The forest to the east of the village wasn't real.
I don't say it was an illusion. The trees existed. The earth was solid. The fog was chilly. But the whole thing felt… manufactured.
A memory twisted into the form of a place.
The sort of place someone might construct to conceal something.
The chest mark didn't beat this time. It pounded, dull and slow — a beat from something deep buried.
I entered the forest.
And the wood breathed.
The leaves stirred with no wind.
The earth moved under my feet.
Some of the trees had faces. Not carved. Grown. Not human, not beast — in between. Eyes half-closed in slumber, mouths agape in silent scream.
I trekked through that forest for hours.
I never saw the sun. Never heard a bird. Only the crunch of ash-leaves beneath my feet, and the sound of my own doubt growing louder.
Then I saw her.
Slumped at the foot of a huge tree.
Armor half-broken. Spear broken on the ground beside her. Eyes open, still.
Dead.
Except she wasn't.
Her chest went up once ... shallow, cracked.
Then again.
She rolled her head barely enough to view me.
".Kevin?"
I froze.
I didn't know her.
But she knew me.
"Who are you?" I asked.
"You really don't remember…"
She attempted to sit up ...failed. Her arm was gone from the elbow down. Twisted metal where bone should have been.
"I waited," she said. "They said you were gone. That you'd been unmade. But I kept waiting."
I knelt beside her. Something in me recoiled. Not from her looks. From the words.
"Who told you I was gone?"
"The Archwarden. After the Fall of the Ninth Sky. After you tore the seal from the tower."
None of that made sense.
"I've never seen a tower."
"You bled to break the seal," she whispered. "You screamed when the mirror took your name. I tried to follow. I failed. But you… you weren't erased, were you? Just hidden."
She smiled then — not with joy.
With relief.
"They'll come for you again, Kevin. Now that you're moving."
"Who?"
"The ones who remember you. The ones who forgot. All of them. Because you're not supposed to be alive."
She coughed up blood. The earth swallowed it ravenously.
"Do you remember me at all?" she whispered.
I shook my head.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It means it worked."
"What worked?"
But her eyes were already glass.
---
I sat in quiet beside her corpse for too long.
Struggling to breathe. Struggling to believe.
She remembered me. Remembered things I didn't even dream of. She passed on smiling because I didn't recall her — like that was evidence of something being successful.
But what?
The wind changed.
No ..not wind.
Footsteps.
I stood firm, blade half-pulled.
Figures emerged from the mist.
Not beasts. Not soldiers.
They were covered in masks of shattered stone. Armor that was too old to shine. Every step they took behind them was ash. Silent. Calculating.
I counted five.
Each of them carried a unique weapon — hammer, sickle, chain, staff, blade. Not arbitrary. Not ritualistic.
Executioners.
The mark on my chest ignited with fury.
They responded.
One of them raised a hand — and the air snapped.
My knife snapped all the way into my hand just as a spear of raw pressure stabbed towards me. I rolled, came up cutting, struck nothing — they'd already closed in on me.
They moved like shadows and struck like storms.
The first arrived with a chain .I ducked, caught it on my knife, pulled ,he sailed towards me, and I jammed my elbow into his neck. He didn't scream. Just collapsed.
Another hit me in the ribs with the staff — hurt spread, sight white — I whirled, cut low, chopped deeply into his leg. Still no noise. Just a hiss.
They didn't fight like men.
They fought like tools.
I was losing ground quickly. Not because they were stronger. Because they weren't afraid to die.
And I was.
I stumbled over a root, fell hard, and one of them lifted the sickle high above me—
Then stopped.
Not hesitating.
Locked. Entire body locked.
All of them stopped.
And then… shattered.
---
Their bodies fell into ash, like puppets severed from invisible strings. The forest again became quiet.
And something laughed.
Not far.
Not deep.
But familiar.
I stood, gasping, sword at ready, blood falling from my lip.
> "Who's there?"
The laughter ceased.
A figure emerged from the fog.
Wearing a mask.
Not like theirs. Not stone.
Glass.
Him.
"Told you they'd come," the masked man said.
I didn't sheathe my sword.
"You said you weren't my enemy."
"I'm not. But I'm not your friend either. Not yet. I had to see if you were still. able."
"Of what?"
"Of surviving what you did."
"What did I do?!"
The masked man cocked his head.
"You ended something that couldn't be ended. And then, for good measure. you ended yourself."
I stared at him, shaking.
"Then why am I still here?"
He stepped closer.
"That," he said, "is what everyone else wants to know too."
---