Chapter 1
A Boy Among Shadows
The clang of iron, sounds of bicycles and chatter of the crowd filled the morning air. A rhythm of the industrious town which echoes through the narrow streets of La Luna. The pale sun rose above the skyline, its light obstructed by the soot and smoke which filled the sky like a think dark veil. It was something everyone knew, it was called the great collapse. Blackened bricks, broken towers and even the smell of oil which hung in the air: all remains of the collapse which had ended ages ago.
Ross, Ross Hewitt adjusted the straps of the tool bag on his shoulder and stepped over the gutter. His hands were steady, his posture comfortable. His pale olive fingers flexed briefly, calloused tips brushing the strap, a habit born of handling rough tools.
He had walked these streets since childhood, though never as a child. Work had stripped that illusion from him early.
To the baker’s wife, Ross was the quiet boy who carried water without complaint. To the blacksmiths, he was one who sharpened dull saws and reset crooked hinges. To the city wardens, he was the orphan too sensible to stir trouble...... even with bad company. Everyone knew him; everyone praised him.
Ross however gave little thought to the praise. He did not work for affection or belonging, survival was the only currency he valued. Love was fleeting and unreliable. But a coin in hand bought bread and bread kept the body upright another day. These things he thought would never change.
This was the unspoken rhythm of his life: labor, coin, bread, repeat.
Yet beneath the plain exterior, Ross’s mind was far from simple. Others would see crowds in the market place, but ross, no he saw movement patters. He saw the lean of a loaded cart before the wheel split, the hesitation in a gambler’s hand before the dice fell, the loosened strap of a merchant’s pouch inviting a thief. He lived in calculations, each detail weighed and catalogued in silence.
It was this habit that made him pause, mid-step, when he noticed a figure loitering at the corner near the apothecary.
Milton Burke leaned against the stone wall, half-hidden in shadow. His frame was wiry, his hands restless, fingers twitching as if itching to trace something invisible in the air. Dirty blonde strands stuck up messily atop his head, as if he’d been running his twitchy fingers through them all morning.
Ross said nothing at first. He set down his bundle, unrolled a coil of wire and began repairing the lantern fixture above the apothecary’s door. Only when the silence stretched did he finally speak.
“You’re following me again.”
Milton stepped forward, his lips curving into a wry, near-manic grin. “Not following. Waiting. There’s a difference.”
Ross twisted the wire tight, his voice calm. “You could wait anywhere else. People are starting to talk.”
“They already talk, ” Milton replied, his tone half-bitter, half-amused. “Call me mad. Call me broken. Orphan Burke, seeing conspiracies in cobblestones. Let them. You know the truth of it.”
Ross descended the ladder, dusting off his palms. “I know you believe it.”
“That’s enough.” Milton’s gaze flared with a desperate brightness. “Enough to follow the clues when no one else does. Enough to see the patterns.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “They took my parents, Ross. They didn’t die in the Collapse like they say. Horizon took them. And now…”
He trailed off, biting at his lower lip, fingers trembling. Ross’s eyes flicked to the faint stain on Milton’s sleeve, the residue of powdered pills. Black-market stimulants, the only thing that slowed the chaos of his mind enough for him to speak in coherent threads.
“Now what?” Ross asked, though his tone held little curiosity.
Milton smiled faintly, as though he had expected the question. “Now they’re taking others too. I’ve seen the wagons at night, covered, guarded. I’ve tracked where they vanish beyond the outer quarter.” His voice faltered, but then steadied with quiet conviction. “There’s a pattern in their movements. A sequence.”
Ross exhaled, slow and steady. He had heard fragments of this before. Every week, Milton’s theories grew sharper, stranger. Yet behind the instability, there was always… something. Threads of truth tangled in madness.
“You want me to believe they’re hunting people in this city, La Luna” Ross said flatly.
“I don’t want you to believe” Milton murmured. His eyes burned with unshakable faith. “I want you to be ready.”
The words lingered between them, heavy, unsettling.
Ross returned to his work, climbing back to the lantern fixture. But his mind had already catalogued Milton’s claim, storing it alongside countless other fragments. He did not discard it. Ross never discarded anything.
As the lantern sparked back to life, casting a pale circle of light across the street, Milton stepped backward into the shadows. “You’ll see it soon enough” he whispered. “When they come for me.”
Ross glanced down, but the boy was already gone, swallowed by the maze of alleys.
For a long moment, Ross stood there, tools in hand, staring into the dim street where the city’s hum of commerce carried on as if nothing had been said. But within his chest, something shifted, a quiet recognition that Milton’s words were not mere ramblings.
They were a warning.
