Series Content Advisory
Scriptures of Nokternum is a dark fantasy story involving grief, trauma, violence, death, coercive control, forced experimentation, and bodily alteration. Some chapters address past suicide, abuse, blood, severe injury, and psychological manipulation. Additional chapter-specific warnings are provided when necessary.
Chapter 9: “A Door, Not a Chain”
Event Date: May 23rd, 2010 - 9:41 PM PDT, Earth
Los Angeles had not improved while Kaostar was gone. That was unfair. It had not been asked to.
The city sprawled beneath low spring clouds in a thousand competing lights, each one fighting to be seen and none of them meaning anything on purpose. Neon bled across wet pavement from a rain that had fallen earlier and therefore did not count. Streetlamps hummed. Cars hissed through shallow water along the curb. Somewhere distant, a siren rose, failed to become interesting, and dissolved into traffic.
Kaostar stood in an alley two blocks from Moonleaf and hated the fact that he knew it was two blocks. Not approximately. Not vaguely. Two.
He had not meant to return near the tea place. He had meant to open a threshold somewhere in Los Angeles. Los Angeles was large. Large enough to contain violence, noise, corruption, hunger, strangers, oceans, rooftops, and several million people disappointing each other in different directions.
Yet the threshold had opened here. In an alley that smelled of rainwater, old brick, rotting cardboard, and the back end of a kitchen trying nobly to pretend garlic could redeem refuse. Kaostar looked at the puddles near his boots.
“No.”
The alley did not argue. That was almost worse. His wings folded back into nothing behind him. Black-and-rust pressure collapsed into ordinary shadow, leaving only his coat shifting slightly in the damp air. His scarred palm flexed once at his side, black route hidden beneath dark fur and old anger.
Pennsylvania cool still clung to him in places Los Angeles could not reach. Waterfall. Dead beacon. Empty path.
Two taps beneath the sound. Metatronas. He had spoken Metatronas’s name with less certainty than before. That irritated him more than uncertainty deserved.
Kaostar looked toward the mouth of the alley. Moonleaf was not visible from here, but he knew where it was. Around the corner. Down one block.
Warm square among thousands. Tables. Tea. A panther with suicidal professionalism. A tigercoon who repaired things and did not ask correctly enough to be intolerable.
Silas. Kaostar’s ear turned toward a sound behind him.
Nothing.
Only a drip from a rusted fire escape into a puddle. One drop. Then another. Not taps.
Water. Ordinary water. Kaostar snarled under his breath and turned away. The alley smelled of old rain.
Then, beneath it, came something cleaner. Not pavement. Not gutter water. Not wet brick or oil floating in a shallow puddle.
Weather before it fell. Kaostar’s claws slid out. The scent vanished. His ear turned toward the alley mouth again, but Los Angeles offered only traffic, weak neon, and a bus sighing somewhere beyond the corner.
No storm. No voice. No proof. Kaostar forced his claws back in.
That was when he saw the flyer. It had been pasted to a service door halfway down the alley, crooked and damp at the corners. Several older posters layered beneath it had peeled away in strips, leaving torn fragments of past concerts, fight nights, missing pets, and promises no one had removed after they expired. This one was new.
Fresh black paper. Aggressive white lettering. Red slash marks printed through the title like claws through light. Kaostar stepped closer.
The flyer read:
ANNIHILATION FAKTER
Industrial. EBM. Darkwave. Bloodsport.
One night only. Los Angeles National Forest. Coliseum sign-ups close at 10:20 PM. Fights begin at 10:30 PM.
Spectators welcome. Contenders must sign consent forms. At the bottom, in smaller letters bright enough to feel like teeth:
LET THE NIGHT HIT BACK.
Kaostar stared. The city noise thinned. For a moment, the alley became very simple. Dark music.
Crowd. Combat. Rules. Permission.
Somewhere pain could go. His claws slid out. Not fully. Enough to hear them scrape against his palm when his hand closed.
The water gives everything somewhere to go for a while. Arcana’s voice did not belong in Los Angeles. Kaostar’s eyes narrowed. The flyer offered a better answer than water.
Water moved without judgment. War answered. Combat took the shape of the body in front of him and made the question bleed. A sanctioned arena was cleaner than conquest.
Less honest, maybe. But cleaner. No invaded throne. No frightened kingdom.
No brother left alive to sharpen grief. A ring. A crowd. A name announced. Opponents who signed themselves into danger.
Consent forms required. Kaostar’s mouth twisted. The phrase was almost funny.
Almost.
His scarred hand ached. Consent forms. As if paper could protect anyone from what they had agreed to become. He reached toward the flyer.
Stopped.
His right ear turned. Behind him, at the alley mouth, someone had paused. Quietly. Not hiding.
Not approaching. Just present. Kaostar knew the shape of that silence before turning
around.
“Silas.”
The tigercoon stood beneath the weak spill of a back-door security light, one shoulder angled toward the wall, hands visible, posture careful without looking staged. His midnight navy fur absorbed the alley’s darkness, while cyan markings along his face, throat, and hands caught the light in broken geometric lines. His ringed tail rested low, not tucked, not relaxed.
He wore his faded charcoal hooded jacket open over a fitted black sleeveless shirt and tapered dark utility trousers, and carried a tied trash bag in one hand. Of course. Kaostar looked from him to the bag.
“You came to rescue garbage.”
Silas glanced at the dumpster.
“Mostly deliver it.”
“You’re late.”
“I didn’t know we had an appointment.”
“We don’t.”
“I know.”
Silas’s gaze moved to the flyer. Not quickly. Not dramatically. He read enough.
Then looked back at Kaostar. The alley hummed. Somewhere above them, an air conditioner unit rattled despite the cold. Kaostar’s ear turned toward it before the sound changed.
A second later, the security light buzzed harder. The bulb gave one weak flicker and steadied. Silas looked up. Kaostar was already looking away.
Silas said nothing. Silas’s silence made Kaostar look back. Silas said, “You’re going.”
Kaostar’s lip curled.
“You asking me not to?”
“No.”
“Smart.”
“Maybe.”
“Coward.”
“Maybe.”
Kaostar turned fully toward him. Silas did not step back. The trash bag hung from his hand like the least heroic shield ever conceived. Kaostar’s eyes narrowed.
“Then what are you doing?”
Silas looked at the flyer again.
“Remembering where you were before you walked toward it.”
The line entered too neatly. Kaostar disliked neatness. He stepped closer. Kaostar’s shadow climbed over Silas, who had to lift his chin but remained where he was.
“You think you know where I was?”
“No.”
“Then don’t speak like that.”
Silas nodded once.
“Fair.”
That was not satisfying. Kaostar’s claws flexed.
“You are supposed to defend the sentence.”
“I could.”
“And?”
“I think you’d rather fight the defense than hear the point.”
Kaostar smiled. There was no warmth in it.
“You have become confident.”
Silas’s ears angled slightly outward.
“No. Just less surprised.”
“By me?”
“By wanting to say things I know may go badly.”
The alley seemed smaller with him in it. Kaostar looked away first, which annoyed him enough to make him look back. Silas’s eyes moved to Kaostar’s hands. Not the scar.
The hands. The claws. The tension. Then away.
Not grabbing.
Still.
Always still in the exact places that made violence feel uninvited rather than justified. Kaostar turned back toward the flyer.
“Industrial music. Bloodsport. Coliseum. Sign-ups.”
“I read it.”
“Then you understand the appeal.”
“Some of it.”
Kaostar laughed softly.
“You don’t.”
“No.”
“Good.”
Silas shifted the trash bag to his other hand. The plastic rustled. Kaostar’s ear twitched. Silas noticed.
Did not ask. Infuriating. Kaostar looked down the alley toward the street.
“You didn’t ask where I went.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“You came back.”
The answer landed harder than it should have. Kaostar’s jaw tightened.
“That is not an answer.”
“It’s the first thing that mattered.”
The rainwater on the pavement reflected the flyer’s red lettering in broken strips.
LET THE NIGHT HIT BACK.
Kaostar stared at the reflection.
“I didn’t come back.”
His ear turned. The alley gave him dripping water, distant traffic, kitchen noise from Moonleaf’s back wall, and the low electrical hum of the security light. For a second, his mouth remained open, as if another word had almost arrived from somewhere else. Nothing did.
“I appeared nearby.”
Silas was quiet. Then, carefully, “Okay.”
“Stop saying that.”
“Stop making it useful.”
Kaostar turned. Silas looked tired. Not frightened in the way Arcana had been.
Silas’s fear was older. Worn smoother. Built into where he stood and how he left space behind himself. Kaostar had the sudden, unwelcome thought that Silas had probably been afraid for so long that fear had become architecture.
A wall. A window. A door left unblocked. Kaostar hated that he understood it.
“You’re still fixing that table?” he asked.
Silas blinked once at the change.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s still cracked.”
“Replace it.”
“No.”
“Sentimental?”
“Stubborn.”
“That table is useless.”
“It held today.”
Kaostar looked at him. Silas shrugged faintly.
“Barely counts. Still counts.”
Barely stable. Ugly. Still useful. The alley tried to become Moonleaf for a second.
Kaostar refused it. His right ear turned toward the street. A car passed. Bass thudded from inside it, muffled by glass and distance.
For one breath, the rhythm sounded like two taps. Kaostar’s body locked before thought arrived. Silas noticed. Of course he noticed.
Kaostar looked sharply at him. Silas’s gaze was already elsewhere, fixed on the dumpster as if the trash bag had become intellectually demanding. Smart. Kind.
Worse. Kaostar forced his claws back in. Silas waited until the car noise faded. His gaze did not move over Kaostar’s body this time.
It moved around him. As if listening to weather through a wall. Silas said, “You brought something back.” Kaostar’s eyes brightened.
“I did not.”
Silas nodded.
“Okay.”
Kaostar moved faster than the alley could process. One moment he stood by the flyer. The next, he was in front of Silas, close enough that the security light cut both their shadows into one malformed shape along the wet brick. Silas did not flinch.
Almost did. Did not. Kaostar saw the almost and respected it more than the stillness.
“What,” Kaostar said, “did I bring back?”
Silas’s tail lowered. His voice stayed even.
“I don’t know.”
“Try.”
“No.”
Kaostar’s smile thinned.
“No?”
“I can tell something changed. I’m not going to invent the shape because you scared me close enough.”
The alley held its breath. Kaostar’s scarred palm twitched.
“You think that’s what I’m doing?”
“Yes.”
“Careful.”
“I am.”
“No. You are accurate. Those are not the same.”
Silas looked up at him. For once, his gaze held longer than usual. Not a challenge. A choice.
“You came close because close makes it easier for me to be wrong.”
Kaostar’s claws slid out again. Silas continued, quieter. “I’m not wrong about changed. I might be wrong about what. So I’m not naming it.”
Kaostar stared at him. The security light buzzed. One of Arcana’s dying-device noises flashed through memory: beacon whine, violet-white burst, smoke curling up. Kaostar’s gaze snapped toward the light.
This time the light stayed steady. Silas followed the glance. This time, he did ask.
“Light bothering you?”
Kaostar’s answer came too fast.
“No.”
Silas absorbed the speed. Said nothing. Kaostar stepped back. His shoulders felt wrong.
The alley felt watched by too many things that were not there. He turned toward the flyer because paper was easier than eyes.
“What time is it?”
Silas checked his watch. Then hesitated. Kaostar noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You looked at your watch like it insulted you.”
Silas held it up.
“Stopped.”
Kaostar went still. Silas frowned.
“It was working earlier.”
The air narrowed. Kaostar looked at the watch. Small. Analog.
Cracked leather band. The second hand sat motionless just past twelve. Dead light. Dead beacon.
Dead watch. Arcana nowhere near it. Silas must have seen something on his face, because his posture changed.
“What is it?”
Kaostar’s ears lifted. No rain smell. No thunder. No two taps.
Just a stopped watch in an alley after a dead beacon on a cliff.
“Nothing,” Kaostar said.
Silas looked at the watch, then at him.
“That one was worse.”
Kaostar’s voice dropped.
“What?”
“The lie.”
The alley bent toward violence. Silas looked down, but not away enough to retreat.
“I’m not asking.”
“Then what are you doing?”
“Noticing that I shouldn’t.”
Kaostar’s jaw worked once. That, unfortunately, was almost perfect. He hated almost perfect things. They tended to be load-bearing.
He looked toward the flyer.
“Ten twenty.”
Silas followed the shift because he was merciful or cowardly or too good at surviving.
“Sign-ups close.”
“You read that too.”
“Yes.”
“Thinking of entering?”
“No.”
“Good. You’d lose.”
“Probably.”
“Everyone keeps admitting things too quickly.”
Silas’s mouth twitched.
“Everyone?”
Kaostar closed his eyes for half a second. Arcana on a rock. Paper map. Frightened tail.
“I know someone worse at survival than you.”
Silas’s ears lifted slightly.
“That sounds difficult.”
“He apologized to a trail beacon.”
Silas processed this. Then, very carefully, said, “Did it deserve one?” Kaostar opened his eyes. Silas’s expression gave away nothing.
Kaostar stared. A laugh considered happening. Kaostar killed it before Silas could witness the crime. Silas saw that too.
The corner of his mouth moved.
“Careful,” Kaostar said.
Silas lowered his gaze.
“Trying.”
“Everyone keeps saying that too.”
“Maybe you’re hard to stand near.”
Kaostar smiled without humor.
“Maybe?”
“No maybe.”
The echo caught him harder than it should have. Pain would have been simpler. It struck. Different.
Kaostar looked away. The flyer waited. The event waited. Los Angeles National Forest.
Coliseum battles begin at 10:30 PM. Ten minutes before sign-ups closed, if Silas’s dead watch had stopped recently. Maybe less. Maybe more.
Time had become unreliable. That was new. Kaostar reached up and tore the flyer from the service door. The paper came loose with a wet rip, leaving black scraps behind.
Silas watched his hand. Not stopping. Not approving. Present.
Kaostar folded the flyer once. Badly.
“Come watch,” he said.
Silas’s eyes lifted. The words surprised them both. Kaostar’s face darkened immediately.
“No.”
Silas remained still. Kaostar’s claws punched through the folded paper.
“I didn’t mean that.”
Silas’s voice was soft.
“I know.”
Kaostar turned on him.
“No, you don’t.”
“I know you said it before you decided whether it was allowed.”
That was a dangerous sentence. Worse, it was true. Kaostar stepped close again, but not as close as before.
“Do not make this into something.”
Silas nodded.
“I won’t.”
“You’re thinking.”
“Yes.”
“Stop.”
“No.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed. Silas met his gaze briefly, then lowered it by choice rather than fear.
“I’m not going to the event.”
Something cold moved under Kaostar’s ribs. He made it anger.
“Then why think?”
“Because you asked.”
“I withdrew it.”
“You did.”
“Then it’s gone.”
“No.”
Kaostar’s ears angled back. Silas’s voice stayed careful.
“It doesn’t obligate me. It doesn’t obligate you. It doesn’t become a chain because it happened.”
Kaostar said nothing. Silas continued. “But I heard it.” The alley became very quiet.
Kaostar looked at the folded flyer in his hand. The claw holes made black crescents through the word BLOODSPORT. Silas shifted slightly. Not closer.
Never closer unless invited.
“I’m not going to watch you turn pain into entertainment,” Silas said.
Kaostar’s head lifted slowly.
“Judgment.”
“Yes.”
That answer caught him. Silas’s tail went still.
“I’m not pretending otherwise. I don’t think that place is good for you.”
Kaostar’s mouth curled.
“Good for me.”
“I know how that sounds.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“You think tea and furniture repair are better?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I’m not going to sit in a crowd and let them make it easier.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed. Silas continued, quieter. “I think after, if you come back, the table will still be there.” Kaostar stared at him.
Silas swallowed.
“Not as reward. Not as forgiveness. Just… there.”
The words entered like a blade too thin to feel until it was already inside. Kaostar looked toward the street. Moonleaf was around the corner. Still there.
The table remained steady. Silas held. Not tightly. That was the unbearable part.
Kaostar opened his hand. The flyer sagged between his claws.
“What if I don’t come back?”
Silas’s eyes lowered.
“Then you don’t.”
“That’s all?”
“No.”
Kaostar waited. Silas looked at him again.
“That’s just the part that’s mine to say.”
Not mine to touch. The alley tilted. Kaostar’s scarred palm burned without light. He folded the flyer again, more carefully this time, and slid it into his coat.
He could feel the folded flyer through his coat. Not like a weapon. Like a second pulse.
“You have become insufferable.”
Silas nodded.
“I was worried.”
“About becoming insufferable?”
“About you noticing.”
Kaostar huffed once. Not laughter. Close enough to be suspicious. A distant bass pulse rolled through passing traffic again.
This time Kaostar did not lock. He hated that Silas noticed that too. Silas finally moved to the dumpster and lifted the trash bag. The mundane act irritated Kaostar more than combat would have.
The bag landed inside with a soft, wet thud. Silas closed the lid.
“Tea place is still open,” he said.
Kaostar looked at him. Silas wiped his hand on a cloth from one of the hidden pockets of his jacket.
“I’m not asking you in.”
“Good.”
“I know.”
“You’re doing it anyway.”
“No.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed. Silas folded the cloth.
“I’m telling you the door exists.”
Kaostar looked toward the alley mouth. Wet pavement. Streetlight. Traffic.
Moonleaf unseen but near. Annihilation Fakter waiting somewhere beyond city glow, dark music and sanctioned violence gathering under forest night. Two directions. Neither clean.
Neither empty. His right ear turned. For one impossible second, he expected the Pennsylvania path. Frost.
Bark. Nothing standing between trees. Instead there was only Los Angeles. A bus sighing at a stop.
A cyclist cursing at a car. A neon sign buzzing weakly. No rain smell. No taps.
No voice. Kaostar looked back at Silas.
“You should fix your watch.”
Silas glanced at it.
“I will.”
“If you ask Arcana, it will scream.”
Silas’s brow furrowed.
“Arcana?”
Kaostar’s expression closed.
“Forget it.”
Silas, wise enough to keep breathing, did not ask. Kaostar turned toward the street.
“Kaostar.”
He stopped. Silas’s voice remained quiet.
“If you go…”
Kaostar did not turn. Silas chose his words with visible care.
“Don’t let the crowd tell you what you are.”
Kaostar’s claws slid out. The line should have sounded sanctimonious. Instead, it sounded true. He looked over his shoulder.
“What if they’re right?”
Silas stood beneath the security light with damp brick behind him and cyan markings catching the alley glow.
“Crowds are usually loudest when they’re wrong.”
Kaostar stared. Silas looked away first.
Good.
Necessary. Kaostar opened a threshold at the alley mouth. Black space folded into itself, edged with rust-red pressure. Wet pavement trembled around the seam.
The flyer inside his coat seemed heavier than paper had any right to be.
“Table might not hold forever,” Kaostar said.
Silas’s hand settled over the low-profile pocket where the repaired charm rested. He did not step back. Silas’s answer came without hesitation.
“No.”
Kaostar looked back. Silas’s voice was steady.
“But it held today.”
The threshold widened. Moonleaf’s unseen warmth remained behind Silas. Annihilation waited ahead. Kaostar stepped into the dark.
The door closed before he could decide whether leaving felt like choice or escape. Silas remained in the alley for several breaths. Then he looked down at his stopped watch. The second hand twitched once.
Silas went very still. The hand remained still. He looked toward the place where Kaostar had vanished. Then toward Moonleaf.
Then, quietly, he picked a damp scrap of the torn flyer from the service door. Only three words remained legible.
NIGHT HIT BACK.
Silas folded the scrap once and put it into another hidden pocket. Not to keep. Not exactly. The table inside was still cracked.
The cracked table remained standing.
~ To be continued ~
