Chapter 2: The Empty Place

Cold came first.

Not the sharp bite of winter air or the sting of ice against skin—but something deeper. A cold that seeped inward, wrapping around bone and thought alike, dragging Kaiser upward from nothingness inch by inch.

Sound followed.

A distant drip. Slow. Patient. Like the world was counting time without him.

Kaiser’s fingers twitched.

Pain answered immediately—dull, heavy, everywhere. His chest felt tight, his limbs leaden, as if gravity itself had doubled while he slept. Breathing took effort. Each inhale scraped against his throat, dry and bitter.

“Kaiser… hey, come on. Still with me?” Kai’s voice cut through the haze—sharp, urgent, stripped of its usual sarcasm.

Kaiser didn’t respond. He couldn’t yet. His eyelids fluttered, refusing to open, his body stubbornly clinging to the dark. The last thing he remembered was pavement rushing up to meet him—then weightlessness. Falling without wind.

That hadn’t ended.

It had changed.

“Hey!” Kai snapped, voice tight. “No passing out on me. Get up—now. Open your eyes so we can figure out where the hell we landed

That did it.

Kaiser’s eyes cracked open.

Dark stone stretched above him, uneven and jagged, the ceiling lost to shadow. Faint light bled in from somewhere unseen, just enough to paint the world in gray and black. The ground beneath him was cold rock, rough against his back, damp with moisture.

This wasn’t the street.

This wasn’t anywhere they knew.

Kaiser swallowed, his throat burning. He tried to sit up.

His body refused.

Muscles screamed in protest, trembling weakly before collapsing back into the stone. His heart began to race, panic pressing against his ribs as he tested his fingers, his toes. They moved—but sluggishly. Like he was waking up after a fever that had lasted weeks.

“That’s new. Okay…” Kai’s voice was small inside his head, almost trembling. “This is really not good.”

Kaiser turned his head an inch at a time. The motion made his vision swim.

Kai hovered nearby.

Or rather—appeared to.

Kaiser exhaled a shaky breath.

“…You’re still hereWhere the hell are we?,” he murmured.

“Unfortunately,” Kai replied. “No damn idea.”

Kaiser tried again to move, rolling onto his side. The effort left him gasping.

“This isn’t a manhole right?,” Kaiser said, voice hoarse.

“Nope,” Kai agreed. His gaze swept the cavern slowly. “We could have smelled sh*t and see rats."

Kaiser clenched his teeth and forced himself upright, bracing an elbow against the stone. His hands shook violently, but he stayed up this time, hunched forward, breathing hard.

The air smelled wrong.

Metallic. Old. Like rust soaked into wet stone.

“Did we die?” Kaiser asked.

Kai didn’t answer immediately.

That alone made Kaiser’s stomach drop.

“…I don’t think so,” Kai said at last. “Death usually has better pacing. This feels more like—”

A sound echoed through the cavern.

Not the drip.

Footsteps.

Slow. Heavy. Deliberate.

Kaiser froze.

The sound came again, closer this time. Stone scraped against stone. Something armored shifting its weight.

Kai’s head snapped toward the darkness.

“…—like we got dumped somewhere we weren’t supposed to be,” he finished.

Kaiser’s heart slammed against his ribs. He struggled to his feet, legs wobbling beneath him. Every instinct screamed at him to move, to run—but there was nowhere to go. The cavern walls closed in on all sides, broken only by narrow passages swallowed by shadow.

Another step.

Then another.

A shape emerged from the dark.

Tall. Broad. Encased in dull metal that caught the faint light and twisted it into warped reflections. Its helmet lit with purple flame, the visor dark and unreadable. One gauntleted hand rested on the hilt of a weapon Kaiser didn’t recognize—too long, too heavy. 

It moved with a sickening, silent grace that no man in plate armor should possess. The purple flame in its visor didn't flicker; it pulsed like a heartbeat.

Not anything Kaiser had words for.

The thing stopped several paces away.

It tilted its head.

Kaiser’s breath came shallow and fast.

“Hey,” Kai said, voice tight. “I’m going to say this once.”

The armored figure shifted forward.

“Whatever that is,” Kai continued, “it’s not here to help.”

Kaiser’s legs trembled—but he didn’t fall.

He clenched his fists, nails biting into his palms, grounding himself in the pain. He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know why he was here.

But he knew one thing.

If he collapsed now—

He wouldn’t get back up.

The armored figure took one final step forward.

And Kaiser braced himself for the fight he didn’t understand, in a world that offered no explanations.