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."