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Chapter 77 - Chapter 74 - I'm back

Date: ???

Location: Unknown (Somewhere beyond the edge of the dream)

---

I woke up to pain.

Not the screaming kind.

Not the kind that demands attention.

But the dull, splintered ache of a body that forgot it was alive.

My breath caught.

My limbs trembled.

My fingers… moved.

> "Still here," I whispered. "Again."

The illusion was gone.

The sky above me was grey, not shattered. The wind was real, not a mockery. The grass beneath me had weight.

And yet — I didn't believe it.

My mind echoed with screams that no longer existed.

The scent of burning flesh clung to memory, not air.

I was free.

But I didn't feel it.

---

I wandered.

No shoes. No weapon. No plan.

Just a half-dead man stitched together by will and guilt.

The journal was still at my side.

Somehow.

The pages were soaked — not in blood, but in sweat.

Some were torn. Some burned.

But I had written. Every time. I remembered.

> "Try again."

"I failed."

"Lily died."

"Riya burned."

"I died."

"I died again."

"Please—"

"Let me go."

I held it tighter than anything else.

---

I walked for days.

I think.

Time didn't work right anymore.

Every night I feared I'd wake up in that place again.

Every sunrise felt fake.

I didn't eat. I barely drank.

I didn't look at my reflection.

I didn't trust it.

But my feet carried me forward.

And eventually, the trees thinned.

The stones looked familiar.

> Narshia.

I was home.

Or close enough to pretend.

---

They saw me.

The guards didn't recognize me at first — just a ragged stranger stumbling out of nowhere.

But when they looked into my eyes, they stopped speaking.

One of them whispered,

> "...Nitsuo Caelum…"

I was carried.

I remember hands.

Voices.

I don't remember warmth.

---

Back at the manor.

Painkillers. Blankets. Magic I didn't feel.

I heard Alice's voice — sharp, worried.

Leander's — swearing louder than usual.

Anna — silent, holding Leander's hand too tight.

Riya — crying. Saying my name like a prayer.

Gideon — standing like a mountain that might finally crumble.

Elric — muttering a sunlit blessing over my head.

Lily — not speaking at all. Just… there.

Her hand found mine in the dark.

---

I didn't speak for a full day.

When I did, it wasn't much.

> "I'm back."

And then I passed out again.

But I wrote.

Even with shaking fingers, I wrote.

---

Journal Entry: ???

> "The world where even the moon forgot me has ended."

"But its shadows walk with me still."

"I died too many times to remember."

"But I'm still me. I think."

"If I fall again, please… remind me."

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