Part 1: Into the Sink
The Sink wasn't on any maps anymore.
It used to be called District 9B-Glass — a city block built over an old resonance mine. But after the last Lock Event twelve years ago, the whole place twisted inward like it had been sucked through its own reflection.
Now the ground collapsed and rebuilt itself in slow-motion cycles. Structures blinked out and returned at slightly different angles. Sound echoes came early, or late. And time — if you stayed too long — stretched.
People who wandered in alone usually came out talking backward. If they came out at all.
Which made it the perfect place to hide.
Cael crouched under a sunken support bridge, his breath hitching, one hand pressed to his ribs. The cut from his earlier escape hadn't clotted right — the blood shimmered faintly where it touched the Keymark on his arm.
He looked at the brand again.
Still there.
Still quiet.
Still wrong.
What the hell are you?
He didn't expect an answer. But something in the air felt different since he touched it — like the world was… aware of him.
Not watching.
Just… noticing.
He shuffled deeper into the Sink's shadowed ruins. The buildings here leaned at unnatural angles, windows melted into themselves. Every so often, the sky above glitched — just a flicker — like the Lock beneath the zone stirred in its sleep.
Lock Zones.
That's what people called them.
No one knew how many existed — but most of them were sealed, forbidden, or prayed at from a safe distance.
Some said the Locks were gods, bound by guilt.
Others believed they were machines, built by dead civilizations to cage something unspeakable.
All Cael knew was this:
If something has to be locked away from the world… maybe it's the world that's the problem.
He collapsed against a wall of fused glass and let his head drop back.
He needed to think.
He needed to breathe.
He needed the mark off his arm.
End of Part 1.
Part 2: Keymarks Don't Burn
He found an old heatpipe still sparking inside a half-collapsed generator nest. It hissed faintly — not real fire, but enough to scorch metal.
Cael didn't hesitate.
He yanked a strip of flatsteel from the rubble, held it against the pipe until it glowed orange-red, and pressed it to his forearm.
Sssshhkkk—
He hissed through gritted teeth, eyes clenching shut as the pain knifed up his shoulder. The metal seared his skin, blistering instantly. Smoke curled.
When he pulled the steel away, the skin underneath was a raw, quivering burn.
But the Keymark?
Still there.
Unchanged.
Perfect.
It shimmered slightly — as if the pain had only made it clearer.
Cael stumbled back, heart racing.
No. No, no, no…
He reached for his belt, yanked free a wirehook — jagged at the end — and slashed across the mark.
Blood sprayed. Skin tore. He gritted his teeth again, fighting the white bloom of pain behind his eyes.
It didn't matter. He just had to—
Tear it off. Rip it out. Just get it off me.
He made another cut.
And another.
Then paused.
The blood was… stopping.
Not slowing — stopping. Reversing. Unbleeding.
The mark pulsed once.
"Enough."
The word wasn't in the air.
It was inside him.
Like a memory he'd never had. Like his own voice — only deeper. Wiser. Older.
He froze.
The mark flickered. Just a blink — a shimmer of light beneath the skin, like a gear rotating once.
Then nothing.
Cael dropped the hook and staggered backward until his back hit the warped glass wall.
His breaths came in sharp, shallow bursts. His arm throbbed. His eyes burned.
It talked. It talked. It talked back.
This wasn't just a symbol.
It wasn't just some cursed brand.
It was… alive.
No — not quite. Not a person. But not passive either.
It was a circuit.
A channel.
A door.
And now something behind that door knew he was listening.
He sat there shaking, staring at his arm, too afraid to touch it again.
Not because he thought it would hurt.
But because he was afraid…
he might answer back.
End of Part 2.
Part 3: The Man with the Teeth Sack
Cael didn't hear him approach.
There were no footsteps. No gravel crunch. No breath.
Just the slow, wet slap of bare soles on stone — and the smell.
Rot. Metal. Vinegar and old blood.
Cael spun around.
A figure stood at the edge of the light — hunched, twitching, draped in something that might have been fabric once. It clung to him like wet skin.
But what made Cael's stomach twist wasn't the robe.
It was the sack tied to the man's belt.
A rough leather pouch. Bulging. Leaking.
And around its drawstring — dozens of human teeth, strung like charms.
The man sniffed the air.
Then smiled.
His teeth didn't match.
"The mark," he rasped. "I smelled the burning. It's here."
He stepped forward, slow, like a drunk sleepwalker.
"It bloomed, didn't it? The Key's first breath. I saw the sky twitch. I heard the dirt hum."
"You felt it wake up inside you, didn't you?"
Cael backed away, breath catching.
"Stay back."
The man giggled — a wet, scraping sound.
"It's not yours, boy. You're just its carrier. A mistake. A shell."
He reached into the sack and pulled out a curved bone blade, stained dark and lined with small script etched in uneven hand.
"But it's okay. I'll peel it out of you nice and clean. You'll be empty again. Free."
Cael gripped his wirehook, hand shaking.
"Don't come closer."
"You think I haven't done this before?" the cultist said, tilting his head. "We've all carried it. All of us. But none of us deserve it."
His voice cracked, shifting mid-sentence into something higher, almost childlike.
"That mark doesn't want you, you know. It's looking through you. It's looking for someone."
He lunged.
Cael dodged sideways, the blade catching the edge of his coat. He slammed the hook into the man's shoulder, but it sank in with no resistance — like stabbing warm dough. The man laughed, twisted his neck, and headbutted Cael square in the mouth.
Stars. Blood. Sharp metal against teeth.
Cael hit the ground hard, vision swimming. The cultist was on him in a flash, pinning his arms.
"Don't fight. It'll go easier."
The bone blade hovered over his arm.
"We'll give it back to the world. We'll make it clean."
And then the Keymark pulsed.
End of Part 3.
Part 4: The Key Opens Without Consent
The Keymark pulsed.
Not light. Not heat.
Presence.
A ripple passed through Cael's arm like liquid thought — and the moment it did, the world around him cracked.
The cultist's blade froze mid-air.
Not stopped. Just… stuck.
Like time was pausing, but only for intention.
His face began to twitch.
And then he spoke.
But not to Cael.
"I… wanted my mother to be proud of me."
The man blinked. Confused. Panicked.
He tried to speak again — but the words weren't his choice.
"I lied about hearing the Lock. I never did. I just wanted to be part of something."
He covered his mouth.
His eyes widened.
"What—what's—why are you making me—?"
His mouth moved again:
"I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy. I wanted to matter."
He screamed — a choked, gurgled sound, clawing at his own jaw like he could rip the truth out before it spilled.
Cael stared, frozen, heart hammering.
The mark on his arm glowed cold silver, the spiral briefly completing itself before fracturing again — a loop trying to close.
Around them, the air shimmered like heat off metal. The stones vibrated faintly. The walls bent inward.
Is this… what the Lock does? It doesn't just change the world — it forces it to confess.
The cultist howled, stumbled backward, blood seeping from his ears.
He dropped the blade.
Cael didn't wait.
He surged forward, slammed his shoulder into the man's chest, and drove him toward the edge of the flux pit behind them — a circular wound in the ground where geometry twisted into spirals.
The cultist lost footing.
One step too far.
He fell — screaming not in fear, but in shame — and the pit swallowed him like water swallowing breath.
Gone.
Cael collapsed to one knee, trembling.
The glow faded.
The Keymark dimmed.
The pressure lifted.
But something inside him felt irreversibly different.
Not stronger.
Not in control.
Just…
opened.
End of Part 4.
Part 5: Names in the Dark
The outpost was a husk.
It used to be a survey station — once part of a reality-mapping grid that collapsed during the last Flux Surge. Now it was just dust, metal bones, and walls slumped like dying animals.
Cael found a narrow space behind a rusted terminal rack and slipped inside.
It wasn't safe.
Nowhere was.
But it was dark, and quiet, and for now, it was enough.
He sat with his back to the wall, arms wrapped around his knees, breathing through cracked lips.
His coat smelled of blood. His teeth ached. His mind felt like it had been scraped raw and left in the sun.
He kept staring at his forearm.
The Keymark didn't glow now. It just sat there. Inert. Passive.
Like a locked door.
Waiting.
You opened. I didn't ask you to.
The memory of the cultist's voice echoed again:
"You're just its carrier. A mistake. A shell."
Cael closed his eyes.
I'm not a shell.
But what if he was?
He leaned his head back against the metal and let his breathing slow.
Outside, the wind didn't blow right. It moved in spirals.
He felt it tug at his thoughts, like invisible fingers trying to peel his name loose.
That's when he heard it.
A voice.
From the dark just outside the broken doorway.
Soft. Familiar.
"Cael."
His eyes snapped open.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
The voice came again — not loud. Not threatening.
Just… true.
"You shouldn't have touched it."
He rose slowly, every joint stiff with tension.
Drew his blade.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
Only the wind, curling.
He stepped to the edge of the doorway and looked out.
Nothing.
Nothing on the road. Nothing behind the rocks.
Not even tracks.
But he knew what he'd heard.
And worse—
No one alive should have known his name.
End of Part 5.
End of Chapter 2: "Keymarks Don't Burn"