Breakthrough

Echoes of the Past

Levi

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The dull throb in my head pulled me from my usual sharp focus, a nagging ache I hadn’t felt in a long time. Tired. For the first time since I crossed from the Underworld, I felt weary—bone-deep exhaustion seeping into me like a parasite. It was foreign, unwelcome, and yet I could do nothing to push it away.

I sat on the worn-out couch across from Mateo, who was sprawled out on the other side, breathing steadily. His bruises were already beginning to swell, but the fool still had a faint smirk on his face even in sleep. Despite everything, he was peaceful, as if the fight he’d been through was nothing more than a game.

I had no reason to stay. I should’ve left him to his mess the moment Jeff and his brute companion backed off.Darkness wrapped around me. The air was stifling, thick with the metallic tang of blood and damp stone. My wrists burned where the ropes dug into my skin, binding my arms behind me. My mouth was gagged, dry, and cracked from thirst. Every breath felt like fire in my chest.

I wasn’t just tired; I was beaten, broken.

Mateo was nothing to me. And yet… he could see me.

I leaned back, eyes narrowing at the ceiling, trying to piece it together. How could this man see what no other mortal could? It didn’t make sense. Perhaps if I waited, I’d get my answers.

But waiting felt heavier than it should have, and before I could stop myself, I let my eyes close.

---

Darkness wrapped around me. The air was stifling, thick with the metallic tang of blood and damp stone. My wrists burned where the ropes dug into my skin, binding my arms behind me. My mouth was gagged, dry, and cracked from thirst. Every breath felt like fire in my chest.

I wasn’t just tired; I was beaten, broken.

A creak echoed through the room, the slow groan of a door swinging open. I forced my head to lift, though it felt like my neck might snap from the effort. Blurred figures stood in the doorway, a man and a woman. Their voices, though muted, were sharp enough to pierce the haze in my mind.

“He's been here too long,” the woman said. Her tone was cold, clinical. “We need to move him before they find us.”

“Patience,” the man replied, his voice smooth, almost amused. “We’ll handle him soon enough.”

I strained against the ropes, sweat mixing with blood as I writhed in the chair. My captors were faceless shadows, but there was something familiar about the man’s voice, something that made my stomach twist.

They approached me, slow and deliberate. The woman lifted something—a burlap sack, rough and filthy. She brought it closer, and just before it slipped over my head, the dim light caught the man’s face.

A pair of glowing green eyes.

Mateo.

Then everything went black.

---

I jolted awake, gasping as if I’d been suffocating. My hands were trembling, a cold sweat clinging to my skin. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was—the vision still clung to me, dragging me down like quicksand.

Then the room settled around me: the dull hum of a ceiling fan, the faint smell of cigarette smoke, and the snoring figure sprawled out on the couch. Mateo.

I glanced at him, my pulse still racing. He was the same reckless i***t I had pulled from that alley, but the memory—vision—was vivid. It was impossible. Mateo couldn’t have been the man in the dream. He wasn’t supposed to be part of my past.

Unless… he was.

I sat up slowly, my eyes narrowing as I studied him. His face was softer now, bruises aside, and there was no trace of the cold, cruel look I’d seen in the vision. Yet those eyes—the ones that burned in the shadows—were the same.

But it couldn’t be real. Could it?

I stood and walked to the window, watching the neon lights of the city blur in the night. The vision had left more questions than answers, but one thing was clear: Mateo wasn’t just a nuisance. He was a key to something bigger, something I didn’t yet understand.

I would find out what that something was.

For now, I waited.

---

Two days had passed since I last saw Mateo. He vanished into the city like a shadow, leaving me with more questions than answers. Despite the nagging curiosity, I didn’t try to find him. My focus remained on the mission, the cryptic riddle I was sent here to solve. Yet, the fact that he alone could see me gnawed at the edges of my thoughts.

The streets of the human world were both fascinating and repulsive. The noise, the color, the perpetual rush—so unlike the stillness of the Underworld. I drifted unseen through the crowded streets, watching, observing, learning. No one noticed the ghost among them, save for the occasional brush of cold air that made them shiver. Except Mateo. He could see me.

At night, the streets quieted, leaving only the hum of distant traffic and the flicker of neon lights. This was when I encountered them—the wild spirits. They were the cursed souls of ancient humans who had practiced dark arts, condemned to wander the earth as wretched shades. Some were aimless, hollow-eyed, and broken. Others still clung to remnants of who they once were, desperate for connection.

I didn’t seek them out, but they found me. They always did.

One of them, a hunched figure with a translucent face half-eaten by time, approached me one evening near an alley. His voice was a rasp, hollow and distant.

“You’re not one of us,” he hissed, eyeing me with a mixture of curiosity and wariness. “What are you doing here?”

“None of your concern,” I replied, my voice cold.

He chuckled, the sound like dry leaves scraping across stone. “You carry the scent of the Underworld. But you walk freely here. Strange.”

I said nothing, and he eventually drifted away, muttering to himself. They were harmless for the most part, just remnants of misery.

The chill deepens. I stretch out on the roof, letting the night air settle around me. Then, I hear it—faint at first, but growing louder. Screams, shrill and desperate. I sit up, eyes narrowing. Three pale, ghostly figures streak through the alley below, chasing something darker, wilder—a furie.

Furies are different. They are wild spirits twisted by rage and madness. This one moves like a shadow, darting between buildings, hissing in defiance as the others pursue it. The three white shadows—guardians or perhaps hunters—close in, their forms shimmering with an eerie light.

I leap down from the roof, landing silently in the alley below. I keep to the shadows, watching the chase unfold. The furie snarls, its form flickering like a flame about to be extinguished. It’s cornered now, pressed against the wall by its pursuers.

For a moment, I consider stepping in. Not to help—why would I? But to understand. To see if there’s something in this encounter that might unravel the riddle of my mission.

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