Chapter 104: The Price of Resistance
The air in the village shifted.
Where laughter once trickled near the flowing river, silence now hung heavy. The crops that had started to thrive after the water's return were withering—leaves curling, stalks snapping, fruits turning black and crumbling to ash. The sacred tree in the village square stood bare and cracked, its bark bleeding a slow, thick sap that stank of rot. Overnight, something had changed.
Children screamed in their sleep. Mothers woke with scratch marks that hadn't been there before. Fires ignited in dreams and drowned out daylight. Elara jolted awake one morning with her hand clutching her throat, gasping as if she'd been pulled from a lake. Ariella sat upright beside her, skin pale and trembling. Somehow they had started staying together through the nights.
"Elara…" she whispered, pulling up her sleeve. Black marks, like clawed tendrils, curled around her arm. As they watched, the marks faded.
They stared at each other, saying nothing. They didn't need to.
The Shadow was no longer waiting.
It was punishing them.
---
Whispers spread through the village faster than wind. Some claimed the return of the river had angered the gods. Others turned their eyes on the girls.
"They brought the river," someone muttered behind Elara as she passed. "And now the curse."
Ariella pressed a hand against the sacred tree's wounded trunk. "This isn't a curse," she said quietly. "It's retaliation."
"For Albert?" Elara asked.
Ariella nodded. "We made him question the Shadow. Disobey him. This is the price."
---
That night, the world around them stilled. Even the wind dared not blow.
Then, in their sleep, the Blue and White Queens appeared—more vivid, more strained. Their robes shimmered with cracks of light, like porcelain about to shatter.
"There is no more time," the White Queen said, voice sharp with urgency.
"Elara. Ariella," the Blue Queen added, "his soul stands on a knife's edge. One step forward, and he may awaken. One step back…" She didn't finish.
The White Queen lowered her eyes. "If he falls now, we cannot retrieve him. He will belong wholly to the Shadow."
A pulse of cold light flared between them as they spoke in unison:
"The soul born of sorrow must face sorrow alone to rise again."
Ariella stepped forward in the dream. "How can we help him?"
"There is one last tether," said the Blue Queen. "A fragment of love long buried. Mira's pendant. It once anchored him to what he was—before the pain, before the breaking. Find it, and it may remind him again."
"It lies near the cliffs," the White Queen said. "In a forgotten shrine, past the marsh where no sound carries."
The dream began to dim, the Queens' voices echoing:
"Do not fail him now."
---
Below the earth, deep in the ditch where no light reached, Albert stirred.
But it wasn't waking.
He stood in a strange, colorless realm—shadows shaped like memories flickering in the distance. A child crying. A figure reaching out. Fire. Chains. Orders. Obedience.
Then he saw himself.
Not just once—but twice.
One version, hunched and bruised, eyes downcast and broken.
The other—grinning cruelly, hands soaked in blood, eyes glinting with power.
The other version stepped forward. "Still pretending, Albert?" he sneered. "Still clinging to the lie that you're good? You begged him to choose you. Don't forget that."
The broken Albert shook his head. "I didn't want this."
"But you did it." The other version circled him. "You killed. You obeyed. You destroyed. You watched children die and didn't flinch."
"I—" Albert's voice faltered.
"You are me," the other version whispered. "Stop pretending."
Albert's fists clenched. Memories flashed—Little 5 burning, Little 7 crying, Percy laughing. Ariella reaching for him. Elara staring into his eyes, seeing more than just a monster.
"I was broken," Albert said softly. "But I'm not done."
As the words left his lips, a thick, dark smoke coiled around the illusionary battlefield, slithering through the air like a sentient serpent. It pulsed with malice, circling Albert in widening loops.
A slow, delighted laughter rippled from within the smoke, low and mocking.
Somewhere, unseen but deeply present, the Shadow watched.
"Ah, Albert," the Shadow whispered to itself, its voice both amused and venomous. "Let's see if you'll reject and defeat this twisted version of you… or if you'll embrace it, as you always have."
The smoke tightened, pressing down with invisible weight. It didn't touch him, not directly, but it watched—feeding off his fear, his struggle.
The Shadow's voice, though never fully audible, threaded through the illusion like poison in water:
"Fight yourself. Tear at your guilt. Let it consume you, and become mine—completely."
Albert could feel it—feel the Shadow's anticipation, its joy at the spectacle of his torment.
The other version lunged. The two collided in a blur of fists, screams, and memory. Pain surged through him. For every strike he took, a memory returned—Mira's smile, her voice, her touch. His own laughter. His fear. His sorrow.
He fell to his knees, panting.
"I chose to survive," he gasped. "But I don't have to choose you anymore."
The other version hissed and dissolved like smoke.
The thick shadow that had circled him paused… then receded, as if disappointed.
In the waking world, deep in the dirt, a soft glow shimmered faintly on a pendant wrapped around his wrist. It pulsed once, like a heartbeat.
---
By morning, the village stirred again—but this time with renewed hope.
A cloaked woman had arrived just before dawn, her voice calm and graceful, her eyes a shade of blue that shimmered like moonlight on snow. She claimed to be a wanderer, a seeker of old ways. She spoke of healing, of breaking curses. Of light.
The villagers listened eagerly. Desperate for answers, they welcomed her.
Ariella watched her from a distance, unease crawling down her spine.
"She speaks kindly," Elara murmured, "but she doesn't smile."
The woman knelt at the sacred tree, touching its bark with long fingers. The sap thickened slightly at her touch.
Later, as she passed by the girls, Ariella felt something sharp brush her spirit. A coldness. A whisper.
She blinked—and it was gone.
That night, as the villagers slept, the woman opened a worn pouch in secret. Her fingers drew out a rough sketch of a drawing—delicate, crescent-shaped, and threaded with blue.
She stared at it for a long moment before tucking it away again, her expression unreadable beneath her hood.