The Shattered Prophecy

Eryk had passed through the gates of the city many times, but today was different. Today, he wasn’t following the well-trodden roads lined with stalls and brightly-colored signs, or heading toward the bustling markets where people haggled and bartered. Today, he was moving deeper into the city, into the part most would rather avoid—the slums.

Darius’s house lay in this part of the city, far from the clean streets of the merchant districts, and Eryk had no choice but to follow the path that led through the heart of this forsaken place. The moment he left behind the pristine buildings, the cheerful noises of the marketplace, and the sparkling fountains of the upper districts, the air began to change.

The slums were everything the rest of the city was not.

Where the main streets were wide and filled with people, here the paths were narrow and dark, lined with buildings that leaned on each other like they were too tired to stand. The streets were unpaved, the dirt soft underfoot, and trash and refuse piled in every corner. The air was thick with the smell of decay, of food long past its prime, of sweat, and something more foul, something that clung to everything. People didn’t look up as he passed them—eyes cast downward, faces haggard, their clothes torn and worn thin. Children ran barefoot, their laughter sharp and hollow, as they darted between piles of rotting fruit or bits of broken furniture.

Eryk’s stomach churned. This place... it was nothing like the city he had known. It was like a wound, festering in the shadow of the city’s grander ambitions.

The contrast between the slums and the well-maintained streets of the city couldn’t have been more stark. It was as if he had crossed into a different world. The buildings here were crumbling, windows broken, doors ajar, and the walls covered in grime. The people living here seemed just as worn, their faces hardened by life’s brutality. And it wasn’t just the buildings and the people. It was the energy, the atmosphere, as though the very air was weighed down by years of neglect, by suffering that had no end in sight.