The Hollow Warden

Tek nearly yanked Jarek into his dimly lit workshop, slamming the door behind him with a resounding clang that seemed to echo for an eternity. The lock clicked, sealing them in. For a beat, maybe two, they just stood there, breathing hard like marathoners who'd hit the wall, the air between them heavy enough to drown in.

"Tek," Jarek began, his tone teetering between anger and frustration, "what fresh disaster have you dropped me into this time?" His words came out sharper than he intended, like he held a knife to Tek's throat .

Tek, for once, didn't shoot back with his usual cocky grin. That whatever happens, happens smirk always prominent on his face was conspicuously absent, replaced by a pensive, almost haunted look. He stared at Jarek as if trying to gleam an answer from his face. The silence stretched, getting on Jarek's nerves.

With a frustrated sigh, Jarek dug into his pocket taking out the shard, a strange, otherworldly fragment that hummed faintly in his palm. Or maybe it didn't. He wasn't sure anymore. "Here," he muttered, shoving it toward Tek. "Fix this mess. I'll wait."

Jarek plopped into a chair buried under what could only be described as organized chaos, pushing aside a heap of what looked like old circuit boards. The chair creaked in protest under his weight as he slumped, looking as if the day had wrung him dry.

Tek, all too eager to distract himself, slid on a pair of goggles that looked straight out of a bad sci-fi flick. They were oversized and covered in so many knobs and dials they might've been able to see the future. He examined the shard with a level of focus usually reserved for people defusing bombs. The thing was flawless, smooth, seamless, and entirely unwilling to give up its secrets.

"Well?" Jarek chimed in after a minute. "Have you got figured anything out? Or are you just admiring its good looks?"

Tek scratched his head, his untamed hair standing up in odd angles like he'd just been electrocuted. "Let's smash it" Jarek suggested dryly, waving a hand as though it was the most obvious solution they had.

Tek recoiled, horrified at the thought, he behaved as if Jarek had suggested stomping a puppy to death. But after an exhausting back-and-forth, he relented. Picking up a heavy mallet that had seen better days, he swung it like his life depended on it.

In the middle of his swing, the shard vanished. It Just disappeared. Only to reappear seconds later, snug in Jarek's hand, like it had always been there. They stared at it, then at each other, both too stunned to speak.

For a couple of hours, they tried everything, acid baths, diamond-tipped drills, they even tried Tek's experimental laser, which had once accidentally vaporized a toaster. Nothing so much as scratched the shard's surface. Finally, Tek threw his hands up in defeat. "You keep it," he muttered, deflated.

"Me?" Jarek hissed, his voice rising. "You do realize that someone, probably someone very scary, is going to come looking for this thing, right? And I don't think they'll take 'oops' for an answer!"

Tek shrugged nonchalantly, already rummaging through his cluttered workbench. "Yep. Try not to die. I'll look into it." Jarek fumed as he stormed out of the shop.

Back in his dingy apartment, Jarek tossed the shard onto a rickety table and collapsed onto his lumpy mattress. Sleep claimed him fast, a deep, dreamless abyss. But it didn't last.

He woke with a start, his breath coming in gasps, like he'd surfaced too quickly from a deep dive. The room was glowing, bathed in a pulsating light that seemed to beat in sync with his racing heart. The shard sat there on the table, glowing like some malevolent lighthouse, casting eerie, shifting shadows that danced across the walls.

"What the hell…" Jarek whispered, his voice barely audible over the hammering of his pulse. The silence outside was unnerving. The Shatterzone was never quiet, there was always the hum of machinery, the clatter of voices, the occasional roar of a scuffle. But tonight, nothing. Just the shard, beating like a heart, daring him to approach.

And then, all of a sudden, there was a blinding flare, it erupted with light. The air rippled, bending reality itself. Jarek felt the ground vanish beneath him, and he fell, not in the way you trip or stumble, but a freefall into something vast and incomprehensible.

When he finally landed, it wasn't in his apartment. He was somewhere else entirely. The sky above him churned with impossible colors, violet, gold, and hues that had no name. The ground beneath his feet shifted between glassy smoothness and soft, yielding sand. Every step felt like walking on the edge of a dream.

"Where the hell am I?" he muttered, his voice trailed off into the vastness.

The shard was still in his hand, its glow steady now, almost smug. "You brought me here, didn't you?" he accused, as if it could respond.

Before he could process the situation, the ground rippled violently, and distant figures began to take shape, they were humanoid, but also not. They flickered like static, their faceless heads turning toward him with unsettling precision.

"Great," Jarek muttered, raising his fists. "Because this day wasn't bad enough already."

The shard pulsed in his hand, sending a strange, almost electric sensation up his arm. One of the figures lunged, its movements janky and unnatural. Jarek barely sidestepped in time, his fist connecting with its chest. The thing shattered like glass, but there were more, a lot more.

Jarek fought with everything he had, adrenaline fueling his every move. But for each one he took down, two more seemed to appear. The shard grew hotter in his grasp, its light blinding now.

Desperation took over. He raised it high, and in a burst of unimaginable energy, a shockwave erupted, obliterating everything around him. The force knocked him to the ground, leaving him dazed and disoriented.

When he opened his eyes, he was back in his apartment. The shard lay on the table, deceptively quiet, its faint pulse almost mocking him.

"What the hell just happened?" he murmured, his voice trembling. The shard offered no answers, only the steady, unrelenting rhythm of its light.