Soulless Soul

Chapter 1: Code Red

The rain came down like knives.

Sky trudged through the alley, shoulders hunched, his black tunic plastered to his thin frame. Water ran in rivers off the broken awnings, dumping straight onto his head. The bitter cold soaked past the wet cloth and deep into his bones.

He sighed, though the sound barely made it past his lips. "My day can’t get any worse than this, right?" Dark circles ringed his eyes—the kind born from too many nights without sleep and too many days without food. Mud caked his ankles. His breath fogged in the damp air.

He turned the corner too fast.

A man in a long grey coat, ducking under a shop canopy for shelter, barreled out at the exact same moment. They collided. The man stumbled back, arms windmilling, and crashed into a dented trash can. Metal screeched. Garbage spilled across the wet pavement.

"Can’t you watch where you’re going!" the man barked, shaking rain and coffee grounds off his sleeve. He looked Sky up and down—the soaked tunic, the bare feet, the grime on his face—and his lip curled. "Dirtying my coat, you little rat."

Before Sky could answer, the man stormed past him and shoved into the warm glow of a restaurant across the street, the door slamming shut.

Sky stayed on the wet ground for a second longer than he needed to. The rain kept falling, drumming on his head, on the pavement, on the trash. For a moment, it felt like he was the only person left in the world.

That thought made something hot rise in his chest. Anger.

He looked up. Across the alley, a floating news screen flickered to life above a shop window, protected from the storm by a thin energy field. The anchor’s voice was crisp, entirely too cheerful for the weather.

"...and once again, General Vance and his cohorts have finished clearing the dungeon gate that appeared in District 9. Casualties: minimal. Loot recovered: substantial. Let’s all give our gratitude to our protectors."

The screen cut to footage of armored soldiers walking out of a glowing crack in the air, dragging massive crates behind them. People in the footage were cheering.

Sky stared at it, then looked down at his own trembling hands. "Gratitude," he muttered.

He forced himself up, water dripping off his clothes, and started walking toward the massive concrete building at the end of the street. It had no windows, one heavy door, and a line already forming outside despite the downpour.

The rusted sign above the entrance read: Department of Calls and Housing.

Inside, the air was even worse than the storm.

Suffocating heat, sweat, and the stench of wet clothes hit him the second the doors slid open. People packed the lobby. Clerks shouted names. Files spilled from overstuffed carts. A mother argued with a guard while dragging two crying kids behind her. A man in a suit sprinted past, knocking into someone without stopping to apologize.

Sky joined the back of the line. It moved agonizingly slow.

In front of him, a woman in a fur-trimmed coat was losing her mind at the counter.

"What do you mean my son has to share a room with this lowly peasant?" she shrieked, pointing at a boy about Sky’s age. The boy stared hard at the floor. "Do you know who my husband is?"

The officer behind the desk didn’t even blink. He wore a sharp dark suit, held a pen in hand, and had completely tired eyes. "Sorry, madam. We don’t do exceptions here. If you want a private room, go find someone else to handle it for you."

The woman gasped as if she’d been slapped, grabbed her son’s arm, and stomped out, her heels clicking furiously on the tile.

"Next."

It was Sky’s turn.

He stepped up to the counter. The officer looked up, his expression shifting from annoyance to mild disgust. First an angry madam, and now a kid who looked half-drowned and halfway to the grave. Skin too pale. Lips chapped. Tunic hanging off his skeletal frame.

"What do you want, kid?" the officer asked, already reaching for the next intake form.

Sky glanced left, then right. The ambient noise of the room swallowed his voice, so he cleared his throat and leaned in closer.

"I’m here to take my place in the sleep cage," Sky whispered. "I was called. By the dungeon array."

The officer’s pen froze. "Hmm. Is that so?" His eyes narrowed with deep suspicion. Lately, too many vagrants had been coming in claiming they were Called just to get a warm bed and a meal, only to disappear before their assigned shift. The Department had lost patience—and money.

"Because of people like that, we had to install this," the officer said, sliding a small object across the counter.

A gem. White as fresh snow and perfectly round. It sat on a black velvet pad, glowing faintly from within.

"This is a Calling Gem. Place your hands on it." Sky looked at his own hands. They were filthy—mud from the fall, grime from the alley, nails cracked. He’d avoided this place for weeks out of sheer terror of what a Call meant, but hunger had finally won. He raised his hands anyway.

The officer watched him with thinly veiled revulsion but said nothing.

Sky pressed both palms flat against the gem.

For half a second, nothing happened.

Then, the pure white began to darken. Veins of pitch-black ink bled across the surface. The inner glow died instantly. The gem vibrated violently in his hands— And exploded.

Shards rained over the counter. The velvet pad smoldered, scorched completely black. The sound was like glass breaking inside his skull.

"What the hell!" The officer shot to his feet, his chair screeching loudly against the tile.

Other people in line flinched, turning toward the noise. The officer’s disgust vanished, replaced by sudden alarm.

"When did you hear the Call?" he demanded, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper.

Sky scratched the back of his neck, rainwater still dripping down his collar. "Well... maybe... a month ago? Give or take."

The officer’s face drained of color. He didn’t even speak. His hand slammed down on a large red button on his desk.

A siren cut through the noise of the building. Sharp. Urgent. Defeating.

"Code red! Code red! I repeat, code red!"

People started moving frantically. Armored guards burst from the side doors. The orderly line dissolved into instant chaos.

Sky just stood there, staring at the pile of black dust where the gem used to be. Rain was still dripping off his hair onto the scorched counter.

A month ago. And he was only reporting it now.

The officer was already speaking into a comms device, his eyes locked onto Sky like he was staring at a ticking bomb. "We’ve got a Delayed Resonance. Gem detonation on contact. Possible Class-3 or higher. Send backup to Counter 4 immediately."

Sky didn’t move. He could feel every single eye in the room turning onto him.

Outside, the rain kept falling.

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