I didn't sleep.
Even when the others fell over by the fire, even when Seve began snoring with his hand still gripping his blade, I stayed awake and kept my ears attuned. The ruin hadn't ceased whispering. It had simply fallen silent enough to mask its sound as my own thoughts.
I couldn't shake replaying the instant the Remnant said my name. Not Kevin. The name I'd buried. The name belonging to someone who'd made other choices—horrible ones. He shouldn't be here anymore. And if he was, it meant something had slipped.
The morning air was colder than it had any business being. We packed in silence. The ruins behind us never really felt like they were releasing us—they simply stood and watched us go.
Seve made a joke about Hiran stumbling over a root. It made the rest of them laugh, but it was hollow. Even Seve seemed to be suppressing the effort to make a sound come out. His eyes were too dark. He hadn't discovered anything in that wreckage worth smiling about.
We moved north. Supposedly to a pass where the wind died and the beasts never followed. But the trees began to change first. Their bark darkened. Their leaves turned gray and brittle. And then we saw the first ash fall. It wasn't smoke. It had no source. It fell from an empty sky like snow, but wrong. Heavier. Smellless. Nearly silent.
It clung to our boots. Adhered to the hems of our cloaks. Hiran wondered if it was fallout. Luro simply said to keep moving.
We camped in a shallow gully ringed by bone trees. No breeze reached us. No noises issued from the ridge beyond. And blue flames the fire burned on that night for no reason at all.
I had first watch. Seve had second.
Or… was supposed to.
When I woke up to relieve the shift, he wasn't there.
His blanket was warm. His boots were missing. His pack was unscathed. No prints departed. Just… ash. A faint, crisp line of it heading north as if someone had carefully drawn it with a ruler. It didn't spread. Even when I held a torch over it, the ash remained unmoving.
I roused Luro. He looked down the trail silently. I thought he would bark orders, or swear, or tell me we were chasing after him.
But he moved away from the trail and spoke, "He's gone."
"That's it?" I asked. "We don't chase?"
He stared me straight in the eye. "You wish to tread that path? Fine. But whatever killed Seve didn't require a struggle. Didn't leave anything behind but flesh. Didn't feel the need to hide. Wanted us to see."
It was a trap. That was the idea. They didn't kill Seve. They dismantled him.
I couldn't believe that.
I tracked the trail.
The rest of them called after me, but their voices too quickly grew faint. The world around me fell silent after two dozen paces. The ash suppressed all sounds. My own pulse seemed distant. And on in front of me, the path curled between two dead trees that were like kneeling figures.
That's when I began to hear Seve's voice.
Not echoing.
Whispering.
Next to my ear.
He was speaking to me as if we were strolling side by side. Explaining to me about the girl in the ruins. The one I didn't notice. The one I left behind when I closed that door.
Except… he wasn't there when it happened. Nobody was.
I halted my walking. My breathing misted slightly despite the dry feeling of the air.
Then I saw him.
Seve was at the border of a clearing, turned away. Shoulders curled in. Head cocked as if to hear something I could not. I crept towards him, hand on my knife. His boots were missing. Feet bare. Toes buried in the ash as if in water.
I called his name once. He did not react.
Then he turned his whole head.
Not like a man. Like a doll. Slow. Stiff. Too far.
His face was wrong. His eyes were empty but glowing with a faint light. His mouth opened, but the sound that came out didn't belong to his lips.
"You shouldn't have followed," the voice said.
It wasn't Seve's voice. Not even human. It was channeled. Like something was speaking through him as a vessel.
I asked him what it was.
It grinned with Seve's face.
"We are what stays between ends. We know you because you attempted to forget."
I unsheathed my sword. He did not flinch.
Then, involuntarily, he lifted a hand and pointed at me.
"You weren't ever meant to make it past the Sixth Loop. And yet you're here."
I charged.
Not because I was planning to. But because staying still in front of it made my body feel like it was unwinding.
I cut low. It weaved with a jerk that fractured its spine. I turned, faked left, and cut its shoulder. Ash billowed from the wound like a breath.
But it didn't bleed. It didn't shriek.
It just laughed.
"You've killed me before. And each time, you wake up further from the truth."
I didn't let it stop. I pushed the blade into its chest.
Its grin took too long before the body crumbled and broke into airless dust.
I waited there for what felt like hours, for it to reform, for it to speak once more.
But nothing.
Just the ash.
Just the silence.
Just my reflection in the blade.A little more afraid, a little more uncertain, a little less sure I was still me.
I returned to camp alone.
They didn't ask what happened.
But Luro looked at me and said
"If it's started again, we don't have long."
I didn't answer.
Because I knew he was right.
---