Samir did not wait for morning.
He left the barracks three hours before dawn, while the darkness was still as thick as wet wool. His feet made no sound on the damp stones—since childhood, they had learned how to disappear, even from hearing.
He headed north.
The paths he took weren't really paths: back alleys, gaps between houses, rooftops he leaped across like a stray cat. He knew the city like his own body, perhaps better. Every stone held the memory of his mother, who drew her last breath on the threshold of a house they didn't own.
The Northern Canal began where the city ended: at an ancient wall dating back to the Babylonian era, its cuneiform inscriptions eroded until they became like unreadable scars. The water flowed from beneath it into a narrow channel, carved into the rock, widening as it approached the palace until it became a small river carrying the rich's waste into oblivion.
Samir stood at the entrance. The smell of mold here was strong, mixed with other smells: burnt oil, iron, fearful sweat.
Someone had been here. Recently.
He entered.
The canal had a low ceiling; he had to stoop. The water reached his ankles, cold as death. Light was absent except for tiny cracks in the ceiling that occasionally allowed lightning flashes to seep through. He relied on his feet, on his muscle memory, on that new sensation growing at the back of his head like a third eye.
He could feel him.
The man. Not far away. Ahead of him, deep in the canal, near its exit leading to the palace foundations. But what Samir felt wasn't just physical proximity. His thoughts were seeping into Samir's mind like smoke.
Now or never. The guard changes position every two hours. I have half an hour before he returns.
Samir stopped. He pressed his back against the damp wall. This wasn't just hearing. It was like living inside his head.
Then the feeling changed.
Suddenly, the man felt him.
The surprise was mutual. Like a door opening from the inside to find someone standing behind it. The man's shock, then his fear, then—strangely—his recognition:
You. You're the one I've been looking for.
The words weren't directed at Samir, just a fleeting thought, but they arrived crystal clear. He understood them before he could think about their meaning.
Then he heard his actual voice, emanating from the darkness ahead, hoarse and rough:
"Come. Don't be afraid. I don't bite."
Samir advanced slowly. A few steps later, he found him: a man in his forties, his body thin as a shadow, but his eyes were wide, very wide, and in the darkness they emitted a faint glow that couldn't be natural. He was squatting beside an opening in the canal floor leading to an even narrower tunnel, holding a short, rusted knife in his hand.
He looked at Samir for a long time. A very long time. Then he laughed a dry laugh.
"You. I thought you were a hallucination. I thought my mind was inventing you. But you're real."
Samir didn't move. His knife was in his belt, but his hand hadn't touched it yet.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
"My name is Malik. And if you asked anyone in Ur, they'd say I'm dead. Or crazy. Or both." He gestured with his chin towards the opening. "This is my way to the palace. To the governor. To the head of the jackal who killed my family."
The pain flowed from Malik like an electric wave, stinging Samir's chest before he could think. A quick vision: a woman, two children, a burning house. The governor passing by. The soldiers laughing.
Samir stepped back half a step.
"I see it." He didn't say "I feel it," but "I see it." Because that's what it was: bright, painful images flickering in his mind.
Malik stared at him. Then he said quietly, "I know. I see you too. In my head. Since last night. I was preparing myself for death, and suddenly... you entered. Your image. Like you were standing there, in my cell, looking at me."
The two men fell silent. The water flowed between their feet. Lightning struck in the distance.
"This means something," Malik finally said. "For us to see each other like this. This doesn't happen to just anyone. This..." He paused, then pulled something from under his torn shirt: an old leather amulet, bearing the drawing of a tree with twelve branches.
Samir looked at the amulet. He recognized it. Like the one his grandfather used to hang on his door. The same tree. The same branches.
"Where have you seen this before?" Malik's voice was sharp.
"My grandfather. He owned one."
Malik's next question came like a stab:
"What was your grandfather's name?"
"Asim. Asim bin Nael."
Malik flinched. He stood up suddenly, the knife trembling in his hand. His eyes widened further, until they almost bulged from their sockets. But he didn't believe it immediately. He stepped back, staring at Samir with suspicious eyes.
"But... how can I be sure? Eyes can resemble each other, amulets can be stolen."
Samir didn't move. He said calmly, "My grandfather used to tell me a story every night before bed. About a tree with twelve branches, and in each branch a family, and in each family a secret. He used to say that the same blood doesn't get lost."
Malik's shoulders relaxed slightly. But his hand still gripped the knife.
"And what did he say about the sons?"
"He said he had three sons. One died young, one ran away, and one..." Samir paused. "One stayed with him until the end."
Malik whispered a name Samir had never heard before: "Asim. My uncle. My father's brother. The one who ran away was my father."
The words tumbled in Samir's head like stones falling into a deep well. My uncle. My father's brother. Malik. His cousin. The same blood. The same grandfather.
"This is impossible. My grandfather never mentioned..."
"Because he didn't know I existed. My father ran away when he was young. He changed his name. Lived in a distant village. But he kept the amulet. He gave it to me before he died, and said: If you find someone who knows this tree, then the blood is one."
Malik sat down again, exhausted. He placed his knife on the ground.
"All this time, seeking revenge, and I find my cousin standing in my sewer."
Samir didn't move. The surprise was too great to absorb. His family, which he thought was extinct, of which only his deceased mother and departed grandfather remained... here was a man of flesh and blood, bleeding and planning to kill, claiming to be his relative.
Inside him, in that new place from which he had started hearing, he knew Malik was sincere. His thoughts were clear as water: sorrow, shock, a desire to believe, fear that this might be a trap.
"Why did you tell me?" Samir asked.
Malik looked at him. "Because you can hear what's in my head. Isn't that right? This is what happens to us. To our family. My grandfather—our grandfather—used to call it 'the opening.' He said some people are born with a thin veil, and they can see beyond it. And this veil becomes thinner when you experience trauma. When something pierces your soul."
The words echoed in Samir's chest like a resonance. His grandfather said almost the same thing. "When the etheric body is pierced..."
"The etheric body," Samir whispered. "That's what my grandfather used to call it."
Malik nodded eagerly. "Yes. And prana. The energy. He said when this body is pierced, the energy leaks. But the worst thing is that the leak works both ways. Thoughts. Feelings. Others' memories. They all leak into you. You become a crowded room you can't leave."
A chill ran down Samir's spine. This was exactly what was happening to him. What happened at the wall. What was happening now, standing here, with Malik's thoughts colliding inside his skull.
"Can it be closed?" His voice trembled.
"I don't know. My grandfather was trying. He said there was a way. Hypnosis. Suggestion. Words you repeat until you believe them, until your subconscious believes them. But he died before he could teach me."
Malik looked at Samir with eyes that had become less fearful and more curious.
"But maybe... maybe together we can discover it. Our blood is one. Our abilities are similar. Maybe that's why we met here, in this filthy canal, on this night."
Samir opened his mouth to answer, but something else gripped him. Not from Malik. From far away. From above. From the palace.
Many thoughts. Anxiety. Activity. Guards talking. A search. Someone saw a person sneaking in. A silver shekel for whoever finds him.
He raised his head toward the ceiling.
"They've discovered you. The guards are coming."
Malik cursed under his breath. He picked up his knife and looked at the opening. "It doesn't matter. I'll go in now. Either I kill him or I die."
Samir grabbed his arm. Surprise for both of them. Samir wasn't the type to touch anyone.
"If you go in now, you'll die. Alone. And your revenge will die with you."
Malik stared at him. "What do you suggest?"
Samir didn't know. But in his head, suddenly, an idea began to form. His grandfather's words. Something about hypnosis. About focusing the mind. About using pain as a gateway.
"Teach me what you know. About closing the opening. About controlling this noise. Then I'll help you."
"Why?"
Samir looked into his cousin's eyes, at that hidden resemblance he hadn't noticed before, at the same blood running through their veins.
"Because I'm tired of being a crowded room. And because the governor... killed my mother. She was collateral damage. Just because she was in the wrong place."
Malik was silent for a long time. Then he nodded slowly.
"Alright. But not here. There's a place. Under the city. An old cellar where my grandfather's followers used to meet. They called themselves 'the People of the New Thought.' They believed the mind could heal the body, could transcend matter. They weren't just philosophers. They knew things."
He paused. Looked at the opening, then at Samir.
"If we survive this night, I'll take you there."
They didn't survive easily.
More guards than expected. Twelve men, with dogs. They surrounded the area quickly. Malik knew an escape route through a side channel, but it was very narrow; he almost got stuck. Samir followed, his skin torn by sharp stones, the cold water stinging his wounds.
The barking of dogs drew closer. The guards' thoughts seeped into him: They won't escape. We'll burn them alive.
In a moment of desperation, he focused on the dog. On its small head filled with instinct and scent. He pushed a single thought: Nothing here. Wrong direction.
The dog stopped. Turned its head. Then barked in the opposite direction, leading the guards away.
Malik looked at him in astonishment. "How did you do that?"
Samir couldn't answer. He was shivering, the weakness returning to him manifold. Prana was leaking from him like water from a sieve. He felt he would die here, in this narrow tunnel, among the filth and rats.
But Malik grabbed him and pulled him. He walked him through the darkness, through the pain, through moments when Samir lost consciousness and regained it repeatedly.
Until they arrived.
The cellar was beneath the ruins of an ancient temple, forgotten since Babylonian times. Malik entered through a secret opening, then sealed it behind them with a heavy rock. The darkness here was complete, absolute, so thick Samir felt its weight on his eyelids.
"Lie down," Malik said. "I'll get light."
The sound of stone scraping against stone, then a spark, then a small flame. Malik lit an old oil wick, hanging in the middle of the cellar, revealing a strange place: walls covered with drawings of a tree with twelve branches, and arches inscribed in an ancient language, and in the corner, shelves full of yellowed paper scrolls.
"This was my grandfather's library," Malik whispered. "And their meeting room. A sacred place."
Samir tried to sit up, but couldn't. Weakness forced him to the ground. He looked at his hands: almost translucent. Beneath the skin, he could see the bones too clearly, as if the flesh were melting.
Malik approached him anxiously, placed his fingers on Samir's forehead. For a moment, Samir felt a strange warmth seeping inside him. Prana. Malik was giving him his energy.
"Don't move," Malik said quietly. "You're losing too much. Your perforation is large. Maybe it existed since childhood, but the recent trauma opened it further."
"How do you know this?" Samir whispered.
"Because the same thing happened to me. After my family was killed. I woke up one morning hearing everything. The neighbors' thoughts, the crying of distant children, even the priest's prayers in the temple. I almost went mad. But my grandfather—God rest his soul—taught me how to control it."
He stopped transferring energy and sat facing Samir.
"Now I'll teach you. But you must trust me. And you must relax. Completely. As if you're asleep but awake."
Samir closed his eyes. Afraid. But too exhausted to resist.
Malik's voice echoed in the empty cellar, soft, monotonous, like the waves of a distant sea:
"Breathe. Take a deep breath. Slower. Slower. Feel the air entering your lungs. Feel the cold leaving your body. You are in a safe place. No one will hurt you here."
The words entered his mind like water into dry soil. His body grew heavy, adhering to the ground, as if becoming part of it.
"Now, imagine your body. Not just the skin and bones. But what lies beyond them. The transparent layer surrounding you. The energy template. Do you see it?"
Samir searched in the darkness of his closed eyes. At first, he saw nothing. But suddenly, he began to feel lines of faint light outlining his body's shape. Vibrating, pulsing with his heartbeat.
"I see... I see something."
"Good. That's the etheric body. Now, find the hole. The place where the light leaks from."
He searched. It was there. In the center of his chest. A dark void, like a hole in a luminous shirt, from which its glow flowed outward, lost in the darkness.
"I see it."
"Now, focus on that gap. Don't try to close it by force. Just focus on it. Tell it: I see you. I know you. You are part of me, but you will not control me."
Samir repeated the words in his mind. The gap glowed for a moment, then began to shrink. Slowly. Very slowly. But it was shrinking.
"Continue. Repeat the affirmation. 'I am in control. I am the master of my mind. The sounds are outside, I am inside.'"
Samir kept repeating, and the images invaded his mind: his mother's face as she died, the stone wall he built, Malik's face in the glass, the eyes of the dog he pushed away. They all passed like swords, but he kept focusing on the affirmation, on the gap, on his breath.
Until he opened his eyes.
Malik was staring at him in amazement. A wide smile on his face.
"You did it. Your perforation has shrunk. It's still there, but smaller. The prana is leaking slowly now, not like a raging river."
Samir looked at his hands. They were no longer translucent. Their natural color had returned. The weakness remained, but it was bearable.
"How did you know this method?"
Malik pointed to the shelves. "It's all written there. My grandfather's teachings. And his teachers'. They called this 'autosuggestion' and 'hypnosis.' Words that trick the conscious mind until the subconscious surrenders."
Samir stood up slowly. His legs were trembling, but he stood. He looked around the cellar, at the drawings, at the scrolls, at all these secrets that once belonged to his grandfather.
And suddenly, he heard something.
Not from Malik. From outside the cellar. The sound of stones moving.
He turned toward the door blocked by the rock. Malik also heard. He gestured for him to be silent.
The rock moved slightly. Then they heard a human voice, calm, sarcastic:
"Congratulations. You've finally found someone who can open the final gate. My grandfather finished what yours started."
Samir's heart leaped. Did he know this voice? No. But he felt it. Inside him. In that new place. It sounded like his voice. It sounded like Malik. It sounded like...
The rock slid away completely. In the entrance stood a man in his thirties, wearing black clothes, a cold smile on his face. He looked at Samir, then at Malik.
"Hello, cousins. We've been waiting for you on the other side of telepathy."
Samir froze. Another cousin? How much of his family had his grandfather hidden?
Malik stepped forward, his face pale. "Who are you? How did you know this place?"
The man laughed. "I'm your other cousin. My father was the third son of our grandfather. The one who was exiled because he refused to follow the teachings of the 'New Thought.' He said power shouldn't be used for healing, but for control. He founded his own school. And I completed his path."
He looked at Samir with piercing eyes, penetrating him.
"You are special, Samir. Your perforation isn't just a wound. It's a gateway. A gateway to where none of us can reach. That's why you could hear what others couldn't. That's why you saw me in the glass before I saw you."
The man took a step forward. In his hand appeared something like a black crystal, glowing with a strange light.
"Come with me. I'll teach you how to use this gateway. Not to close it, but to open it. Not to withdraw, but to enter. There are entire worlds behind this gap, cousin. Worlds of pure energy. We can possess them."
Samir looked at Malik. Malik was trembling, but he nodded: Don't trust him.
Samir asked quietly, "And if I refuse?"
The man smiled widely, showing very white teeth.
"If you refuse, I'll take you by force. And I promise the way will be painful. Because I can enter your mind, cousin, and turn your refusal into desire. Suggestion, hypnosis, they're all tools. And I master them better than my grandfather, better than your father, better than you."
At that moment, Samir realized he was caught between two fires: Malik who wanted to close the gap, and this stranger who wanted to open it. And both were his blood.
Outside, he heard distant dog barking. The guards were still searching.
The man whistled mockingly. "Time is running out. Decide quickly. With me, you'll live and learn. Against me, I'll hand you over to the guards. And I know you don't want to go back to that underground cell, do you?"
Nausea gripped Samir. How did this stranger know about his imprisonment? Then he remembered: telepathy. It works both ways. This man had been reading his thoughts since he entered.
He looked at Malik. Then at the open door where the unknown awaited.
He didn't know what he would choose.
But his body chose before him.
He collapsed to the ground, exhausted, drained, prana leaking from him again due to shock and fear. The gap in his chest yawned like a hungry mouth.
The man advanced toward him, the black crystal glowing.
"That's better. Surrender. It'll be easier for everyone."
He reached out to touch Samir's forehead.
And suddenly, the darkness around them exploded. The cellar shook beneath their feet, and the ancient walls cracked. The strange man raised his hand with the black crystal, and it glowed suddenly with a gloomy light, and the drawings on the walls began to melt as if they had never been.
Samir, on the ground, saw through his tired eyes something he hadn't expected: Malik wasn't standing idle. He was whispering ancient words, a language Samir didn't understand, but he felt their effect. The entire cellar began to respond, as if the walls themselves had been waiting for this moment.
The stranger turned toward Malik, surprise on his face.
"You... you know the sacred language? How?"
Malik didn't answer. He continued whispering, his voice gradually rising. The black crystal in the stranger's hand began to crack.
Samir, despite his exhaustion, felt something flowing into the cellar: ancient, powerful energy, sleeping beneath the ruins for centuries. And now, it had awakened.
The stranger snarled and threw the crystal toward Malik. But Samir, in an involuntary movement, raised his hand. The crystal stopped in mid-air, suspended between them, spinning slowly.
The stranger looked at Samir with wide eyes. "Impossible. You haven't trained. You don't know how..."
But Samir knew one thing: the gap in his chest wasn't just a wound. It was also a window. And the energy flowing from him now wasn't a leak, but a gift.
The crystal exploded.
And with its explosion, the darkness itself exploded, swallowing everything.