I feel sleepier than usual, as I've not gotten any sleep since the commotion began. Missed my binge-watch, the wings, and the main mission. Now, stuck in the nowhere of the gates. I sometimes wonder: which would disgust me more, being stuck not knowing where, or knowing exactly where?
Two ferrymen dropped off with the packed husk, whereas we'd paused just long enough to run the filtration kit, filling our canteens in trickles. Kael ate without thinking. Dry ration bar chewed down in silence, then closed his eyes like a switch had flipped. I forced mine down slower. The taste was dust and salt, but it beat the sewer stink clinging to the air.
It had been the second round of my watch, and Kael got a second round of rest before we continued to complete this level.
I let him. Dropped a tracker on him before he drifted under, then pinged Amaya with a short pulse. Static comes, then follows her reports. She warned me not to stray too far while the grid had updated its accuracy, then the signal drowned in fuzz. I sighed, wary fingers around the grids to look over the overall structure.
The grid stuttered in my lens, lines crawling into places like veins under weak skin. More tunnels than I wanted to see, half of them jagged with blank spots where the Prism refused to look. But I'd assume the parts where lampreys and rats gather had nests are closed up, where it ended blocked, where only the waters could pass through. Or not, where would all the water come from?
Kael snored once, sharp through his teeth. I envied how fast he shut off sometimes. With the Matte along me, the Ferryman left didn't notice me step off. Their wax faces were tilted toward the water, lanterns swaying like weeds in a current.
I walked the plank-stitch paths past them; boots slick with moss. The market spread wider than I remembered as I explored further, a tangle of docks and shacks lashed together with chain and rope. Lanterns hung low, their light oily against the fog.
Trade hadn't stopped just because we'd collapsed near the skiff. Ferrymen still shuffled corpses in heaps, wax fingers tallying weight. Others bartered quietly, hands trading tags burned into scraps of leather or ash. Not all ferrymen looked the same. I saw a crooked with his arm stitched from three different shades of skin, offering up a sack of rat pelts. A lady-like missing her eyes leaned close to a Ferryman, whispering something that made its ribs creak like laughter.
Glimpse caught the familiar child porcelain hand stretched in their greeting to another. They helped with the catalogue of ribs and bones, bound into bundles while the wax face peeled to melt for the next. When all set, they lined up behind a few while each carried one of their own. The market shifted, a path between stalls opened in unison without a word.
Ferrymen along the path didn't bow or kneel, yet simply stilled and lowered their lanterns, dimming the light. Trades didn't stop, with a hand still passing tags, a sack still changing grip, but softer, like it had hushed the edges without killing them. The eerie shuffle carried weight but not ceremony, as if they'd done this time before, and till no more.
I stood afar, distracted by the hum, its porcelain hand tapping the shaft of its oar in a rhythm I don't know. When it caught me watching, it tapped the haft again, then to the pile of ribs and mask-shards left cooling by the raft. After the bodies were set adrift without words, exchange on scraps began with many who had their parts cracked.
[Rank:57 ( –1 Position]
[Chaos Points:37, 721 (+400)]
[Side Mission 22:]
[Observation Rate: 60%]
Watching as the procession dimmed out, lanterns thinned till the water shallowed their glow. The porcelain hand lingered on the last batch. And it tapped again when I stepped closer. I saw the bundle waiting: lantern glass fractured clean, mask shards jagged, sinew cords pulled taut, ribs haft bound crude but serviceable.
I crouched to examine like the others, but first on the glass. Cold, it refracted faint teal into uneven shimmers when caught the low market flame. With a bit of angling, I could throw across a tunnel wall or scatter reflections enough for a chance of hesitation. They weren't as useful as blades, but they were enough to use the edges to cut tendons.
As for the sinew cords, they were tougher than they looked. On a tug, they didn't snap or fray. Good for strapping grips, lashing together makeshift mounts, even setting a crude snare. Kael's knife grip was already loosening. I could bind it tight before he noticed. And the rib-bone hafts, I decide to take them on smaller bundles for future examination.
I looked up at the porcelain child, its wax face hidden, hand still held in the rhythm of tap and wait. I nodded once in quiet thanks, and it handed my picks for me to pack the scraps into my satchel.
I tested one piece before leaving. A shard of lantern glass thumbed against the air. I flicked it into a side passage, where a guttering flame licked damp wood. The light split three ways. One beam jagged and sharp on the left, one straight, one crooked like a fishhook bend. Even a rat in the shadows jerked wrong, confused by its own stretched silhouette. Warm flutter tugged the edge of my lip at the accomplishment.
When I bent to retrieve it, I noticed how the child decided to throw the shards as well. Yet, failed, as it splattered into pieces. The mimicry started small. When I shifted the glass to catch the oily light, its own hand mirrored the angle, turning invisible glass that wasn't there. When I pulled the sinew taut, it stretched empty air. At first, I thought mockery.
That became obvious once I let myself watch the crowd instead of the trades. One bent to lash bones; another followed the bend a second later, even if nothing needed lashing. One dipped a lantern low, and three more dimmed theirs in staggered delay. They perhaps weren't individuals the way we counted it. They perhaps were continuities, chains of gesture, endless repetition.
The porcelain child, slower than the rest, leaned on my rhythm. My hesitation became its hesitation. My nod became its nod. When I looked away, I still felt its eyes on me, not as a gaze but as a mirror waiting to catch whatever angle I'd give. I hated how much weight that carried. To copy someone meant giving them a kind of afterlife. Maybe that was the only afterlife these wax faces knew.
A scrape cut across the hush.
Kael had wandered in half-awake, ration bar in one hand, scythe dragging in the other. Its hooked blade shrieked across the dock planks as he yawned, loud and human. The market stilled. Every Ferryman within hearing turned its wax face toward him, lanterns dipping like reeds bent under current. The porcelain child froze mid-gesture, eyes on him. For a moment, I thought we'd all drown together right there.
But nothing came. Instead, one of the Ferrymen tilted its lantern, a scrape in its motion echoing Kael's scythe. Another repeated. Then another. Until the scrape had folded into their rhythm, part of the hush. The child, last of all, tilted its porcelain hand to mimic the drag, completing the circle.
They had swallowed his mistake into their pattern. As if nothing existed outside their continuity. As if even disruption was only another gesture to be carried forward. I decide not to care whenever these thoughts might swallow me whole.
Kael didn't notice. He bit into his bar, muttered something about the stink, and leaned against a beam, bickering with Amaya over comms to complain about the plain taste of rations.
The porcelain child hadn't moved since, still fixed on me, still caught halfway between the scrape of Kael's scythe and the rhythm of my nod. Its empty hands imitated the gathering of shards I'd pocketed, but there was nothing for it to hold.
I pondered, then dug into my satchel. One shard I'd shaped earlier: a sliver of lantern glass I'd etched with shallow angles, its refractions tuned to split light into three trails instead of one. Crude compared to what I could make in proper conditions.
I crouched low so we were eye-level, its hand lifted in delayed mimicry. The child looked down at its hand when I pressed it into its palm, fingers clumsy at first, then closed around the shard exactly as I had moments earlier. It mirrored me holding onto the shard, only now there was weight in the motion.
I nodded once; it nodded back slower. Ensure that I left the shard etched before I turn away.
I left them behind on the dock, their lanterns dimming and brightening like breath after what felt like my heart had rested in place. Kael trailed after me, chewing, and the scythe finally lifted instead of scraping. He muttered about how the rations were made to taste like compressed cardboard.
The market swallowed the hush and returned to itself: bone cracked, tags traded, corpses weighed. The Matte pulsed once at my hip, faint red. I sighed, adjusted the grid, and started down the planks toward the tunnels again.
I threw Kael the sinew cords into his hands; he yelped in surprise, and it smacked back to my face.