◇_ _
Ash fell like snow.
It drifted through the still air, thickening the silence that clung to the ruined clearing. Blackened beams jutted from the ground like broken ribs. Shards of collapsed scaffolding lay splintered across the earth. What was once a village—then a prison—was now a graveyard, scorched beyond recognition.
No birds. No wind. Not even insects.
A ragged banner hung from a charred post, edges curling as it slowly turned to dust. Blood had dried in dark trails across the ground, painted over by soot and scorched soil. The fire had consumed not only wood and flesh, but memory.
From the edge of the dead forest, six figures stepped into view.
They moved in silence, their footsteps muffled against the soft ruin beneath them. Cloaked in ash-dulled robes, they seemed like shadows cast by the dying world itself. But a trained eye would notice: their garments, though weathered, were finely woven. Reinforced hems. Intricate threading. Faint glints of enchanted fastenings beneath the grime.
This was no group of strays.
This was a team—deliberate, composed, and deadly quiet.
At their center walked a girl, no older than seventeen. Her golden eyes reflected the fire-scarred landscape with an aching stillness. She paused, scanning the wreckage with a kind of reverence, as if looking for ghosts.
"We're too late," she whispered, voice tight with guilt. "If we'd accepted the system's call sooner… maybe we could've stopped this."
Her words fell flat in the air—too soft to echo, too heavy to vanish.
One of the others, a boy with short-cropped silver hair, laid a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Don't turn your back on what we can do," he said. "You're not the only one who regrets."
Behind them, the others fanned out slightly—three boys, older teens, each moving with disciplined calm. One knelt beside a scorched skeleton still wrapped in the remains of manacles. Another sifted through the ashes of a collapsed tent. The third simply watched, arms folded, gaze fixed on the distant trench.
Then the last stepped forward—the one who had yet to remove his hood. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and carried himself with stillness that radiated authority. His steps made no sound.
When he spoke, his voice cut clean through the smoke:
"We're not here to mourn. We're here to uncover what happened. And to ensure it never happens again."
The girl looked over her shoulder. Her face had lost its softness. Her jaw was set now, eyes flint-bright beneath her cowl.
"They were forced to dig. You can see the trenches. Whatever they uncovered—this was its price."
The tall figure turned his head slightly, addressing the group as a whole.
"Mark the perimeter. No fire spread naturally. This was controlled... ritualistic, even. Whoever did this didn't want survivors. They wanted silence."
Then he turned to the girl again, and though he still wore his hood, there was something unmistakable in the way he regarded her.
"Highness. I know you feel responsible. But if this was what the system flagged… then we may be standing on the edge of something far older than politics."
She swallowed. "I can still feel it. Something wrong in the earth."
He nodded once. "Then stay sharp. We're not alone here."
The wind shifted—faint but sudden. The smoke pulled sideways, revealing more of the camp's ruin: shattered cages, bones collapsed into ash, armor melted into the dirt.
None of them spoke again.
They moved forward, the six of them, toward the broken heart of the camp—like hunters through a battlefield after the thunder had passed, wary of what might still breathe beneath the silence.
---
The six cloaked figures moved through the wreckage like phantoms. They spoke little now, letting the silence of the dead speak for itself. The camp was no longer just a ruin—it was a message burned into the land.
A few feet away, one of the older boys crouched near a pile of charred weapons.
"This wasn't precision," he muttered, brushing soot from a broken blade. "It was fury. Mercenaries… slaves… no one was spared."
Another boy knelt near the trench and lifted a scorched metal ring—half a manacle. "Forced labor. They were digging for something. Whatever it was, it broke loose."
The golden-eyed girl moved slowly, her gaze trailing the clawed grooves carved into the earth, the melted armor embedded in ash. "They didn't even try to run," she whispered. "Some were reaching for each other… not for escape."
She crouched near the base of a fallen support beam, fingers brushing against a faded strip of fabric—once part of a child's tunic.
"They died together."
One of the boys stepped past her, lips pressed in a hard line. He made his way toward the shattered remains of a transport cage, then stopped.
Nestled near a collapsed water trough, partially hidden beneath a singed tarp, was a figure.
A girl—unmoving, bruised, bloodied, still breathing.
Her hair clung to her skin in damp strands. One arm was pinned beneath her, and her shoulder was dislocated, but she was alive.
"We have a survivor," he called out.
The others moved toward him quickly but cautiously. The golden-eyed girl arrived last, lowering to her knees beside the unconscious Mira. She reached for her, but the moment her fingers brushed the girl's temple—
◇_ _
Mira's Dream
She was home.
The sun was warm. Children raced between houses. The scent of bread and earth filled the air. She turned, and there they were—Corin, grinning as he hoisted a bucket over his head, Lothar trying to pull it down, laughing too hard to be angry. The fields swayed golden around them. Dogs barked in the distance. Peace.
Then came the crack.
A sound that didn't belong in memory.
The wind changed. The sky darkened. Fire bled into the clouds. The golden fields turned black.
Screams.
The streets she loved twisted into corridors of flame. The laughter died. The village crumbled, and from the smoke came armored figures—blades in hand, faces blank with violence.
Mira ran. But no matter where she turned, someone fell. Friends. Neighbors. A child she once held in her arms. Cut down. Burned.
Then the mercenaries vanished.
And he stood in their place.
Not a soldier. Not a man.
Lothar, or something wearing his shape, towered above a sea of corpses. His skin cracked with burning light, eyes black and endless. Blood dripped from his hands like ink, seeping into the roots of the world.
She was on the ground again. Powerless. Watching him walk toward her, one step at a time, until—
"Lothar…" she choked. "Please…"
◇_ _
Return to Reality
Mira's body seized.
She gasped—back arched, fingers curled tight—and her eyes flew open.
"Lothar!" she screamed.
The boy standing above her stumbled back, startled. His hand reached instinctively for the hilt beneath his cloak, but he stopped himself.
Mira rolled to her side, coughing, eyes wide, skin slick with sweat.
The golden-eyed girl caught her shoulder and steadied her gently.
"You're safe," she said softly. "It's over."
Mira stared at her, blinking fast, breath catching in her throat.
"No… no, he's still out there. Something's wrong with him. That thing—it wore his voice, his smile…"
She doubled over, curling into herself, tears mixing with soot.
"He saved me. And now he's gone."
The six figures exchanged glances—no words, just the weight of understanding passing between them.
One of them stepped forward, scanning the treeline with narrowed eyes.
"If he's still alive," he muttered, "he won't be for long. Not like that."
The golden-eyed girl said nothing. She stayed with Mira, thumb brushing a smear of ash from the girl's cheek.
"Then we find him," she whispered. "Before whoever—or whatever—does next."
The golden-eyed girl then looked to the hooded leader.
He gave no visible reaction. But his voice, when it came, was colder than before.
" You all, stay here amd take care of the girl."
He then turned to the golden eyed girl and this time adopting a more polite tone he said:"Your Highness, please come with me we need to go."
He turned around, going after the tracks left by the walking Catastrophe.
◇_ _
The void cracked.
Black stone stretched in every direction, scorched and split by glowing red fractures. The sky above was not sky—it was a canvas of smoke and bleeding stars. And beneath Lothar's bare feet, the ground shifted with every breath he took, like a dying thing trying to buck him off.
Then came the heat.
Vaulrix stepped from the darkness like a nightmare collapsing into shape. No face, just a jagged mask of molten metal and burning cracks where eyes might have been. His body bled orange light, flickering with each step as if his form was only barely stable—barely needed to be.
"You've held on longer than most," the entity said, voice like iron dragged over gravel. "But cracks show, Lothar. You're rotting from the inside."
Lothar stood firm, breath shallow, blood trailing down one cheek from a wound that didn't belong to his body.
"I'm still here," he said. "And that's enough."
Vaulrix laughed. It wasn't sound—it was pressure. The kind that pushes into your ears until your thoughts go numb.
"You mistake survival for victory. But even rot resists fire, for a time."
Suddenly, the sky above them shifted—and became memory.
A flickering image of Corin appeared, laughing under a tree, carving something into the bark. Then the image twisted. Corin was coughing blood. The tree caught fire.
"This one," Vaulrix whispered. "He died thinking you were worth dying for. Foolish."
Lothar's fists clenched. "Don't touch him."
"Oh, but I already have."
The image shattered, replaced by a warped version of Mira's face—eyes wide, lips trembling—not with fear, but betrayal. "Lothar," she said, her voice echoing strangely, "Why didn't you stop it?"
"You see?" Vaulrix hissed. "Your own mind blames you."
Lothar staggered back. "This… this isn't real."
"It's more real than your will. Look."
The ground split open. Screams echoed from beneath—fragments of other voices, maybe memories, maybe not. Then it sealed, as if nothing had happened.
"I am not a curse," Vaulrix said, stepping closer. "I am a being you were foolish enough to invite—one your mind was never meant to understand."
The landscape trembled. Lothar summoned a weapon—an axe forged from the memory of his first kill. He swung it—
—and Vaulrix caught it between two fingers.
"Admirable," the entity said. "Useless."
He flicked it aside, and it dissolved into ash.
"You are a cracked vessel, clinging to broken pieces. What do you think happens when the last piece falls away?"
Lothar breathed hard. Sweat—if it was sweat—dripped down his spine.
"Even if I die," he said slowly, "I won't become you."
Vaulrix tilted his head, curious. For the first time, he didn't answer immediately.
"Strange," he said at last. "You endure not with strength, but grief. The memory of a summer voice. The smell of a burning home."
"I've devoured champions. Murderers. Kings. You? You're just a boy who refuses to die."
Then the void brightened—not with light, but with awakening. The outer world tugged at them. The trees. The blood. The real body.
Vaulrix turned away.
"It doesn't matter," he said, almost bored now. "You'll fade. Bit by bit. Until I wear your face like skin. And when I do… not even your precious Mira will remember the sound of your name."
Lothar knelt, gasping.
And whispered through clenched teeth:
"I will remember."