Chapter 4
The First Clue
The voice commands Elias to identify one child. The pressure mounts as he realizes this isn't random; these children are tied to him, to a past he never knew.
The rough canvas scraped against Elias’s eyelids, a familiar, unwelcome sensation. He blinked, a futile gesture against the suffocating darkness. The air was cool, carrying the faint, sterile scent of aged paper and something else, something metallic and vaguely unsettling. He tried to shift, to push himself up, but his limbs felt heavy, sluggish, as if weighted down by an invisible force. A dull ache throbbed at the base of his skull, a phantom echo of the impact that had stolen his consciousness. He remembered fragments: a sudden lurch, a sharp cry, then nothing but the overwhelming void.
“You are awake.”
The voice. It sliced through the silence, devoid of inflection, yet possessing an unnerving authority that sent a shiver down Elias’s spine. It seemed to originate from everywhere and nowhere, a disembodied presence that filled the room, or whatever space he occupied.
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