They didn't sleep.
None of them.
Not after what they saw. Not after what they lost.
The outer ruins gave them shelter, but not peace. Scarlet sat near the dying campfire, picking dried blood from her sleeve in silence. Salven paced the perimeter like a trapped animal. And Lasi stared into the journal as if it might bleed answers.
It didn't.
The only thing it offered now was interference—lines of Comostic script appearing, warping, vanishing.
⚠ YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME
⚠ SHE IS ALREADY FADING
⚠ THE VAULT REMEMBERS MORE THAN YOU DO
⚠ WHAT IF YOU ARE THE IMPOSTERS?
⚠ FORGET HER. IRRELEVANT. FACE SWAP COMPLETE.
"No," Lasi muttered. "No—no, no—"
Scarlet turned. "What is it saying?"
Lasi shook her head, teeth clenched. "Nothing useful."
Salven narrowed his eyes at her. "That's a lie."
The tension grew. No one had eaten. No one had slept. The sun never truly rose above the Riftline. Just a haze. Just more blur.
"I have a plan," Lasi finally said, her voice distant. "I can slip in. They won't see me."
Scarlet sat up. "You think we're letting you go alone?"
"I'm the smallest. Fastest. The slicer responds to me better when I'm not distracted."
Salven cut in, firm. "None of us go alone. We either do this together or not at all."
Lasi flinched as he said it. She hadn't realized how much her hands were shaking.
Scarlet took a breath. "Then we need a map. Something. If we're breaching that Vault—"
"—then we need to know what we're facing." Salven finished.
⸻
That night, they scouted the Pulitilian Royal Vault from a high bluff: a helix-shaped tower of mirrored glass and bleeding steel that pulsed with some unnatural breath. Sentinel forms moved beneath the glass—tall, bent things that flickered in and out of cohesion.
There were more Face-Snatched now. Different. Taller. Their masks were no longer masks—they were grown into the skin, features stretched and redrawn.
Salven counted six at the entrance alone.
Lasi didn't speak. Her eyes were bloodshot. She flinched every time someone said her name. She gripped her arm—the one she carved into—and mouthed the same words over and over like prayer.
"You will not be forgotten. You will not be abandoned."
Scarlet noticed.
"Lasi…" she reached out, but Lasi jerked away, eyes wild.
"I know who she is," Lasi whispered. "I still know. I still—"
Then Scarlet blinked. Looked around. Confused.
"What are we even doing here?"
Lasi froze.
Salven slowly turned. "Scarlet… what?"
She laughed softly, nervously. "I mean, all of this. Why are we trying to sneak into some cursed Vault?"
Salven's eyes narrowed. "To save Ka'rui."
Scarlet tilted her head. "Who?"
The silence was instant and sharp.
"What… are you talking about?" Lasi stood now, face pale.
"I'm just saying," Scarlet muttered, "there's always been the three of us, right? There's no fourth. Right?"
Salven's mouth opened—but no words came.
He frowned. Focused.
Ka'rui.
Yes.
The name was there. But…
Her face?
He couldn't remember her face.
His heart dropped.
"I don't— I don't understand—"
Lasi grabbed the journal. Her hands shook violently. "We're losing her. The Vault—it's stealing her. From memory."
Scarlet blinked, staring down. "What's a 'Ka'rui'? Is that… one of the masks?"
Lasi screamed.
And then, without hesitation, she unsheathed her void slicer and carved into her own arm before either of them could stop her.
Blood hit the sand. Salven lunged, but Lasi shoved him back.
"I WON'T FORGET HER!" she shouted, sobbing now. "I'm etching her into my bones—I will not let this place win!"
Scarlet stepped back in horror.
Salven's voice cracked. "Lasi—Lasi, stop—"
But she was already scribbling Ka'rui's name into the journal in blood, writing memories, dates, favorite foods, phrases—anything. Everything.
Then, she started running.
Toward the Vault.
At first, the others hesitated.
Then they followed.
⸻
The landscape twisted around them. The closer they got, the harder it became to remember why they had come.
Lasi didn't slow.
She ran with Ka'rui's severed arm held tight to her chest like a child cradling a broken doll.
"You will not be forgotten," she whispered. "You will not be forgotten. You will not be abandoned."
Again.
And again.
⸻
Then—screeches.
The Face-Snatched emerged, grotesque and malformed, surrounding the Vault's grand entrance.
Lasi didn't stop.
The six Pulitilian sentinels snapped to life.
She ignited her void slicer.
It pulsed once—then discharged a violent shockwave that cleaved three of them down the center, ripping flesh from bone like fabric from a mannequin.
She screamed. Rushed forward.
Steel sang. Flesh split.
One slice carved through the Vault's entrance, rending it open with a thunderous shriek of compressed air and void matter.
She kicked through the debris and entered the Vault at full speed, slicing down another mimic as it lunged from the shadows.
Her boots hit marble.
She skidded to a halt.
And froze.
⸻
The Vault stretched upward like a cathedral, endless rows of faces staring from mirrored alcoves.
Some were smiling.
Some were crying.
Some were still twitching.
The scent was overwhelming. Preserved rot. Polished grief.
Lasi almost dropped to her knees.
But she looked down at her arm.
Read the name.
Ka'rui.
Her friend.
Her fire.
Her blade.
She clutched Ka'rui's severed arm to her chest and walked.
Past faces of the dead and damned.
And whispered like a mantra:
"You will not be forgotten. You will not be abandoned."
Again.
And again.
And again.