. Not divine. It flickered like a dying fluorescent bulb — erratic, wrong.

And then—metal groaned.

The hatch began to shift.

Something massive was pressing from underneath. Slow. Deliberate. With the intent of being seen.

The pressure changed. The room felt smaller. The air turned dense like wet cloth, heavy with an ancient rot.

My vision swam. My mouth tasted like iron.

It was coming through.

The edge of something slid into the opening—shoulder? Mask? Skull?

I couldn’t tell. I didn’t want to tell.

I crawled toward the door.

It didn’t budge.

Locked.

I pounded on it. Weakly. Futilely.

The light flared again. And that thing beneath the hatch—it started to hum.

No. Not hum.

Breathe.

GASP.

White.

But not the void.

Ceiling tiles.

Fluorescent lights.

Beeping.

A monitor hummed steadily to my right.

I was in a hospital bed.

IVs in my arms. Bandages wrapped around my forearm. A needle in the back of my hand.

The sterile scent of antiseptic hit like a slap—clean, too clean. The kind of smell that tried to mask fear with chemicals.

My chest rose fast.

I jolted upright, lungs screaming.

I tore the IV from my hand. Blood spotted the cuff. My skin was ice cold.

“Celis?”

No answer. Not at first.

Then—

“Rick? Oh my god, you’re awake!”

A woman’s voice. Cheerful. Familiar. Too familiar.

Rick?

No. That wasn’t my name. That had never been my name.

My heart thudded faster. I turned. Pulled the curtain with trembling hands.

Light poured through.

A window.

I staggered toward it, breath ragged. My fingers brushed the cold metal frame. I hesitated.

Then opened it.

A gust of warm air hit my face.

“What the fuc…?”

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SEASON 1 END