black dust

Chapter 1: The Call of the Void

It wasn't even nine in the morning, yet the sun had been completely obliterated behind a thick, suffocating shroud of that cursed black dust.

In his modest fourth-floor apartment, he stood watching the scene with a cold, practiced detachment—a stark contrast to the raw terror of his neighbors, whose frantic screams echoed through the hollow corridors like ghosts of a dying world.

As a former elite special forces soldier, Adam had learned long ago that fear is the primary enemy, a poison that clouds the mind and paralyzes the limbs.

He knew that composure was the only weapon that truly separates the living from the dead in the face of the unknown.

With calculated, rhythmic precision, Adam finished sealing the window frames with industrial-duty tape, pressing the adhesive down until his fingers ached.

The dust outside was unlike anything he had witnessed on the front lines of scorched-earth combat; it wasn't ash from a conventional explosion, nor was it common desert grit or volcanic debris.

These were microscopic, crystalline particles moving in a strange, serpentine spiral, defying the laws of gravity and physics, as if they were sentient entities possessing a dark, collective, and predatory will.

"Damn it... even the high-frequency military radar can't track this thing," Adam muttered, glancing at an old radio receiver he had kept from his years of grueling service.

The device emitted nothing but a hollow, white noise—a static hiss that seemed to choke the very air in the room, vibrating at a frequency that made his teeth ache.

It was the sound of a world being systematically erased from existence.

His mind drifted back five years to a clandestine mission in the borderlands, where he had first heard hushed whispers of the "Silent Weapon."

It was a ghost story told by weary soldiers over dying campfires to pass the time, Was it possible that this dust was the perfected version of that nightmare project? Had the shadows finally found a way to manifest in the physical world? He felt a familiar tightening in his chest, the same sensation he had before the first bullets flew in the desert.

Suddenly, the power cut out with a sharp, final snap, plunging the apartment into a thick, artificial twilight , A profound, tomb-like silence washed over the room, broken only by a faint, rhythmic scratching against the main door.

It wasn't a knock, nor was it the sound of a hand seeking entry in desperation, It sounded like sharp, keratinous talons slowly dragging across the wood, savoring the texture of the barrier before breaking it.

Adam moved with fluid grace, his body instinctively reclaiming its "combat memory" as if he had never left the field of war.

He retrieved his tactical knife from the kitchen drawer, the cold steel feeling like a natural extension of his own arm , He approached the door with footfalls that made no sound, his breathing slow, deep, and controlled.

He pressed his ear against the cold metal, and for a moment, the blood froze in his veins , It wasn't a random noise, but a distorted, mangled human whisper that seemed to vibrate from within the door itself:

"Adam... open up... the air is beautiful out here... the blackness... the blackness is calling us... why do you resist the inevitable transition?"

The voice bore a haunting, unmistakable resemblance to his neighbor, Old Man Mansour , But it was cracked, dry, and hollow, as if his vocal cords were lined with coarse sandpaper and ancient soot.

Adam recoiled, his grip tightening on the knife until his knuckles turned white , He knew for a fact that Mansour had died of a massive heart attack exactly a week ago.

He had seen the body being carried away , He had attended the quiet funeral. How could a dead man be standing behind that door, whispering his name? Then, he saw it: a thin, ethereal ribbon of black smoke began to seep under the threshold, crawling across the white tiles like a hunting viper, leaving a faint, scorched trail behind it as it moved toward his boots.

He had no choice , The "Black Dust" wasn't merely an atmospheric phenomenon or a freak of nature; it was an invasion of a different, more terrifying nature.

Adam moved toward his concealed locker, grabbed his heavy military rucksack, and began packing concentrated rations, ancient topographical city maps, and a professional-grade gas mask with dual-carbon filters. He checked the seal on his water canteen twice, knowing that clean water would soon be the most valuable currency on earth.

"If this is the end of the line, I won't die caged like a rat in a hole," he whispered .

He stole one last, lingering glance at his service portrait on the wall—a man from a world that no longer existed, standing in a uniform that felt like a costume now. He grabbed his high-voltage stun gun and headed for the window overlooking a narrow back alley.

The main hallway was a death trap, a corridor of shadows.

The city he once swore to protect had transformed into a merciless "Black Graveyard," a labyrinth of obsidian and ash where the rules of engagement had been rewritten by the void.

He opened the window with agonizing slowness, trying to prevent the hinges from shrieking.

A frigid gust rushed in, carrying a heavy, metallic scent that reminded him of sulfur and scorched blood.

Adam vaulted onto the fire escape, his boots clattering softly on the iron as he began his descent into a world that no longer recognized human laws.

He slid down the metal ladder with a predator’s silence, his eyes scanning the gloom for any sign of movement.

His tensed muscles reminded him of an old knee injury from "Operation South," a sharp pang that flickered with every step. But the adrenaline surging through his system was enough to mute the pain.

When his boots finally hit the alley floor, they didn't click against the pavement .

Instead, they sank into a thick, heavy layer of dust that had already accumulated to ankle-height.

The texture was bizarre—not brittle ash, but a viscous, oily substance that seemed to cling to his boots, resisting his every movement as if the street itself were trying to hold him back.

He activated a small infrared flashlight, keeping the beam low and focused; in this darkness, ordinary light would be a beacon for whatever scavengers or entities lurked in the gloom.

In the narrow, flickering beam, he saw a mangled police cruiser, its door swinging open like a broken wing.

The driver’s seat was coated in dark, jagged stains that weren't dust—it was blood that had reacted with the black particles, crystallizing into something resembling shattered obsidian glass.

There were no bodies, no corpses on the street, and that was the true horror , The Black Dust didn't just kill; it seemed to consume its victims, absorbing them into its mass or fundamentally altering their atomic existence.

Suddenly, the very earth beneath him trembled with a low-frequency hum.

A muffled, subsonic roar echoed from the city center—not the cry of an animal, but the sound of grinding tectonic plates or shifting monoliths.

He remembered the old, forgotten subway tunnels that passed directly beneath this alleyway.

"If the surface is compromised, the tunnels are my only hope for egress," he reasoned with tactical clarity.

Before he could take another step, a shadow darted with lightning speed behind the rusted trash bins. Adam froze, drawing his silenced 9mm pistol in one fluid motion.

"Show yourself... I know you’re there. I don't miss at this range," he said, his voice a hollow, lethal rasp that cut through the silence.

From the shadows emerged a small child—or what was left of one , His body was entirely sheathed in a shimmering, shifting coat of black dust, and his eyes... they were two bottomless pits of pure shadow, devoid of any white, any iris, any human soul.

The child didn't cry, nor did he look afraid; he simply opened his mouth to emit that same fractured, multi-tonal whisper that Adam had heard at his door:

"Adam... why are you late? The others are already here.

Everyone is waiting for you inside the dark."

A paralyzing chill raced down Adam’s spine , This "thing" knew his name , Without further hesitation—knowing that a split second was the difference between life and death—Adam didn't waste a bullet on a target that might not even be physical.

He threw a small flashbang in the opposite direction to create a massive diversion and sprinted toward a nearby cellar entrance.

Inside the cellar, the air was heavy, stagnant, and tasted of old copper. His flashlight revealed walls covered in "scars"—deep grooves carved into the concrete by the dust itself.

He crouched behind a heavy iron barrel, catching his breath. He checked his military watch; the hands were spinning backward in a frantic, impossible circle.

"Time itself is broken here," he muttered, realizing the gravity of his situation , He opened his small leather notebook and wrote on the first page: Day One , The city has fallen , The dust speaks in familiar voices. And I still remember my name... Adam.