The whispers came first.
Faint. Threadbare. Stretching through the corridors of Nu'Ravin like silk spun from forgotten voices.
Echo was used to them.
Used to the way the city murmured beneath his skin, the way streets shifted when he wasn't looking, as if the architecture itself was waiting for him to remember something it had buried long ago.
Tonight, however, the whispers were different.
Not fragmented ghosts of lost memories.
Not echoes of the dead Reapers whose minds he had taken.
No.
These whispers carried his name.
He's awake now.
The Mind-Eater walks again.
He does not remember—but he will soon.
Echo tightened his grip around the silver key hanging from his neck. His breath misted against the cold air as he stepped deeper into the Ashglass Quarter, where walls curved unnaturally and lanterns burned with the eerie glow of dying stars.
Thalia was ahead of him.
She walked without urgency, her cloak billowing behind her like smoke unraveling from forgotten fires. The rose she had plucked from the last corpse rested in her palm, its petals shifting—sometimes an eye, sometimes nothing.
"You've heard it, haven't you?" she murmured.
Echo didn't answer.
He had heard it.
The city was reacting to him.
No—to something inside him.
"You don't remember yet," Thalia said. "But you will."
He narrowed his eyes. "What did I do to this city?"
Thalia glanced over her shoulder, and the spirals in her irises pulsed as though the question itself had triggered something ancient inside her.
"You rewrote it."
Echo's pulse skipped. "What?"
She stopped walking. The air between them shifted, charged with energy that made the night feel denser, more suffocating.
"Nu'Ravin isn't real," she said. "Not in the way you think. It was built on a foundation of forgotten memories—stitched together by ink and soul-magic. It exists because you do."
A sick realization coiled in Echo's stomach. His fingers brushed over the key absently, as though it might reassure him that this was just another mind trick—another false reality meant to pull him deeper into the game.
"I don't believe you," he said. "I can't have rewritten an entire city."
Thalia smiled faintly. "No? Then why does it change every time you start remembering who you are?"
Echo opened his mouth.
Stopped.
Because she was right.
Streets that hadn't existed hours ago were now here. Buildings that had been familiar yesterday were unfamiliar today. People—strangers—looked at him with a mixture of recognition and terror, their expressions shifting as though they weren't sure if he was a nightmare or a god.
The game wasn't just about memory.
It was about control.
Echo exhaled sharply. "Then what happens if I remember everything?"
Thalia's expression darkened. "Then the city dies."
Something in the distance shattered—a window, maybe. A warning.
Or an omen.
And somewhere, unseen, another whisper crawled through the veins of the city.
He was supposed to stay dead.
***
Echo could feel the city shifting.
Not physically—not yet—but in the quiet way its whispers twisted around his thoughts, pressing into him like hands reaching from the dark.
Something had been disturbed.
Something had been awakened.
Thalia stood motionless, her gaze heavy with knowledge she refused to speak aloud. The air between them pulsed with something unspoken, something that felt as sharp as a blade beneath skin.
You said the city dies if I remember everything. Echo's voice was quieter now, like he was afraid saying it too loudly would make it true. Why?
Thalia turned, her fingers brushing against the petals of the rose in her palm. The bloom had stopped shifting, but its presence was wrong—as if it was feeding off the very fabric of Nu'Ravin itself.
Because you built it from lies. Her words were simple. Stark. If the truth resurfaces… everything collapses.
Echo felt the weight of her answer settle in his chest. He wasn't sure what scared him more—the idea that she was right, or the fact that a part of him already knew.
He took a step closer. And what if I let it collapse?
Thalia didn't flinch. Then you cease to exist.
Something in him twisted violently at the thought.
Thalia exhaled and looked toward the sky. Above them, the cracked stars flickered, rearranging themselves into constellations Echo couldn't recognize. It was the same sensation he had felt before—like the city itself was reacting to his mind.
But this time, something was different.
The whispers weren't warning him.
They were waiting.
Echo's pulse hammered against his ribs. I need to remember.
Thalia's expression didn't shift, but Echo caught the way her grip tightened around the rose—the way her breath hitched so softly it was nearly imperceptible.
You think it's that simple? she asked, voice low. Just recall the past and somehow reclaim yourself?
Echo clenched his jaw. It's the only way to win.
Thalia laughed—but it wasn't amused. It was bitter. Hollow.
You still think this is a game.
The words echoed around them, bouncing off the alley walls, sinking into the cracks of the city itself.
And suddenly—
The whispers stopped.
The silence was violent.
Echo barely had time to react before something ripped through reality.
The walls of Nu'Ravin shuddered.
The ground cracked beneath Echo's feet.
And in the space between one breath and the next—
The Reapers arrived.
They didn't walk into the alley.
They manifested—figures of ink and shadow, twisting like fragmented memories forced into human forms. Their faces were smooth porcelain—expressionless, unreadable. And their eyes—what should have been eyes—were shifting voids, spirals of unmade thoughts.
Thalia moved first.
Her blade was in her hand before Echo could process the attack, its surface shimmering between steel and shadow. The first Reaper lunged, hands like claws reaching for her throat.
She cut it down in a single motion.
Echo had seen her fight before—but this wasn't just skill. This was familiarity. Like she wasn't just defending herself—but settling a long-standing debt.
Another Reaper lunged.
Thalia twisted.
Her blade tore through its chest.
The creature didn't bleed.
It simply unraveled.
Echo stepped back, breath coming fast.
You need to go, Thalia hissed between attacks.
Echo shook his head. I'm not leaving.
They aren't here for me.
The weight of her words hit him like a blade.
The Reapers weren't targeting Thalia.
They were hunting him.
Echo barely had time to react before one of them spoke—not in words, but in something deeper. A pressure inside his skull. A voice that was more than sound.
You were supposed to stay dead.
The sentence hit like a crack through his thoughts.
Echo staggered.
Pain slammed into his mind—not physical, not something he could fight. It was memory—fractured, broken, spilling through him like ink seeping through paper.
A name surfaced.
A face.
Lani.
Echo's breath hitched.
The memory tore through him like fire.
He remembered.
Not everything.
But enough.
Enough to know that the Reapers were right.
He was supposed to stay dead.
And now?
The city would make sure of it.
Thalia fought harder now, her blade weaving through the air in arcs of shimmering light. The alley was shrinking—warping—Nu'Ravin bending itself to contain the unraveling truth.
Echo! Thalia's voice snapped through the chaos. You need to run!
He couldn't.
Not now.
Not when he was so close.
Not when the game—the truth—was about to unfold.
Echo turned to the Reapers.
They surged forward—
And everything shattered.
The city folded.
The stars burned.
surfaced.
You loved her once.
You killed her anyway.
And now—she wants you to remember.