CHAPTER I: RAIN AT THE END OF THE WORLD

It started with rain- the kind of rain that doesn’t fall, but devours. Thick sheets of water poured from a sky so dark it looked bruised, angry. Caelridge had always been a city soaked in grey, but today. It was bleeding. The clouds had opened like a wound above the cemetery.

Noen Saerun stood at the edge of his sister’s grave.

His coat was heavy with rain and sorrow. His hair clung to his face, and the mud beneath his boots swallowed every step like it wanted to pull him down and bury him beside her. Around him stood a loose crowd of mourners, all faceless in the downpour, black umbrellas tilted, faces hidden, silence as thick as a fog.

Fourteen years old.

That’s all Reina had. 

She had been more than his sister. She had been the only thing in his life that still smiled like it believed there was something left worth smiling for.

And now she was gone.

Noen stared down at the polished mahogany coffin, hands trembling in his pockets. He didn’t cry. He couldn’t. The tears were gone. Burned away in the fire. Stolen. Like everything else.

“From sorrow we return to stillness. From stillness, to silence.”

The priest’s words droned like static, but Noen barely heard them. The wind caught the edges of the man’s robe, flapping like a dying bird. 

A ceremonial Mourner’s Bell hung at the priest’s side. Its chime was forbidden now. Ritual grief wasn’t allowed without clearance from the city.

Because grief called them.

The Silence act was passed five years ago, after the Mourner incident in the eastern boroughs. Now, mourning in public required regulation. Candles could not be lit for the dead without permits. Loud sobbing was considered dangerous.

You weren’t allowed to grieve too loudly in Caelridge.

Noen thought that alone was proof the world was broken beyond repair.

He barely noticed the people dispersing. Most were strangers, state attendees, hired to fulfill the “minimum presence clause” for a child’s burial. The city did not believe in unattended funerals. It made the souls restless.
But Reina would have hated this. All the coldness. All the fake prayers and fake crying. She deserved more than a hollow coffin and regulation priest.
She deserved to be remembered.
He stayed after the others left. The cemetery was quiet now, save for the rainfall hissing through the trees. Noen crouched down in the mud, ignoring how the wet soil seeped through his pants. He lit a cigarette with shivering hands. The flame flickered, almost went out. Almost. 

He took a drag and whispered into the smoke. “I’m sorry Reina.. I should've come home sooner.”

He remembered the last thing she ever said to him, the night before the fire.

“You always leave when it gets quiet.”

He hadn’t answered her then. Now, he never could.

The rain deepened. The wind stilled. And then he heard it. A sound that didn’t belong. Was it a hum? So quiet it almost sounded like his own blood was moving in his ears. But it grew louder, slow, and steady. A vibration beneath the world.

He stood up, cigarette dropping from his lips, eyes scanning the graveyard. Then…

It stepped out from behind an angel statue, taller than any human had a right to be.

Its limbs were long, wrapped in tattered black bandages that fluttered despite the stillness of the air. Its body was narrow, emaciated almost, like it was made of regret held together by cloth. But its face…

Its face was a smooth white mask, cracked down at the center, leaking something black…

A mourner. Real. Not a story. Not a report on the underground forums. Noen’s heart froze. The mourner moved silently, drifting across the wet grass. It didn’t disturb the puddles. The rain didn’t touch it. It was wrong in the way dreams feel wrong once you wake up. Then it did the impossible. It stopped. And it knelt. Slowly, reverently. Its head lowered. Like it was praying… to him.

Noen’s breath caught in his throat. Something ancient stirred behind his ribs. Like an echo. He stumbled back, boots skidding in the mud. His back hit the cold bark of a tree. The mourner remained still. Then it raised its head, just slightly. And beneath the mask, there was no face. Only a soft violet light. Faint. But pulsing. The hum stopped. It vanished. Noen blinked, and it was simply gone. But where it had knelt, the grass had turned grey. Like grief had touched it and left a fingerprint. He stayed there for hours. Soaking. Trembling. Because something had awakened.

And he didn’t know if it was inside him..

Or following him.