Chapter 9 – They Remember
The silence deepened as Michael and Thana descended.
The stone beneath their feet had changed—no longer jagged and cracked, but smooth, almost polished, as if shaped by careful hands long ago. Red mist pooled low across the ground, curling like smoke that refused to rise. It stirred faintly around their steps, like the breath of something slumbering just beneath the surface.
Michael didn't speak.Neither did Crimson.Even Thana moved with reverent stillness. Her silver eyes flicked to the walls, ears twitching—not in fear, but recognition.
She felt it too.They weren't just walking deeper into the dungeon.They were walking through memory.
Michael reached out with his senses.
Blood was everywhere. In the air. In the stone. Old, dried, pressed deep into the walls and floor—but still there. Still waiting.Some of it stirred faintly as he passed, drifting toward him like dust caught in a breath.
He wasn't pulling it.It was coming on its own.
His blood didn't ask.It simply existed.And the dungeon answered.
But not all of it whispered.
Some of it was silent—hollow and echo-less, like the final breath of someone who had long since stopped hoping to be heard. Michael didn't need Crimson to explain it.
Some blood remembered.Some had tried.And some had already forgotten themselves.
The deeper they walked, the heavier the air became.
Not thick like fog.Heavy like guilt.
Every breath tasted faintly of iron—and something older. Like sorrow dried on stone, layer after layer, never washed away.
Michael slowed.
The mist curled tighter around his boots, stretching toward him in thin red tendrils like veins reaching for their source.
"There's something in the walls…" he muttered. "Like it's alive."
"Not alive," Crimson said quietly. "Just remembering.""But it's not remembering us."
Ahead, the corridor widened.
The stone became black and glassy—polished like obsidian, reflecting twisted shadows. Crimson veins shimmered faintly within the walls, like dried blood aching to flow again.
And then they saw it.
A doorway.Tall. Wide. Arched in silver.
Its frame was carved with blood—not splashed, but written. Symbols etched in looping, mournful spirals. The kind of marks made slowly, carefully. Not with rage.
With grief.
Michael stepped forward. The runes meant nothing to him, but Crimson stirred at their presence—like the echo of an echo inside his bones.
"This is it," Crimson whispered."The place where loyalty became silence. And where memory tried to resist."
Michael placed a hand on the door.
The blood in the carvings stirred—not in alarm, but recognition.
It parted.And the door opened.
The Reflection Chamber welcomed them in.
They stood like statues.
Four figures, spaced evenly around the chamber. They weren't bound. Weren't decayed. Each one stood tall, dressed in ceremonial garb cracked and faded by time, but still intact.
They looked like royalty.Like honor preserved in stillness.
But Michael felt the truth through the blood in their veins.
"Corrupted," Crimson murmured. "But not mindless. Not yet."
Michael stepped forward.
One of them turned its head—slowly. Its eyes met his.Not blind.But hollow.
Then the others moved.No screams.No fury.Just quiet steps. As if they were walking through dreams.
Michael's blood stirred, coiling up his arms—not commanded. Just… ready.
The first one moved like a knight. Sword in hand, measured steps, perfect balance. There was no hesitation. No waste. Only deadly grace.
The blade came fast.
Michael blocked with a pulse of blood. Steel rang off crimson.
He countered.
The blood along his palm twisted into a spike and drove through the knight's chest. Clean. Final.
And then the world shook.
Candlelight. A stone chamber. The knight on one knee.Before him: a tall man in regal silence. No crown. Just presence.A nod. An oath unspoken.The knight bowed lower.Silent. Obedient. Loyal.
Michael gasped as the memory surged through him. Not instinct—memory. Blood rushing into him not just with power, but with weight.
He staggered slightly.
"That wasn't just a reflex," he muttered. "That was… real."
The blood had come to him. It had reached for him before the body hit the ground.
And he realized something.
"I didn't need to kill him to feel that."
The second figure moved—faster, laced in blood magic, a haze of crimson threads snapping through the air. But she was wounded—shallow cuts from long scars.
And the moment her blood touched the air…It shifted.Trailed sideways.
Flowed toward him.
Michael watched it curve mid-air—bend—and press into his skin without permission.
Another echo bloomed.
A scroll burning in trembling hands.A hallway.The same regal man standing still as a blade dripped blood at his feet.Her lips parting.No words.She turned away.Let the fire consume the truth.
Michael stumbled back, breath sharp in his throat.It was happening again.He hadn't touched her. Hadn't even tried. The blood had simply… come.
"Your will is bleeding into the world," Crimson whispered."And the world is beginning to bleed back."
Michael clenched his fists. "I didn't mean to—"
"You don't have to."
The third one charged—a halberd swinging with reckless force.
Michael raised a wall of blood, stopped it cold, and slammed it forward.Stone cracked.The body dropped.
Blood spilled.
It didn't even hesitate.It surged toward him in thick tendrils—and with it, memory.
A door. A voice on the other side."Let it play out," the voice said.A clenched fist.Trembling rage.But no action.He stayed silent.Stayed loyal.
The fourth didn't attack.He raised his arms, empty. Waiting.
Michael hesitated.
"Say something," he whispered.
The man didn't.
Michael ended it cleanly.
No scream.Just silence.
The blood rose again—heavier this time. Slower. But no less certain.
It knew where to go.And it went.
Silence returned.
Thana stepped forward and pressed her muzzle against one of the fallen. She let out a low, broken sound—something between a sigh and a whimper.
Then, without a word, she lay beside the fourth.Curled close.Like a guardian watching over the forgotten.
Michael stood still, chest rising and falling in slow, unsteady breaths.
"These weren't monsters," he said."They weren't even enemies."
"They were loyal," Crimson answered. "Until their silence became a weapon."
Michael knelt.
The blood on the floor wasn't still. It pulsed faintly at the edges—like it knew something had changed. Like it was waiting for something else.
And that's when he asked:
"Crimson. If they hadn't been corrupted… if we'd fought them at full strength…""Would we have won?"
"No."
"Not even you."
Michael swallowed.
"That's how far they fell.""That's how far they were pushed," Crimson said.
Michael looked at the four fallen.
"They stood by him," he said finally."They stood by… while everything fell apart."
Michael turned back toward the four bodies.
He didn't rush. There was no scavenging. No hunger.Only respect.
One by one, he placed a hand over each of them. His blood moved without command—flowing like silk, wrapping around their forms. It didn't devour. It embraced.
Each one was drawn into him.
The Vault responded with a faint pulse in his chest—like the echo of a heartbeat that wasn't his. Their weight didn't drag him down. It settled inside him like buried names.
"You're not trophies," Michael murmured. "You're reminders."
The Vault pulsed softly in his chest with each one—accepting not just flesh, but names. Not power. Presence.
From the far wall, a slow tremor spread outward.
A line of blood split down the center of the stone—thin, deliberate. The wall didn't crumble. It opened.Like something old was finally… remembering.
A presence stirred beyond it.
Still whole.Still waiting.
"Whatever waits beyond…" Crimson whispered. "It's drowning in something heavier than silence."
The mist thickened.
And in the dark beyond the parting wall…Something began to wake.