The fall felt endless, but it ended with a deafening impact. Ezekiel was saved only by the fact that soft, damp moss and the decomposed bones of subterranean beasts had been accumulating at the bottom of the fissure for centuries.
The boy lay on his back, gasping for the cold air that smelled of ozone and dampness. Every rib flared with wild pain, but his bones were intact. High above, at an unreachable height of several dozen meters, a narrow strip of daylight flickered barely perceptibly—the hole through which he had fallen. There was no way back. The walls of the well rose absolutely vertically.
Once the initial shock wore off, Ezekiel was swallowed by absolute darkness.
In such darkness, an ordinary person would lose their mind within a few days. There were no city sounds here, no warmth. There was only the occasional, ominous dripping of water somewhere deep within the caves. The seven-year-old boy curled into a ball on the pile of rotten moss. He wanted to cry, to call for help, but he knew no one would come. In Oakhaven, his tears had never stopped a single boot strike. They wouldn't help him here either.
Ezekiel stretched out a trembling hand and touched the wall. Instead of rough stone, his fingers brushed against an unnaturally smooth, icy surface. Crystals. The entire cave was made of obsidian as dark as the abyss, and specular slate.
Suddenly, a sound echoed from afar that made the child catch his breath.
A crunch. The slow, heavy scraping of claws against stone.
Something emerged from the darkness of the tunnel. Ezekiel could not see it, but his childhood senses, sharpened to the limit, caught the approach of a predator. It was a blind subterranean scavenger—a creature covered in a bony carapace, devoid of eyes, but capable of perfectly hearing every single breath.
The boy froze, terrified to move. A scream of horror was trapped in his throat. The moonless darkness pressed heavily against his eyes. He looked to the side, toward the icy wall of black crystal.
And at that exact moment, something clicked in his mind.
Ezekiel's black eyes, born for this magic, absorbed not direct light for the first time, but the energy of the Amalgam hidden within the crystals. The world around him did not brighten, but the obsidian wall in front of him suddenly came alive. On its black, glossy surface, Ezekiel clearly saw a grey, glowing reflection.
Awakening: Level 0 — [Mirror Sight] The character begins to see in reflections that which is hidden from ordinary eyes.
In the reflection of the crystal, as if on a screen, he saw the silhouette of the beast. It stood just three paces away from him, sniffing the air. Ezekiel saw its vulnerable spot—a neck unprotected by the carapace, which flickered with a barely noticeable grey light in the mirror spectrum.
The monster sharply turned its head in his direction. The boy, guiding himself exclusively by the reflection on the wall, silently rolled to the left, behind a narrow crystalline ledge. The beast pounced where he had been sitting a second ago, crunching the bones on the floor with its claws. Failing to find its prey, the blind predator gave a low growl and slowly ambled further into the depths of the tunnels.
Ezekiel sat in his hiding place, breathing heavily. His face was pale, but a new, cold glint ignited in his black eyes. He understood the first rule of this place: a direct gaze deceives; only the reflection reveals the truth.