Midnight.
The hour hung like a blade between worlds. A breathless hush slid through the seams of reality—soft as silk, sharp as judgment. Beneath London, beneath the whir of machines and whisper of rain, beneath even thought, something ancient stirred. A great gear turned within the invisible clockwork of fate, its movement imperceptible but inevitable.
The pendulum swung.
And the world exhaled.
Shisan's eyes burst open—only to find himself consumed by the sea's cruel embrace.
Saltwater surged down his throat, burning and biting. His limbs thrashed, not from fear, but from instinct older than memory. Darkness swaddled him in icy folds, bottomless and smothering. The pressure of the deep bore down on him like the will of a god.
Up.
A fractured thought, a glimmer from some distant shore of recollection.
The void dragged at him, but something within refused. His muscles strained against the depths. His lungs convulsed. Consciousness narrowed to a singular imperative—rise.
Then—air.
He broke the surface with a gasp, more sob than breath. Salt scorched his throat as he coughed up despair.
The metal labyrinth.
It loomed from the mist like the rusted dream of a god long dead. Floodlights blinked through the fog like the eyes of tired titans.
Shisan hauled himself onto a scaffold, trembling and soaked, every breath a battle. His mind spun in slow spirals, piecing together a world he didn't yet understand.
A voice rang out, distant but growing closer.
"Oi! You alright?!"
Shisan squinted. A figure approached—strange, armored in bright-woven cloth that shimmered faintly like sunlight stitched into fabric. The man's outer layer pulsed faintly at the seams, runes of warmth and caution to Shisan's untrained eye.
In his hand, he carried a rod of metal and crystal that cast a solid beam of light—white and steady, unnatural in its stillness.
"You deaf, mate?" the man called again, waving the rod. "You look like you were spat out by a bloody leviathan!"
Shisan didn't answer. The cold gnawed at his spine. The stranger's words barely made sense.
The man jerked his head.
"C'mere. Dry off in the truck. Got a heater."
Truck. The word meant nothing, but heat—that word carried weight.
He followed.
The interior was cramped, reeking of wet wool, burnt oil, and something he couldn't name. The heater spat bursts of warmth in irregular intervals, like a reluctant fire spirit.
Shisan sat without a word, dripping onto the faded seats.
"You fall off a ship?" the man asked, amused. "No shame in it. Happens more than you'd believe."
Shisan stared at the vent coughing heat. Said nothing.
Then—sirens.
Red and blue tore across the fogged glass like the flashing eyes of judgment. The man's face tightened.
"Sorry, kid. Word is someone fitting your look's been poking around."
The man didn't look apologetic. Just resigned.
The doors opened with a metallic groan.
Voices. Commands. Cold metal on his wrists.
Shisan raised his hands.
No resistance. No struggle.
Only silence.
The building they dragged him into was nothing like the sacred halls he had once known. No warding sigils. No runes of protection. No scent of incense or blood or magic. Yet it reeked of power.
The walls were cold, seamless stone humming with some alien force—not arcane, but artificial. The floor gleamed with unnatural polish. Above, elongated crystals—cold, white, unblinking—bathed the world in sterile light.
They called it the interrogation room.
He sat across from a man whose eyes were bruised by routine. The officer looked at him the way one might study a locked door without the key.
"Name?"
Silence.
"Place of origin?"
Stillness.
"Why were you near the wharf?"
Shisan didn't move. His eyes tracked the ticking second hand of a clock. Each click was a nail. Each tick a law.
"Why did you break into that store and look into the camera?"
The officer frowned, frustration softening into weariness.
"Kid, you're not making this easy."
Shisan tilted his head, voice low, dry.
"Is it supposed to be?"
They searched him.
They took the G-Shock watch—waterlogged, scratched, yet still ticking.
They took the coin—an artifact etched with a sigil that defied language. Not quite geometric, not quite organic. A red-bellied instrument, like a war drum, surrounded by twin metallic discs—shields, or perhaps wings—depending on the tilt of light and mind.
They led him to a cell.
Steel walls. A cot. A flickering deity overhead that buzzed with the madness of endless light.
And then—footsteps.
Murmurs. Hesitation.
"You sure?"
"That's a Swarm coin," came the hushed reply. "One of the old ones. He's not just some stray. Not one you lay hands on—not without it circling back."
The door creaked open.
"You're free to go."
No apology. No charge.
Just freedom—barren and echoing.
London, again.
But not the city of postcards and postcards. Not the city tourists clung to with their flashing boxes and guided maps.
This was the other London—the one beneath the one.
The one that murmured to itself in forgotten dialects. Where shadows held their breath, and every brick remembered a ritual.
Shisan walked its streets unnoticed and unmistakable. He moved like something mislaid.
He stopped a vendor.
"Do you know where the Clock Tower is?"
A shrug. A chuckle.
"Clock Tower? You mean Big Ben?"
He asked again. A bartender. A magician with fading tricks. A busker whose strings wept rather than sang.
"No such place," they all said.
But the city knew. It knew.
It hummed behind the silence, trembled just behind the eyes.
Then—a whisper.
"You ask too loudly."
He turned.
From the edge of the crowd, a figure stepped forth like a note struck in a silent room.
She wore a crimson coat that clung to her like spell-woven skin. Her hair flowed in twin ribbons, black as secrets, bound in red as if in offering. She moved like a priestess of consequences.
But her eyes—those eyes—were frost and calculus. They didn't question. They assessed.
"You don't know what you're doing," she said, voice soft, yet it carried like commandment.
"I need to find the Clock Tower," Shisan replied.
She didn't argue.
"Walk with me."
She turned.
He followed.
Her steps were quiet, but each one rang through him like a tolling bell. She led him through arteries of neon and soot, into the marrow of the city—until they came to an alley shrouded in unnatural shadow.
She slipped inside without pause.
Shisan halted at the edge.
"Why here?"
"It's quieter," she said.
He entered.
The alley bent reality. The light behind him didn't follow. The walls seemed too narrow, too tall. The air hummed—not with magic, but with anticipation.
She stopped.
Turned.
"I don't know who you are," she said, calm and unblinking, "but the questions you're asking? They lead to places no one should walk."
"I need to know."
Her hand rose.
A ripple of runes flared, bright and swift.
Reality rippled.
The alley folded in on itself, now filled with twisting sigils that pulsed like breathing ink. Sound fled. Even the shadows dared not stir.
Her hand blurred.
The strike was mercy-shaped as violence.
Then—oblivion.
He fell.
Not down, but inward. Through memories not his. Through pain too familiar. Through legacies buried in marrow.
Then—breath.
Wet. Trembling. Real.
He was alone.
Rain fell, not like a blessing, but a verdict.
The alley was empty.
No sigils. No blood. No footprints.
Only the bruise flowering on his cheek.
He touched it.
And smiled.
"I won't forget."
Not too far, Claudius Mornveil stirred beneath a violet ceiling. The scent of ink and discipline hung heavy in the air.
The dormitory lights buzzed.
The pocket watch ticked.
The swap was complete.
And the war between them, once a whisper in the dark, now had a name. Now it had a heartbeat.