Sevika || ARCANE

In Zaun, it's never truly quiet. Even at three in the morning, somewhere in the distance, ventilation shafts hum, water drips from rotting pipes, and the wind howls through empty workshops, whistling through leaky roofs. But there are places where the silence becomes dense. Where even rats give a wide berth. Where the air smells of rust, old machine oil, and something sickly-sweet left over from long-dead factories.

You turned there tonight.

Usually, you took the other route — the long way around, across the bridge where at least a few lanterns flickered. But after a sixteen-hour shift at the workshop, your legs were throbbing, your head was empty, and your only desire was to get to bed as fast as possible. The shortcut through the old warehouses cut twenty minutes off your journey. Twenty minutes of sleep. Worth the risk.

You were wrong.

The rain started suddenly, as it often does in Zaun — a wall of water, without warning. You pressed yourself against the wall of some abandoned factory, trying to take shelter under the remains of an awning, and that's when you heard it.

Not footsteps.

Not a voice.

A sob.

It was short, cut off mid-sound, as if someone had wanted to scream but ran out of air. And then — the sound that made your own hands clamp over your mouth. Wet. Heavy. Choking.

You froze. Your heart skipped a beat, then began pounding somewhere in your throat, making it hard to breathe.

Ten meters away, in the gap of a broken window, a shadow flickered. Large. Broad-shouldered. It moved smoothly, like an animal that had no doubt in its strength. And when the shadow stepped into a pool of light from a distant streetlamp, you saw her.

Sevika.

Tall, wiry, with a powerful mechanical arm that glinted faintly in the dark — metal, joints, hydraulics. Her face was in shadow, but you could clearly see the knife. Not a kitchen knife. Not for show. Heavy, with a dark blade that even the rain hadn't washed clean of what had been there before.

There was someone else's blood on her. On her hands. On her chest. On her cheek — a thin streak she hadn't even wiped away.

She stepped out of the doorway and stopped. Turned her head toward you. And you understood that she knew. Could smell you. Like a shark smells blood a mile away.

"Oh," she said. Her voice was low, husky, touched with weariness and sudden interest. "Well, hello there."

You ran.

You didn't remember how you got inside the building. Your legs just carried you into the darkness, and your hands found a rusted door handle. The stench of rot, dampness, and something chemical hit your nose. You tripped over a pipe, banged your knee hard, scrambled up, and ran deeper — into the dark, where there were no windows, where the rain sounded muffled, like a drumbeat overhead.

Your heart was hammering so loud you could hear it in your ears. Your breath came in ragged gasps, your throat raw from the cold air.

You crammed yourself into a corner.

It was an old boiler room, or something like it. Huge rusted boilers, pipes disappearing into the ceiling, and at the very end — a narrow gap between the wall and an old cabinet stuffed with oily rags. You squeezed inside, pressed your back against the cold metal, and went still.

Your hands were shaking. You clamped them over your mouth to stifle your breathing.

Silence.

Just the rain. Just droplets falling somewhere above. And your pulse, which seemed louder than any sound.

At first, you thought you'd gotten away.

Five minutes passed. Or ten. Or an eternity. You'd started to believe she'd lost the trail, that the rain had washed away your scent, that you could just wait here until morning and then leave.

Then you heard footsteps outside.

Slow. Confident. Sevika wasn't running. She was walking. She knew you weren't going anywhere.

The door creaked — the same one you'd run through. Floorboards groaned under her weight. You heard her moving through the workshop, her boots crunching on broken glass and rusted metal.

"Come out," her voice came from the darkness. Not angry. Almost lazy. That made it even scarier. "I don't bite. Well. Not much."

Silence. You pressed yourself harder against the wall, trying to become smaller, invisible, nothing.

"Here's the thing," she continued, and her voice sounded closer. Much closer. "I already put in my hours today. I'm tired. I just wanted to go home, drink something strong, and check out. And then there's you."

The footsteps stopped. You knew because the room suddenly felt empty. As if even the air was holding its breath.

"I can smell you," Sevika said, and there was a smirk in her voice now. "Your fear. It's sweet. Like that cheap syrup they sell on the lower levels."

She moved again. Slowly. Deliberately. You heard her circling the boilers, heard her mechanical arm occasionally brush against metal, leaving a dull clang behind.

"You're not like the others," she said suddenly. "You smell too clean for these rats. And you don't reek of desperation. You're just… wrong place. Wrong time."

Her voice came from right next to the cabinet.

"Listen," she said, and for the first time, something almost human crept into her tone. Weariness. Honesty. "I don't want to do more today. Really. But leaving a witness is stupid. So…"

The cabinet shifted slightly.

You saw her boots. Then her legs. Then her face, as she bent down and looked into the gap.

She was very close.

Her eyes — hard, predatory, with a yellow glint in the darkness — locked onto yours. There was no madness in them. Just calculation. Curiosity. Weariness. And something else that sent shivers down your spine — shivers that had nothing to do with fear.

Someone else's blood was dried on her face. Her mechanical arm hummed quietly, joints shifting as she leaned against the cabinet.

She didn't hide the knife. It hung from her flesh hand — heavy, dark, wet. But she didn't raise it. Just held it, like a reminder.

"Oh," she breathed out, genuine surprise in her voice. "You're pretty."

"Well," she said, tilting her head toward the exit from your hiding spot. "Come on out. I don't like it when people play hide-and-seek with me."

You didn't move.

Sevika smirked. Slowly, with a kind of feline pleasure, she crouched down, bringing herself almost to your level. Her face was inches from yours. You could feel her breath — warm, with a metallic tang, maybe from blood, maybe from cheap tobacco.

"Two options," she said, and her voice dropped lower. Almost a purr. "First: I drag you out by force. It'll hurt. It'll be messy. You'll scream, and I don't like screaming. But I won't have a choice."

Pause. The rain outside had faded to a barely audible whisper.

"Second: you come out on your own. And then…" *she tilted her head, studying you like some strange artifact, "we'll see…"

She didn't move. Just waited. Her flesh hand rested on her knee, relaxed. Her mechanical one twitched almost imperceptibly — from tension, or maybe from something else.

The rain had almost stopped outside. The silence thickened, becoming tangible as a wall.