The name echoed in Sunny's mind like a scream trapped beneath a frozen lake.
Berzilus.
He staggered back as if struck. His knees almost gave out.
"…That can't be true."
His voice was barely more than breath. "He's… dead."
Kael's eyes were soft, but not kind. "No, Sunny. He chose to disappear. Chose to die… as your brother."
The silence that followed wasn't empty—it roared with everything Sunny had tried to bury.
Memories bled into his vision.
A boy laughing in the rain, holding a broken flute.
Fingers brushing ash off a girl's grave.
A hand covering Sunny's eyes during a riot—
"Don't look, little brother. You don't need to remember this world."
But he had. He remembered it all.
The screams.
The fire.
The promise.
> "I'll protect you, no matter what."
Sunny gripped his head. Pain flared—sharp and cruel. The nightmare hadn't ended. It had only pulled him deeper. Into truth.
He looked at Kael. "Why did he never come back?"
Kael didn't answer immediately. He stared into the horizon where the prison walls shimmered like mirages.
Then:
"Because after what he did… he believed he no longer deserved to be your brother."
Sunny's hands trembled. "What did he do?"
Kael closed his eyes.
---
Flashback.
A circle of fire.
Berzilus tied to a wooden post, shirt torn open, symbols carved into his skin by fanatics chanting divine justice.
And her—Elia—standing outside the crowd, eyes wide, lips quivering.
They had found his journal.
His thoughts.
His questions.
They branded him a heretic. A traitor to faith.
She could have stayed silent.
But she didn't.
She told them everything.
And when they lit the fire, Berzilus… didn't scream.
Instead, as the flames reached his waist, he broke the ropes.
He walked forward—skin peeling, eyes bleeding—and embraced her.
One final time.
They both burned.
But something unnatural happened.
A pulse.
A ripple in the world.
Amon appeared then, stepping from smoke like a god from legend.
He touched Berzilus's head and whispered, "You are no longer human. Let me show you what it means to become memory itself."
---
Back to present.
Sunny sank to his knees.
His eyes stared into nothing.
His voice was cracked glass.
"He… hugged the one who betrayed him?"
Kael nodded.
"Why?"
"…Because he still loved her."
Sunny closed his eyes.
And for the first time in years, he cried.
Not out of pain.
Not out of rage.
But from the weight of understanding.
Love, even when betrayed… still burns.
But sometimes, that fire becomes the abyss.