The Stepwalker Chronicles Episode One: When the Fire Died
- facethyfear
- Mar 23
- 3 min read
Savannah, Georgia – 1931
By FaceThyFear
Teaser:
When the city forgot him, the fire didn’t. In the steam-choked alleys of Prohibition-era Savannah, Calen Shroud walks again — a man forged by pain, wielding weapons carved with memory. They came for him with brass and blades. He answered with scripture and steel.
The alley steamed like it hated itself.
Rain had fallen hours ago, but the heat rising off the bricks still smelled like rot, rust, and old regret. Fog clung to the edges of the gaslamps. The silence wasn’t peaceful. It was the kind that meant someone had already screamed.
Calen Shroud walked straight through it, boots heavy on cobblestones.
Trench coat soaked. Hat brim dripping. Dreadlocks tied back and shadowed.
The weight on his hips didn’t slow him.
It steadied him.
His Arsenal
Vice — short-barreled snub-nose revolver, blued steel finish, worn dark from use.
LET IT GO is crudely scratched into the frame — not etched, but carved, like someone barely holding it together.
It’s loud. Final. Unapologetic.
The left hand of release.
Virtue — long-barreled revolver with a deep, brushed blued finish and a smooth walnut grip, aged by years of draw and fire.
KEEP THE FAITH is engraved clean along the barrel — steady, deliberate.
Built for distance. For control.
The right hand of consequence.
Grief — a brutal flamberge, flame-shaped and blackened by countless hours in Calen’s forge.
The blade is uneven, warped on purpose — it doesn’t slice. It rips.
Forged in silence, swung in rage.
For when pain must speak louder than words.
Glory — an iron khopesh, hand-forged in the ancient style, its curve honed with reverence.
It feels like it shouldn’t belong in this time — too balanced, too poetic.
For when the fight demands purpose, not just power.
A man leaned against the crates.
Thin. Nervous. A rusted nickel .32 tucked in his waistband — barely worth its brass.
Calen approached.
“You seen the boy?” he asked, voice like low thunder.
The man flinched. “East alley,” he said. “Went with the ones marked up. I ain’t with them.”
“You are now.”
Three steps later, they came.
Four men.
Blades. Pipe. Brass knuckles. Cheap courage.
The first swung fast — lead pipe high.
Grief sang.
The man folded before the scream caught up.
The second charged —
Calen pivoted, dropped, snapped his jaw with an elbow.
Gunfire barked behind him — reinforcements.
Vice. Drawn. Fired.
Two bodies dropped.
One moaned. The other didn’t.
Then came the smart one —
Creeping in the shadows, knife in hand.
Virtue was already out.
Cold steel.
Finger on the truth.
Click.
“Keep the faith.”
He pulled the trigger.
Only the rain dared speak after that.
Calen stood still.
Steam rose off his coat like smoke from judgment.
One man crawled away, dragging a bleeding leg.
“Let him crawl,” Calen muttered, wiping Grief clean.
“Let him carry the story.”
Then she appeared.
5’4”. Slim thick. Smile carved from temptation.
Her coat was too clean for this street.
Her eyes were too calm for what they’d just seen.
But she didn’t speak.
She just smiled —
and vanished back into the fog.
Calen watched the alley close behind her.
Didn’t chase. Didn’t speak.
But he’d remember.
Every fire leaves behind a scar.
To Be Continued…
#FTF #FaceThyFear #ProhibitionEra #UrbanFantasy #SobrietyThroughSymbolism #SouthernNoir #GriefAndGlory #StepwalkerChronicles #RecoveryFiction #BlackLedFantasy
FaceThyFear
From Darkness to Light.
Live to Love. Quit walking the plank.
Copyright © FaceThyFear 2025. All rights reserved.
This work is part of an ongoing fiction series exploring themes of trauma, resilience, and spiritual warfare.
This is amazing