Tales of Fate - EN

The rain was no ordinary downpour. It was a needle-sharp curtain dissolving the city.

Elara fought her way through the narrow streets. With every step away from the university, something in her grew quieter. Classifications. DNA sequences. Hard facts. As if they were simply sinking into the brackish water of this district.

The raindrops fell slowly.

Or was she imagining it?

She didn’t know. She was still thinking. Going over everything again. Aris’s words, his voice, that look.

In her head, the echo of Professor Aris lingered.

Aris was a walking paradox at the faculty. A man with a sharp, almost electrifying mind, who seemed as though he had just woken from a very long sleep. His absent-mindedness was legendary. He was forever searching for his horn-rimmed glasses, which were either perched on his nose or buried somewhere between yellowing manuscripts and cold cups of coffee.

“You must look there, Elara.”

His voice had been rough. Dry.

He had pushed a cup aside to make room for a crumpled address.

“Science measures only the surface. The glitter of the waves.”

A brief pause.

“But the Nocturum preserves the core.”

In that moment, his absent-mindedness had fallen away like a mask. His gaze had turned, for one heartbeat, crystal clear. Sharp. Strangely watchful. A look that did not suit the man who, five minutes later, would fumble awkwardly for his pen and apologise almost for his own existence.

But he had given her the address.

And he had not smiled.

Now Elara stood before the heavy wooden door.

The wood was dark, almost black. In the pale light of a faintly glowing green lantern, it looked damp, as though it were breathing.

She hesitated.

Then she pressed the handle.

The metal was cold. Too cold.

When the door opened, no bright chime rang out. The sound was deep, drawn-out, foreign. A groan like old ship’s timber. The distant tolling of a buoy in fog.

Not metal. Something organic. Hollow and heavy.

It echoed within her.

“Good afternoon.”

Her voice sounded muffled. As though the room were swallowing it.

The air was different here. Heavier. It smelled of old parchment, of resin, and of something she recognised.

The sea. Not the surface. The depths.

“One moment. Just one moment.”

The voice came from the back of the shop. A dull clattering. A muttered curse.

“Where have I put them again. Wretched short-sightedness.”

A man stepped out of the shadows. Not Aris. And yet similar. He wore a waistcoat stained with ink, his hands grey with the dust of old folio volumes. He stopped. Blinked. His fingers groped across his forehead until they found the glasses tangled in his hair.

“Ah. There they are.”

He put the glasses on.

“Aris told me you’d be coming. Elara, isn’t it.”

He adjusted the glasses.

For a moment, she saw it.

The smile remained. But not in his eyes. There was something else there. Calm. Watchful. Unyielding. A look from some great depth.

He did not look at her as a student.

But as something one had to understand.

“Welcome to the Nocturum.”

The bell above the door gave a final dark reverberation. Almost like a whisper.

“This is where stories become true.”