The Abyss

Chapter 2: The Cracked of the Abyss

The air in the Testing Hall turned to ice as the instructor stared at the orb. It remained a dull, lifeless gray.

"How can this be? He is an Eldrion!" Lucas’s voice cracked, the sound echoing off the high stone walls. The instructor only shook his head, his hands trembling as he stepped away from the pedestal.

"Not a single point," the man whispered. "The orb didn't even flicker."

Before my parents could bridge the distance to the podium, a sound like a mountain splitting apart drowned out the room. The sky above the academy didn't just darken it shattered. A jagged, obsidian rift tore through the clouds, and from the throat of that void, a hand the size of a siege engine reached down. It was gray, ancient, and wreathed in a suffocating mist.

The Hand of the Abyss.

Sirens began to wail across the city, a high-pitched scream that signaled the end of the world. My father and mother didn't hesitate; they became blurs of steel and light, leaping toward the monsters crawling from the rift. I stood rooted to the spot, my heart hammering against my ribs, a ghost in the middle of a war zone.

Then, I saw him.

A man stood at the threshold of the hall, perfectly still amidst the screaming students. He didn't wear armor, yet he looked more dangerous than the giants in the sky.

"Who is that?" I pointed, my voice barely a breath.

Lucas and Valencia didn't answer. They lunged. My brother’s blade whistled through the air, and my sister’s hands glowed with lethal energy. The stranger didn't even draw a weapon. With a flick of his wrist, a shockwave of invisible force sent them both skidding across the marble floor. They collapsed, conscious but paralyzed, their eyes wide with disbelief.

I opened my mouth to scream for my father, but a shadow fell over me. A sharp, cold sting struck the base of my skull. My vision swam, the gold-leafed ceiling spinning into a vortex of black. The last thing I saw was my father’s face a mask of pure horror as the stranger hoisted me over his shoulder and stepped back into the closing tear of the sky.

Silence fell as the rift snapped shut.

When the medics arrived, the hall was a tomb of dust. Lucas scrambled to his feet, his fingers digging into the debris. "Sebastian!" he gasped, his lungs burning. "Where is he?"

My father stood by the shattered pedestal, his shoulders slumped, his cape tattered. He didn't look at his son. He looked at the empty air where the sky had broken. "Gone," he rasped. "The Abyss took him."

Valencia sank to her knees, her hands pressed to her face as the first sob broke through. "H-how? Why him?"

Celestine stood beside her husband, her regal chin trembling, a single tear carving a path through the soot on her cheek.

Dominic finally turned, his gaze hardening into a cold, flinty resolve as he looked at his remaining children. "We wait," he commanded, though his voice shook. "He carries the Eldrion name. He will not break."

Outside, the family’s banners still fluttered proudly in the wind, signaling strength to a terrified city. But inside the hall, beneath the golden armor, there was only the hollow ache of a father who had let his son vanish into the dark.