With the first light of dawn, they set out as two unlikely companions navigating the restless streets of the city.
Even in the silence of morning, Arin noticed the artificial harmony in Kael’s stride; rhythmic, almost unnaturally consistent… like a person, but not quite.
“Have you read what I left in the file?” Kael asked, eyes fixed on the road.
“There were general facts, but no specifics,” Arin replied, glancing over his shoulder. He was briefly struck by the quiet authority in Kael’s voice.
They'd reached one of the city's poorest districts, where even the sun seemed hesitant to shine. As they entered the neighborhood, every window revealed a pair of watching eyes. Every household seemed burdened with the fear of the missing children.
After a brief pause, Kael spoke. “Three siblings. The youngest is four, the middle one is six, the eldest is eight. Their names are Liva, Biren, and Mika.” Kael nodded to himself. “Yes. After midnight, around 1 a.m. The father, Deyran Oakheart, woke up and noticed the children weren’t in their beds.”
“Maybe they ran away? Or someone took them?” Arin said impatiently.
“The windows and the front door were locked from the inside.” Kael paused. “The beds were also neatly made. The children’s clothes, down to their underwear, were laid out carefully on the bed.”
Arin’s expression tightened with curiosity. “That’s strange.”
Kael continued without reacting. “Also, the clock in the room had stopped. At exactly 00:59.”
“What about the mother?” Arin asked.
“Sile Oakheart,” Kael said. “The father woke her up after realizing the children were missing. But there’s not much to get from her statement because she’s in a catatonic state.”
Arin wondered if that was truly just trauma. “Did the father report it to the authorities?” he asked.
“Yes,” Kael said. “The father is thirty, works as a street vendor, and the mother is a housewife. An ordinary family, no previous metaphysical experiences, no suspicious connections.”
Arin thought what suspicious links but said nothing.
They paused in front of one dilapidated building squeezed between others on the narrow street. No one was in sight. Kael scanned the surroundings and then headed for the steps. Arin followed.
Kael knocked three short raps. Footsteps sounded inside; the door creaked open.
A tall man, face etched with exhaustion, appeared. Dark circles under his eyes and an unkempt beard framed his hollow gaze. Behind him, dimly lit by the entrance, stood a woman who was silent, like a ghost.
“Mr. Deyran Oakheart?” Kael asked.
The man nodded slightly. “Yes, that’s me.”
“We are on duty on behalf of the Empire. You should have been notified of our arrival.”
"Yes, sir," Deyran replied, moving aside to open the way. The woman remained motionless in the shadows. Her eyes barely blinked as they locked onto Kael.
As Arin entered, a thick dampness and the smell of aged wood greeted him. The house felt spiritless, and each step made him more uneasy. Arin thought about saying a few kind words to the family about their children, but he realized it would be meaningless. He chose to remain silent.
Deyran paused for a moment, then turned to look at him with curiosity.
“Aren’t you, sir, the hero who saved that mother and her daughter in the big fire in the neighborhood?”
Arin glanced curiously at the man, then at Kael.
Kael opened his mouth as if about to deny it, but said instead, “That’s a bit of an exaggeration, but yes.”
Deyran gave a faint smile. “Maybe you’ll save our sons too,” he said, looking just a little more hopeful now.
Kael nodded solemnly but offered nothing else to nurture that hope.
Arin narrowed his eyes suspiciously, wondering about the real reason a hero had to end up babysitting.
Deyran led them to the first room. His voice strained. “This is the children’s room.” He glanced at his wife. “We’ll leave you to work.”
Kael visually scouted the room, then turned to Arin. “This is where the children were last seen.”
Arin followed his gaze and spotted the mother standing just behind the door, eyes locked on Kael but her gaze was hollow, vacant.
The simple beds lay pushed to one corner, curtains still drawn, and the children’s belongings awaited their owners neatly on the floor. Arin sniffed the air as if searching for a clue. He expected whispers of Azimushan but felt only a faint tingling beneath his skin.
“Has anyone in the street spoken to them?” Arin asked, still unsure why his expertise was required.
“No one heard or saw anything, and even if they did, they wouldn’t say,” Kael replied, stepping through the room.
“So… what do you expect me to do in this case?” Arin glanced at the mother before adding in a softer voice, “Should I smell their clothes and search the city for them?”
Kael pulled a kind of small flashlight from his pocket and switched it on. The beam cycled through shades of blue to green. He trained it on the wall. Arin watched the device flicker between colors. It hummed with a disturbing intensity, and amidst its spectral display, something shimmered. The hues pulsed into purple before fading back.
Arin jumped back a step, his hand reflexively brushing his ring, but he forced himself to remain steady.
“This is a plasma detector. It senses unseen energy shifts in the room,” Kael explained, his tone that of a teacher. Arin wondered what plasma even was.
Kael, as if reading his mind, added, “Energy residue.”
“So according to this device, what does that imply?” Arin pressed, still struggling with the science.
“Normally, every mortal or spiritual being leaves behind energy. But that energy is passive and stagnant. It clings to air, floors, even walls.” Kael reactivated the device. Shortly after, something shimmered in mid-air and disappeared. “But this... this is active.”
Arin searched for its source.
“It seems to be rotating,” Kael tilted his head. “It passes through here about every three seconds.”
Arin exhaled, steadying his voice. “What does that mean?”
Kael met his gaze. “I don’t know. This isn’t my field, it’s yours. That’s why they called you in.”
Arin frowned. “All right. Can you estimate the return path?”
Kael’s expression, usually stony, briefly faltered in an almost exaggerated reply: “Of course.”
He scanned the room with the device while Arin strained his vision, hoping to see something.
“Did anyone search this room before us?” he asked.
“Of course,” Kael answered. “The team searched every inch of the place.”
Arin involuntarily glanced at the woman outside. Poor thing, whatever she’s feeling… he thought.
Unable to stop himself, he whispered, “Mrs. Oakheart, we’ll do everything we can.”
The woman remained unresponsive as Deyran reentered and took his wife’s arm. “Sile, dear, come inside. If we step aside, they’ll do better work.” His tone carried a weary hope.
But Sile didn’t move. Her eyes stayed fixed, but this time on the bookshelf. Arin realized that at the last moment before his gaze had seemed to penetrate the bookcase itself.
He turned to Kael. “Kael?”
He didn't respond. He was focused and absorbed in his work, and the device hummed every three seconds.
Arin crept toward the bookshelf. Beneath the hum, he heard a soft, irregular tapping.
Approaching cautiously, he began to inspect the shelves overflowing with miscellany. He was searching for something out of place… anything.
Outside, both father and mother watched him: one expressionless, the other curious.
Finally, Arin found a hollow.
“Kael,” he raised his voice, “did they really search every inch of this place?”
“Affirmative,” came his distant reply.
His fingers met something firm and rounded. The surface was rough, its edges cracked. He carefully pulled it out, initially thinking it was just a toy. It fit in his palm, bronze in color, though he couldn't tell if it was metal. Yet, its spiral shape was clear, with subtle raised lines at its center that seemed more like random scratches than any true art. The tips at the beginning and end were pointed.
Kael sensed the shift in tension and turned. “What is it?”
Arin said nothing and held it to the pale window light. The edges caught the glow, casting its pattern onto the opposite wall: twisting curves that curved toward the center. It was definitely a spiral, but not symmetrical. Some lines touched, while others broke abruptly, as if a child or someone without artistic skill had scratched it hurriedly.
“A spiral-shaped object, but I can’t make out what it’s made of,” Arin finally said.
At that moment, the device hummed again, this time louder. Kael’s face tightened.
“Wait... the plasma seems to trace the object's shape, spiraling around it.”
“What?” Arin whispered.
“It’s resonating with the object,” Kael paused. “In other words… it’s in resonance.”
Arin’s heart raced, but he held his composure. The object felt warm and tremored slightly, an alarming sensation.
For the first time that day, Azimushan’s voice echoed in his mind:
“Master… This shape… it’s connected to our dimension.”
His fingers trembled as he stared at the spiral. He remembered scribbles he’d drawn as a child; he’d seen a rough version of this in old journals. Back then he hadn’t thought much of it. Now… it felt like familiar.
“This feels so familiar,” he whispered.
Kael studied him. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know it, but… it feels like I should.”
He checked the plasma reader. “Every spiral turn changes frequency. Like… some energy is trying to do something.”
“I guess it’s trying to open a gate,” Arin said softly.