The scream was gone.
But the silence it left behind was not the same.
It rang. Not in his ears — in his bones. Like an echo from some deeper layer of reality that refused to fade.
Sunny stood still, frozen just outside the edge of the chamber. The battle hadn't begun, but it soon would. The cohort hadn't turned. Even Saint, attuned to him more than anyone, gave no indication she'd sensed anything at all.
As if the world hadn't just split... As if something hadn't reached through.
He turned his head back toward the tunnel behind them.
Nothing.
The air was thicker.
Not visually, not physically. But perceptually. As though someone had drawn a sheet of oil across his senses.
It caught on the corners of his awareness. Just enough to keep him from fully seeing the edges of things.
And there, inside the haze —
A shape.
Far away.
Indistinct.
A figure of mist.
It had no features. No face. No expression. Only the rough geometry of a person standing still in the dark.
But even without eyes, he knew it was looking at him.
It took a step.
No, not a footstep. Not motion in the traditional sense. It simply became closer.
Sunny's breath caught in his throat.
The moment stretched.
He did not move. He could not.
Because the shape... the pressure it brought with it... was familiar.
Not in the way old places are familiar. Not in the way memories are familiar.
This was the familiarity of something he had already lost.
Something he was not allowed to touch again.
And with every second it drifted closer, he felt something inside begin to come undone.
He didn't feel fear.
He felt... subtraction.
The world wasn't getting darker. He was becoming less.
He blinked — and for a heartbeat, forgot how long his own arms were.
Another blink, and his name felt strange in his head.
Another breath, and he wasn't sure how long it had been since he'd taken the last.
And through it all, the figure drifted closer.
And closer.
And closer.
Until it wasn't far away anymore.
It was right in front of him.
Still faceless. Still soundless.
And still — watching.
He tried to look away, but his vision slid.
Not turned. Not focused. Just... slid.
Like his eyes didn't remember how to orient to a world where he wasn't real.
His chest tightened. His soul buckled.
He remembered the maze. Remembered the shadows scorched into stone. The silhouettes left behind when everything else had been erased.
No bones. No blood.
Just absence. Nothing.
That was what this thing was. One of those impossible things that unmade others simply by being near them.
And it was inside him now. Already touching something sacred.
Sunny collapsed to a knee.
He felt the outline of his own being peeling away.
Not mind. Not magic. Something deeper.
His sense of self was fraying. Words were losing meaning.
He couldn't remember what his voice sounded like.
It was as if he had returned back to the space-between-worlds, where he was unmade and sent back through time.
But still—
He resisted.
Somewhere far below the crumbling surface of himself, something held. A kernel of defiance that had nothing to do with strength or hope.
A thing too true to be unwritten.
He didn't grab for a weapon. He didn't reach for a Memory.
Instead, he reached for a name.
His name.
Not the one given to him. Not the one called out by instructors or allies.
The one he had imposed upon the world.
Lost from Light.
It didn't come with power. It didn't banish the cold.
But it held.
That was enough.
The unraveling slowed. The edges of his soul flared — dimly, stubbornly. The creature pressed in, but met resistance.
A flicker sparked behind his sternum.
Not fire.
Not fury.
Will.
The faintest glimmer of it.
And in that breath, the mist creature stopped.
It hovered, still and weightless. No longer advancing. No longer erasing.
But not gone.
It waited.
And then—
Slowly—
It began to change.
The mist didn't retreat.
It simply... shifted.
The shape unraveled, then began to reweave itself — threads of formless vapor tightening, realigning. And where moments ago there had been nothing but suggestion, now there was something more deliberate.
It was still mist. Still wrong. But it had a body now.
And that body was his.
Sunny stared, not breathing.
The imitation was crude — like a figure sculpted by someone who had only heard about humans in passing. Too long in the arms. Too shallow in the eyes. The curve of the jaw too soft, too symmetrical. The folds of the robes hung just slightly wrong, as though gravity hadn't been consulted. But it was him. Or a dream of him.
The mimic didn't move.
Not until its head twitched.
The motion was minute. Almost imperceptible.
Then —
The head tilted. Not side to side. Not up or down.
Rotated.
The neck began to turn in a slow, deliberate corkscrew. Not cracking. Not jerking. Just turning — degrees at a time — until the crown of the thing's head faced downward, and its face, such as it was, stared at him upside down.
Mouthless. Eyeless.
And then, in a voice made of echo and delay:
"G̶o̴t̷...̸ ̶y̴o̴u̷..."
Sunny took a step back. His balance failed.
Something plunged into him.
Not claws. Not mist. Intention.
It was inside before he had time to blink. Not physically — it never touched him. But he could feel the creature's attention dragging its fingers across the innermost shelves of his mind. Rooting through his soul like it was a book it had already half-memorized.
Memories unfurled without consent.
The Crimson Spire.
The blood.
The white flame.
Her voice.
It was pulling.
Not taking — replicating.
The mist creature rippled again. And this time, the fog reshaped cleanly.
A crown. Simple, but radiant. The Dawn Shard.
Starlight Legion armor. Marred by battle. Cut into pieces and reforged by fire.
A sword began to form in its hand — slowly, agonizingly, like memory congealing into steel. The Dream Blade.
And then came the face.
It was hers.
Nephis.
Sunny didn't breathe.
It wasn't just a hallucination. It wasn't even a Memory.
It was a perfect recreation — down to the way the torchlight would have kissed the edges of her cheek. Down to the shape of the shadow beneath her eyes.
But it was wrong, too.
The face didn't cry. But tears fell from it anyway — drifting from her cheeks in threads of vapor that hissed softly as they touched the air. Like she was bleeding mist.
More than anything else, that made him sick.
Because somehow... it made sense.
Because of course she would cry.
Because he wasn't supposed to see her again.
Because the one who had spoken his name was not the woman he had loved, but the shadow of what he had done to her.
Sunny's throat worked. No sound came out.
And then — without thought — he moved.
No warning. No breath. No words.
He lunged.
His foot struck stone and he was already in motion, sprinting toward the mimic, toward the woman it was pretending to be, sword drawn in a blur.
Not to fight.
Not to strike.
To push.
To get her away from the chamber. Away from the others.
Because if any of them turned — if they saw this thing — they would not come back from it.
He didn't have time to explain.
He just ran.
The false Nephis tilted her head, watching his approach, mist streaming like silk from the corners of her eyes.
And then, soundlessly, she moved to meet him.