Fog clung to the shattered city like a shroud, thick enough to swallow sound. Above it all, seven moons hung in the sky, circling the original. Deep blue, purple, emerald, orange, yellow, covered with a colorless face, a combination of the rest—casting fractured light across the ruins.
Some of the buildings had fallen only recently; fresh breaks in stone, splintered beams still smelling of sap. Dust hadn't yet settled on the scars. But most had long been there, accustomed to their bent and broken structure.
In the shadow of a collapsed suburban home, a man crouched among the rubble. He wore a brown suit and matching vest over a grey shirt, clothes too fine to manage in a ruined city.
The man was muttering words too low to catch.
"That should do it," He whispered, voice cracking under the cold.
He was waiting for the whispers. They could come at any moment. He should be done any second.
But nothing happened.
He stared at his surroundings a moment longer, then pressed his forehead with his palm, "Come on…"
"Daddy?"
The small voice cut through the quiet like a blade. The man's head snapped up. A boy stood atop a mound of broken brick,rebar and concrete. No more than eight years old, skinny, ribs showing beneath rags, blue eyes too large for his face.
"Michael." The man rose quickly, scraping his palms on jagged stone as he climbed toward the boy. "Get down from there before you fall."
The child didn't move. "It's cold. What are you doing out here?"
The man reached him, lifted him gently, and set him on firmer ground. "Just…taking a piss. Go back inside with Grandpa. I'll be there soon."
Michael studied his father's face, then the formal clothes. "Why are you dressed like that? Are you going somewhere?"
Air grew still for a moment before dust stirred between them.
"Are you going to leave me too?"
The man's throat worked. He knelt, cupped the boy's cold cheeks in his hands and said as he caressed them. "Never. I love you more than anything, little guy. I'm not leaving you or Grandpa. I promise."
Michael searched his eyes, then nodded slowly. The man released him. The boy turned and picked his way back through the rubble toward the half-collapsed shelter they called home.
Michael was halfway inside the open wall before realisation hit. He stopped. He turned as he said. "Dad, Grandpa wanted to know if he could borrow your—"
"Dad?"
No one was there.
…
"Why couldn't I have been more precise?"
The same man—Elyas. He floated in an endless white void. No up, no down. No sound but the faint electric hum of perfect nothing.
"At least I'm dying with style," he muttered, tugging at his brown vest. The joke tasted like ash.
Three months. Or what felt like three months. Time didn't pass here; it just pooled. Nothing changed or increased but the man's worries.
He could still see Michael's face in the moonlight. Still hear that last, unfinished question.
"Only if I tried something else. Anything but. This."
Around him stretched pure white. seamless, infinite. Perhaps that was just his mind playing tricks on him; after all, the human mind wasn't made to perceive nothing.
He floated atop invisible waves, deep in thought as he let them carry him away.
"They really do give you the worst downside they can"
"Let's be more optimistic. Atleast I haven't turned into a nightmare. Not yet"
He exhaled—pointless in a place with no air—and spoke the thought that had haunted him for weeks.
"If only I'd said, 'I wish for a realm of my own, with absolute control over every part of it.' That would've—"
[Granted.]
The word arrived like a bell struck inside his skull.
Elyas jolted, spinning in place. Nothing but white.
His senses became keener as rage filled and warmed his chest along with his heart's thumping.
"You bastard! Show yourself!" He shouted and screamed with fury.
only silence answered.
Then the voice returned, quiet and amused.
[Elyas. When the time comes, be thankful to your fathers and kin.]
Ice slid down his spine. He'd assumed the void was private.
After a few minutes passed in silence, Elyas's shock at the events wore off.
'..If I really got a second wish I should be able to change something about this place. But what?' Out of habit, he looked around.
An idea formed.
Elyas focused, trying to change the color of the void. Over the span of several minutes he tried different things. Willpower, strange gestures, even muttering nonsense chants, until he simply said:
"Black."
The world around him shifted. In a flood of darkness it swallowed itself whole. Now, replacing its eternal white, was black.
It felt emptier than before… Darker. The kind you'd find in deep space. As he stared ahead, he suddenly felt like prey in a trap.
Even though nothing changed, Elyas was sure of it. it felt cramped. He felt like a mouse standing in the cat's den.
It felt that behind the curtain of darkness, thousands of eyes were watching his every move.
The fact that there was no surface to stand on, rapidly turned into the realisation that there was no way to run.
Elyas's face turned pale in an instant, trying to calm himself he muttered with a shaky voice "Let's change it back."
As he watched the same flood take over the darkness, Elyas let out a sigh of relief. But at this moment, a question that he had been asking ever since the whisperer came resurfaced.
It kept coming back to gnaw at his mind. But the shock hadn't allowed him to fully think about it.
'Why? Why did I get a second wish?'
He tried answering that question, but no answer made sense. In the midst of finding an explanation, he remembered something.
"Does that mean I can go outside now?...But who knows what's out there. And more importantly; what's my cost?"
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "The second thing the whisperer says is always a hint."
"Am I supposed to go around thanking people for the rest of my life?"
As if reminded by Elyas, the voice returned.
[You have been granted great power but it comes at a greater cost.]
"Oh, there it is," He said dryly.
[ you are granted great power, it's a world, a throne in it made for the likes of you. There's no escaping its grasp. You are bound to its eternal wait, just like your fathers and kin. The wait, it made you invincible. Act like it.]
"The hell is that supposed to mean?" Elyas stopped to review his actions. After a moment, he sighed softly.
'I really should work on not talking to myself.'
He shook his head. 'I can fully investigate my wish when I'm out. For now, I should focus on more important things.'
"Michael…Dad's coming home."
'But I can't rush it,I need to prepare before heading out. Dying the moment I step outside won't help anyone.'
'It's funny...I was dying to get out just a moment ago, and now I'm getting cold feet.'
He whispered. "Who knows what's changed while I've been here?
"Gray"
And as those thoughts weighed on him, Elyas changed the void's color to a soft, dark gray. Then, quietly, he closed his eyes—and drifted into sleep.