The Visitor
The thrumming started three nights ago.
Not a sound you could place…not quite machine, not quite alive.
A deep, slow vibration that seeped into the metal bones of the city. It rattled dishes, unsettled oil lamps, and made the children whimper in their sleep.
Marn didn’t sleep anymore.
He lived three levels down from the tramline, in what used to be a ventilation hub before the city rerouted the air ducts. Most folk forgot places like this existed.
That’s why he stayed.
Easier to keep secrets when the world forgets you.
He was sitting at his desk, an old copper lamp flickering over scattered bloodsticks…tokens from a game long out of fashion…when the thrumming grew stronger. It wasn’t just sound now. The air itself pulsed, like the slow beat of a dying heart.
He turned toward the corridor.
Bootsteps.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Hollow, like heels striking glass.
The sound echoed through the pipes before fading into a hush. Marn’s hand brushed the revolver under his vest, but he didn’t draw it.
Not yet.
When the figure appeared, he knew why.
It wasn’t human.
Not entirely.
A tall silhouette ducked beneath the archway, wrapped in a cloak so dark it seemed to drink the light. Where its face should have been, a mask of polished brass reflected Marn’s trembling lamp. Thin etchings spiraled across its surface…glyphs older than the city itself.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Marn said.
The visitor tilted its head. A metallic voice hummed from somewhere inside the mask.
“I was invited.”
“No one invites anything down here.”
“You did,” it said. “When you opened the gate.”
Marn froze.
The smuggle crate.
The one he’d found in the salvage pit a week ago. The one with the faint hum inside—like a caged heart. He’d pried it open with a wrench, just to see.
He swallowed hard. “I didn’t mean to.”
The masked figure stepped closer.
“Intent is irrelevant. The lock was old. The ward, fragile. You broke both.”
The thrumming in the air quickened, matching the rhythm of Marn’s pulse. The lamp flared, casting wild shadows across the walls.
…shadows that didn’t match their owners.
“What are you?” he whispered.
The visitor leaned forward until its mask was inches from his face.
Behind the brass, something moved.
A ripple of darkness, alive and watching.
“I am the echo of a promise,” it said. “The debt you owe to the forgotten.”
The bloodsticks rolled off the desk. One clattered to the floor, spinning until it landed face-up—a crimson dot on black.
The losing mark.
Marn reached for his gun.
Too slow.
The air folded around him like wet cloth.
The thrumming stopped.
When the watchmen found his quarters two days later, the lamp was still burning, the walls were clean.
Too clean.
No dust, no grime, no trace of life.
Only a faint vibration underfoot—steady, rhythmic, like something sleeping just below the metal floor.
And on the table, where the bloodsticks had been, lay a single brass mask.
Still warm to the touch.
The city feels haunted by its own machinery, and that mask… it’s less an object than a curse. You’ve built a world that remembers its sinners long after the living forget them.