Shadow knight

A boy ran through a narrow corridor.

It was dark.

He wore nothing but a hospital gown, and his body was anything but normal. Scars covered nearly every inch of his skin. Dozens of tiny metal fragments ran along his spine, forming a strange lining that stretched from his waist upward. Metal was embedded in his knuckles.

His eyes were bloodshot.

Almost completely black.

He was panicking.

His heart hammered against his chest as he desperately searched for a way out. Ahead, a faint light glimmered at the end of the corridor.

Then—

A hand reached out from the darkness.

It grabbed him.

And violently pulled him inside.

---

The alarms went off.

A boy suddenly woke in a simple bed, drenched in sweat. His breathing was heavy. His body was covered in scars.

He sat up and shook his head.

Something moved beneath his skin.

A small, black, parasite-like substance began spreading across his body. Several pieces of metal were attached directly to his flesh.

He quickly stood.

The boy was tall and muscular, with half-black, half-white hair and dark eyes. Despite everything that had been done to him, his room was surprisingly simple, clean, and tidy.

He looked about sixteen.

There was only one picture on the wall.

It showed a girl wearing military clothing.

For some reason, however, the picture was too blurry to make out her face.

Cane immediately made his bed.

Then he reached for a small container beside it.

Inside were several tiny blue pills.

He swallowed one.

Almost instantly, the black substance stopped spreading.

Cane released a quiet sigh of relief.

An AI system suddenly came to life.

"Sir, Cane. You have four messages."

"Play them," he replied.

His voice was soft.

Almost fragile.

The first message began.

"Hey, Cane. It's me, your sister. I hope you're doing great. You haven't been answering my calls, but it's okay. I hope you're doing well."

The message ended.

The second began.

"Hey. It's me calling again. I won't be home this year either. Things are still held up here."

Another silence.

Then the third message.

"Hey, kid. It's Theory. I got you that admission at Novel Academy. Where are you? You've got to attend, man. Your sister asked me to get this placement for you."

Finally, the fourth message began.

An old woman's voice filled the room.

"If you come down, pass by my place. I've got pie for you."

Cane stared at the floor for a moment.

Then he walked into the small shower beside his room.

The moment the water touched his skin—

Screams filled his mind.

People were begging for mercy.

Someone was crying.

Someone was screaming.

Blood covered his face.

Cane's heart began racing.

Then—

The alarm rang.

The sound violently dragged him back to reality.

Cane quickly turned off the water.

He brushed his teeth, changed into a simple pair of pants and a shirt, and left his room.

His bedroom opened into a small living room and a dining area that had barely been used since he moved in.

Several empty noodle cups were scattered across the living-room table.

Cane ignored them.

He walked out of the apartment and into the corridor.

The lights flickered overhead.

There were only two apartments in the entire corridor.

As Cane approached the exit, his neighbor suddenly opened her door.

"Cane! I told you to get some pie before you leave. It's nothing special. I've got blueberry."

She was an old woman in her sixties.

She also smelled faintly of cats.

"Thank you, Miss Miller."

His voice was so quiet it was almost a whisper.

He turned and walked out.

Sunlight immediately struck his eyes.

For a moment, everything was painfully bright.

Then he noticed the smell.

A foul stench filled the air.

Cane was in the slums.

Behind him stood the small apartment he called home. As he locked the door, the brightness of the sunlight seemed to fade beneath the grim reality around him.

Rows upon rows of makeshift houses stretched into the distance.

Above them, a massive blue dome covered the city.

Subways ran through the sky as Cane stepped onto the street, ready to begin another day.

Begging people lined the roads.

Children wearing barely any clothes wandered between the buildings.

Dogs tore at the remains of the dead.

Cane paid none of it any attention.

After all, he had seen worse.

Much worse.

And he remembered it clearly.

For ten years, those memories had never left him.

---

It had been a normal day.

Cane had been inside his house, arguing about something he could no longer remember.

Then—

BOOM!

Robots attacked.

Nobody knew where they had come from.

Rumors spread that an artificial intelligence had gone rogue, but that explanation made little sense.

Their technology was far too advanced.

Within seven months, the major cities had fallen.

The population had dropped to only forty percent.

And that was only the beginning.

The elites had foreseen the disaster.

They built bunkers.

Each bunker accepted only fifty people.

Getting inside became a nightmare.

People fought, begged, bribed, and killed just for the chance to enter one.

By the third year, food and water had become almost impossible to find.

People became cannibals.

Those who had not been accepted into the bunkers wandered outside, hoping to survive just one more day.

---

Cane walked out of the slums and into the subway tunnels.

The tunnels were nothing like the clean transport systems above.

Workers manually repaired the tracks, carrying heavy pieces of metal from one section to another.

Cane joined them.

He lifted metal pipes and helped carry them toward the workers repairing the damaged railway.

The heat was brutal.

Flames dazzled around the tunnel.

The air smelled of sweat, metal, and fire.

The place was a miserable, suffocating hole.

But it was a job.

And a job meant survival.

Cane continued delivering repair materials from one location to another.

Hour after hour.

Until noon.

Then his watch vibrated.

The AI spoke.

"You have a new message. It is your sister."

"Play it."

Her voice filled his ear.

"Hey, Cane. I think it's time you go to school. You can't keep living like this. You also get a point allowance of six hundred. That's more than you're getting from your job, so please do it for me."

Cane stared at the ground.

Then he ignored the message.

He continued working.

When break time finally came, the workers sat together and ate their meals inside the hot, foul-smelling tunnel.

Cane took out the pie Miss Miller had given him.

He stared at it for a while.

It was probably the best thing he had eaten in days.

He sighed.

"It's not that I don't want to go to school."

He looked down at the pie.

"I just think it'll be another messed-up place. Maybe worse than where I am."

He was so lost in thought that he didn't notice the three men approaching.

They were large.

Muscular.

All of them looked to be in their forties.

One of them stopped directly in front of Cane.

He wore a dark suit and had a heavily muscular build.

"How about you share that pie?"

Cane looked up.

"I can't. She got it from Miss Miller. It's my food for today."

His voice remained slow and timid.

The man's expression hardened.

It sounded less like a suggestion now.

More like a command.

He reached toward the pie.

Then a voice cut through the room.

"Leave the kid alone."

Everyone turned.

A woman stood nearby.

She looked to be around twenty-six.

Her blonde hair was tied into a ponytail, and both of her arms were cybernetic. She wore a heavy armored uniform.

Two other patrol officers stood behind her in matching gear.

She was their leader.

A detective in the patrol unit.

At least, she had once been.

After a falling-out with her superior, she had been reduced to managing this miserable section of the city.

Cane recognized her.

The three men immediately backed away.

The woman looked at him.

"Cane. My office. Now."

Cane followed her through the building.

The two other patrol officers remained behind to supervise the workers.

Eventually, they reached her office.

It was packed with documents.

She sat behind the desk.

"Take a seat."

Cane sat down.

The woman studied him.

"Look, I'm going to keep this short. I've been investigating you."

Cane said nothing.

"Your past, specifically."

She leaned back.

"You're too quiet. Too good at avoiding attention. Apart from your residence card, I found nothing."

She paused.

"No records. No previous jobs. No friends. Nothing."

Her eyes narrowed.

"I thought you were a ghost."

Cane lowered his gaze.

"I really didn't do much in my past. My sister looked after me. I was sick back then."

His voice was barely audible.

The detective stared at him.

"What about the cybernetics?"

Cane clenched his fist.

The black parasite beneath his skin shifted.

He could feel it moving.

"Sorry, madam. I have to end my shift."

Before she could respond, Cane stood and left the room.

He closed the door behind him.

The moment he was alone, he pulled out the pill container.

He swallowed another blue pill.

The parasite stopped moving.

Cane looked down at the container.

Only a few pills remained.

"This should push me through today."

He returned to work.

He continued until late at night.

When his shift finally ended, sixty points were transferred to his watch.

Cane walked home.

Rain poured from the dark sky.

The streets were almost empty.

His head was pounding.

He kept walking.

Then his legs gave out.

He collapsed.

Everything went black.

When Cane opened his eyes again, several dogs were licking his body.

They were preparing to eat him.

A woman suddenly appeared and chased them away.

Cane slowly sat up.

His head throbbed.

He looked at his wrist.

His watch was gone.

Everything he needed to survive had been stored on it.

His food allowance.

His points.

His records.

Everything.

He searched his pockets.

Luckily, nothing else seemed to be missing.

Or so he thought.

Cane dragged himself home through the rain.

When he reached his apartment, he found a small package sitting outside his door.

Miss Miller had left him some food.

He picked it up.

Unlocked the door.

Walked inside.

And collapsed onto the floor.

He was exhausted.

---

The next day, Cane woke up burning with fever.

His entire body felt as though it were on fire.

His breathing became heavy.

He reached into his pocket.

His fingers searched desperately for the medicine.

The blue pills.

He needed them.

Now.

He pulled out two pills and swallowed them, then bolted for the bathroom. He tore off his clothes, stepped into the shower, and let the water fall over his skin. Half of it was already covered by the parasite. Wherever the water touched it, it evaporated into steam. A moment later he vomited up both pills.

Then he saw himself.

"It's time we talk, Cane."

"No!" Cane answered.

(A beat begins to play...)

(It's my alter ego's fault) he rushed out of the bathroom, back into the sitting room, grabbing for the pills.

Dark veins split up from the floor and speared through his hand, pinning it in place. His body convulsed, twitching like something with no control left over itself.

The parasite spoke. "You know you've been trying to kill me with that drug for a whole year."

(This evil thought could be so dark..)

Cane said nothing. He clenched his jaw and

stayed silent while the parasite kept spreading.

"You won't talk? Let me show you."

It stood. Using Cane's own body, it walked to his sister's picture and smashed the frame — a hidden camera fell out from behind it. Then it destroyed the bed frame. The showerhead. The kitchen counter. The TV.

The parasite settled by the door. "You've been living like a bird in a birdcage, Cane. Still not talking, are you?"

It stood, walked out the door, and broke into Miss Miller's apartment. The house was tidy. Five cats scattered at the sight of him, fleeing from the thing that now had most of Cane's body wrapped in a dark, pulsing green metal.

The house was silent. The old woman was asleep on her couch, a glass of water sitting on the table beside her. It picked up the water jug and poured it over her face.

"Evening, Miss Miller. Or should I say — the cat cannibal."

Her eyes snapped open. The moment she saw Cane like this, she froze. "Cane…"

"Oh, I'm not him. I'm his ego. I have a few questions for you. The cameras — why?"

"I—I did it because—"

Cane's hand shifted, reshaping itself into a blade. He drove it into her before she could scream — she was already gagged by then. She sat there in pain for a long minute before he pulled it free.

"You little—" Her head came away and rolled across the floor.

"A shame. I would have let her live. She made good pies." He laughed.

Then Cane's own voice broke through. "Why did you do that? You sick—" He drove his fists into his own face, again and again, until it was unrecognizable. Then he started laughing. "There you are. The Cane I remember." He kept laughing. "Why did you have to come out? I finally had a good life. Even if it was a lie."

"Oh, spare me the bullshit, Cane."

He stood. His ruined face knit itself back to normal as he walked deeper into the house, toward a computer in Miss Miller's bedroom. A voice-changer program was still running — mid-call, speaking in his sister's voice.

"Here's something you never knew. Your sister hasn't called you once this whole year. It was her the entire time." A glance back toward Miss Miller's body. "I've hacked every system in this dome. I still haven't found your sister."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Cane demanded. "Why did you drug me?"

"I have a question for you, Cane. Are you ready to go back to how it was? Back to the blood? I'll help you find your sister."

"I hate you, Carol," Cane answered.

With that, he snapped his fingers. A green flame kindled on his hand, and liquid metal poured over him, hardening into full armor — black, veined with emerald lines, with eyes of its own. He stood there in the burning house and watched it burn.

---

The birdcage is the most silent and beautiful prison. Like a bird, it is fed and given a sense of peace and security — while its freedom is slowly taken away. Just like every human in this cursed dome.