The First Overture: The Marionettes Awakening

There was no sky.

Only a bleeding wound where the heavens had been, and from it spilled a dead crimson light that bathed the world in rot.

Elias drifted through it — a grain of dust on the corpse of a forgotten place.

The ruined city stretched endless around him: stone buildings hollowed by time, statues eroded into eyeless husks, streets choked with black ash.

At the heart of the ruins stood the broken theater.

It yawned open before him, its walls crumbling, its stage sagging under the weight of age and silence. Strings hung from the rafters like veins torn from a corpse, tangled and knotted, drifting in the still air.

On the shattered stage, puppets swayed — broken marionettes with faces hidden behind rotting masks. Some hung limp. Some twisted and twitched, struggling against unseen bonds.

Above them perched the crows.

Dozens. Hundreds.

Their black feathers drank the dead light, their eyes gleamed with something that was not kindness.

A single crow — smaller than the rest, ordinary in size but wrong in every other way — dropped from the beams and landed before Elias, talons scraping the cracked stone.

It stared at him without blinking.

"Found you," it said.

Its voice was an old thing.

A grave-dust whisper that spoke not to his ears but to his bones.

Other crows shifted. Feathers ruffled. Shadows writhed.

Elias took a step back — but invisible strings lashed around his limbs, dragging him forward.

The crow cocked its head, amused.

"Lost thread…

Frayed at both ends…

Still, you belong to us."

He tried to scream, to tear away, but the strings dug deeper.

Every heartbeat wrapped him tighter into their invisible web.

The broken puppets twitched violently, heads jerking toward him as if sensing new prey.

Above, from the dead moon bleeding in the sky, something unseen pulled tighter on the strings.

The crow hopped closer.

At its feet, the ash parted, revealing something half-buried, a shattered mask.

The mask had no features — no eyes, no mouth — only deep cracks spider-webbing across its surface like veins.

The crow pecked at it once.

The mask trembled — and the ground shuddered with it.

"No stage is complete without its Fool," the crow murmured, almost tenderly.

The other crows croaked and shrieked in a chorus of black laughter.

"No throne without its Masked King."

The words hit Elias like hammer blows.

He shook his head, struggling against the bonds — but they wanted him.

The mask rose from the dirt, shuddering and bleeding shadows.

The crow spread its wings wide, casting a shadow that swallowed the stage whole.

"You are the Broken King," it crooned.

"The Drifting Puppet.

The Tethered Fool.

Ours."

The mask slammed onto Elias's face — no time to choose, no room to resist.

Strings erupted from the ground, embedding in his arms, his spine, his heart.

He screamed, but the sound was swallowed by the crows' laughter.

Above him, the moon cracked further, spilling rivers of crimson light over the ruins.

As the mask seared itself into Elias's face, the crows' laughter swelled — a sound like knives scraping bone.

The little crow, black as a starless night, hopped onto his shoulder.

Its beak brushed his ear.

And it whispered:

"Opening Act: Introduction of the Fool… completed.

Curtain rises.

Will you dance, broken puppet?"

Then the strings jerked.

The world collapsed into darkness and Elias woke — gasping, sweating, half-choking on air.

He woke with a gasp.

The cavern air was cold against his sweat-slicked skin.

Pain knifed through his shoulder and back when he tried to move.

Where am I?

He blinked against the dull orange glow of the campfire. His vision swam — shapes wavering. A blurry silhouette hovered over him.

For one terrifying heartbeat, he thought the crow had followed him back.

Then the figure shifted and he caught a glimpse of golden hair.

Lira.

She was kneeling beside him, clumsily but carefully pressing bandages against his side. Her hands were stained with dried blood — his blood — and her face was tight with concentration.

Why…?

The last thing he remembered was killing the rat, staggering to her side — collapsing.

A small sound escaped him — half a cough, half a groan.

Lira jerked her head up, eyes wide.

"You're awake?" she said, voice strained.

He tried to speak but only managed a hoarse croak. His throat felt like sandpaper.

"Don't move," she muttered, more command than request. She pressed him back with one hand on his chest — very gently, but firm. "You'll rip everything open again."

Elias gritted his teeth, willing himself still.

Lira worked in silence for a few minutes, changing the rough bandages she had made. She ripped strips from the bottom of her cloak and the remains of his hoodie, wrapping his side tightly.

She wasn't good at it — the bandages were uneven, and her fingers trembled slightly — but she was careful. More careful than anyone had ever been with him, maybe.

At one point she paused, staring down at his chest where old scars crisscrossed his ribs. Her mouth tightened, but she said nothing.

The fire crackled softly nearby. Shadows danced on the cavern walls.

Finally, when the worst of the bleeding was stopped, she sat back on her heels and hugged her knees to her chest, watching him warily.

"You almost died, you know," she said flatly. "If you hadn't killed it when you did…"

He managed a weak grin.

"Would've been bad for my reputation."

Lira huffed — not quite a laugh, but not quite anger either.

They sat there in uneasy silence, the firelight flickering between them.

After a while, Lira spoke again, voice softer.

"You were reckless. Idiotic."

Elias didn't argue.

Instead he asked, voice rasping:

"You okay?"

Lira blinked at him. Her fingers tightened slightly around her knees.

"I'm fine," she said after a beat. "Thanks to you."

Elias let his head fall back against the cool stone, closing his eyes.

The pain in his side throbbed like a living thing. His mana was all but drained. His muscles were nothing but bruised knots.

But hearing that — knowing she was safe — dulled the edge of it all.

"Good," he mumbled. "Couldn't… drag you around if you were hurt."

Silence fell again.

But it was a little less heavy than before.

Lira shifted closer to the fire, glancing at him through the curtain of her hair.

"You talk in your sleep," she said abruptly.

Elias cracked one eye open, squinting at her.

"I do?"

She nodded, almost reluctantly.

"You kept mumbling about… crows. And stages. And something about a broken king."

Elias froze.

The dream surged back into him — the crow's words, the blood moon, the broken city.

But he forced a crooked smile onto his lips.

"Guess I'm a bit dramatic."

Lira didn't laugh. She just watched him, eyes unreadable.

He shifted, grimacing at the fresh jolt of pain.

"You're not half bad at patching people up," he rasped.

She shrugged, gaze flickering away.

"Not my first time."

There was a story there, Elias could tell. But he didn't push.

They barely knew each other. And he wasn't about to pry into the kind of wounds you couldn't bandage.

Instead, he let his eyes drift closed again, letting the fire's warmth seep into his battered body.

Somewhere deep inside, he could still feel the crow's claws gripping his soul.

The words echoed, burned into him:

What the hell had he gotten himself into without knowing?

But for now, at least —

He was alive.

And not alone.

For now.

Later that night Elias lay still, breathing shallowly, the fire's warmth licking at his side where fresh bandages bound him tight.

Something was wrong.

It started as a hum in his bones — a static prickling under his skin.

Then, like glass fracturing, his System Interface tore itself open across his vision.

ERROR. ERROR. ERROR.

The words flashed in jagged red.

The world tilted, spun, and the firelight bent into impossible shapes. Lira's voice — distant — called his name, but he could barely hear it.

His status screen blinked into life:

***

Name: Elias Ashgrave

Rank: Awakened

Mark: Theater Master

Traits: [Illusionist], [Last of the Marionettes]

Abilities: [Simple Trick], [Blessing of Darkness]

Items: [NULL]

Then — something crawled across the screen.

Black threads.

They slithered over the letters, stitching themselves into the cracks left by the glitch.

A new section, foreign and pulsing faintly with color, unfurled at the bottom:

Unknown Domain: [Threads of the Forgotten Stage]

The moment it appeared, Elias felt it.

A soft tug, deep inside his chest — like invisible strings had wrapped themselves around his heart, his thoughts, his very breath.

A secret door had opened inside him.

One no other Awakened could see.

The crows' laughter from his dream echoed faintly through his skull.

'Opening Act: Introduction of the Fool… completed.'

He sucked in a sharp breath, heart hammering.

He forced the glitching interface away, the words burning behind his eyelids even after they faded.

When he opened his eyes again, Lira was crouched over him, brows knit in worry.

"You alright?" she asked, voice low.

Elias nodded stiffly.

"Just… a weird aftershock," he lied.

The fire popped loudly, masking the tremor in his hands.

But somewhere far above the cavern roof, he swore he heard the flap of wings in the dark

Elias lay frozen.

The faint glow of the system faded — but something else stirred in its place.

A slow, deliberate tug against the threads embedded in his soul.

[Gift for the opening act.

The Audience is watching.]

He gasped — but it wasn't air he sucked in.

It was space folding over itself.

For a fraction of a second, the world ignored him.

The pain in his side, the fire's crackle, even Lira's presence — all blinked out, like he was a shadow slipping behind the curtain.

And then it returned, with a rush of sound and heat.

The System chimed quietly:

***

New Ability Acquired: [Curtain Call: When the blade sings for your bones, bow and vanish.]

Elias clutched his chest, breathing hard.

The crows weren't done with him.

Not by a long shot.

He opened his eyes slowly — and across the fire, Lira was still tending the flames, unaware of the silent gift that had just been stitched into his blood.

Opening his interface he hovered his eyes over the new skill, frowning solemnly.

'Whatever this is, I don't want any part of it.'

Then it showed up.

***

When critically wounded, for a brief moment (a heartbeat, a blink), your body becomes intangible — like a puppet slipping its strings.

Cooldown: Long (usable once every few days at early stages).

Effect: Can dodge a mortal blow, but only while heavily injured.

"All broken actors must know how to bow before the blade."

Elias looked at the words warily then laid his head back against the stone. He need real sleep.

—————————————————-

[Footnote - The Crow's Whisper]

(From the rafters, broken marionettes watch.)

*He stirs where no one should.

He dances without music.

He wears the mask, but not the crown.

Let them weep. Let them scream.

The theater has found its next tragedy.*