Finally, the powerfully built man with the scarred knuckles stepped forward and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his voice was rough, like stones grinding together. The sound echoed slightly from hidden speakers in the towering walls, making his presence even more intimidating.
"My name is Kael," he said flatly. "Beside me are Mara," he gestured to the older woman with ancient eyes, "and Jian," pointing to the fidgety youth who immediately stopped moving under Kael's gaze. "We have awakened, and we hope you will too."
He paused, letting those words sink in. "You're here because humanity needs more people like us. You're here to face the soul plague head-on and potentially awaken."
Kael paced slowly across the platform. "Forget everything you think you know. This isn't some disease you catch like a cold. Now, it's an initiation. Soon, one of us," his eyes flicked toward Jian and Mara, "will grant you a 'key.' This key triggers the rinshu storm within your soul."
A murmur of fear rippled through the crowd. Kael ignored it.
"The moment the storm hits," he continued steadily, "your consciousness gets torn away. You'll find yourself... elsewhere. Think of it as a passage. A hallway between who you are now and who you might become. We call it 'The Bridge.'"
He stopped pacing and faced them directly. "Inside the Bridge, your soul begins to corrupt. You'll face a manifestation of that corruption—something unique to each of you. Your only job is to destroy it." He offered no details on what these manifestations might be or how to fight them.
"Succeed," Kael said, the word hanging in the air, "and you cross the Bridge. Your body and consciousness transport again, this time to what we call the New World." He gestured vaguely. "Fail..." His voice dropped, becoming chillingly final. "...and your soul shatters. Your body becomes one of the beasts, and at that point, you're dead."
A hand rose hesitantly from the crowd. "The New World... what's it like?" someone called out with a trembling voice.
Kael's lips twisted into what might have been a grim smile. "Hell," he answered simply.
Another voice, bolder: "How do we get back? From this... New World?"
Mara, the older woman, answered this time. Her voice was surprisingly soft yet carried unexpected weight. "Once you enter the New World, you can't simply return. You must find an exit. Another Bridge, created by those who came before, or..." she paused, "...you must reach a point where you can create one yourself." Again, no further details were offered.
More hands started rising, questions bubbling up, but Kael raised a hand, instantly silencing the room. "There's nothing more to say that will help you now. Your survival depends on your will alone." He turned, nodding curtly to the guards lining the walls. "Prepare them."
The brief but terrifying orientation ended. Guards moved in with blank faces and began directing the conscripts out in orderly lines. The low murmur of fear returned, broken occasionally by someone crying. Hill felt numb as he was guided along with the others, back into the sterile corridors.
In his mind, he'd already accepted that his life would end. He had no special talents, no extraordinary intuition, nothing remarkable about him. He was his family's failure, a directionless outcast waiting for fate to sweep him away.
Yet he knew exactly how afraid he was. The future ahead seemed too overwhelming to even think about. So he forced himself to focus only on the present, becoming a numb shell walking toward inevitable death.
They weren't taken back toward the entrance but deeper into the facility. The lines broke up, individuals pulled away one by one, escorted by guards down branching hallways. Hill was led to a small, featureless door. A guard unlocked it, motioned him inside, and firmly locked it behind him.
The room was small and cube-shaped. Thick gray padding covered the walls, floor, and ceiling. No windows, no furniture—just the sealed door and a dim light overhead. Solitary confinement. A waiting room for his soul's execution or transformation.
"An Awakened will administer the key shortly," the guard's muffled voice came through the door. "Do not resist."
Then, silence.
Hill slid down the padded wall until he sat on the floor, knees pulled to his chest. He had no idea how long he waited. Minutes stretched into forever, each heartbeat echoing strangely in the soundproofed space. He tried calming his breathing, tried preparing himself, but his mind kept replaying Kael's words: Fail... and your soul shatters.
The heavy thud of the lock made him jump. The door swung open, revealing Jian, the young Awakened.
But he was different now. The nervous energy was gone, replaced by chilling seriousness. His eyes were hard and focused. And he was splattered with something dark and wet—blood, Hill realized with horror, mixed with chunks of gore clinging to his clothes. He looked like he'd just walked out of a slaughterhouse.
Jian stepped inside, the door clicking shut behind him. He didn't look at Hill right away, instead wiping a smear of red from his cheek with the back of his hand.
"W-what happened?" Hill stammered, pressing himself against the padding, his voice barely a whisper.
Jian finally met his gaze. The intensity in his eyes was startling. "Have you steeled your mind?" he asked, his voice low and steady, nothing like its earlier nervousness.
Steel his mind? For what? For the pain? For the horror of The Bridge? For possibly becoming a monster? Hill felt sick. He swallowed hard, the sound loud in the small room. He managed a jerky nod.
Jian closed his eyes briefly. When he opened them, his right hand was outstretched. From empty air, a simple wooden staff appeared in his grip. It looked ancient, humming with an energy that Hill couldn't quite comprehend.
Before Hill could react, Jian stepped forward and gently tapped the end of the staff against Hill's chest, right over his heart.
Agony. Pure, overwhelming agony erupted from that point, carving through every nerve in his body. It wasn't just physical pain; it felt like his own thoughts was being ripped apart before he could even realize them, shredded by a mind-numbing storm. His vision blurred, darkness closing in from all directions. The padded room dissolved around him in a blur. His last sensation was of falling, endlessly, into an abyss of pain and screaming chaos.