The sun hadn't moved in hours.
Or maybe it had, just the wrong way.
Stray stood near the edge of the clearing, hand still clutching the strip of hoodie sleeve like it could anchor him.
It didn't. His chest hurt in that quiet, hollow way that had nothing to do with breathing.
Morana hadn't spoken since the last ripple. Just stared at the scar like it might speak first.
He stepped closer. "Do you feel that?"
She nodded. "It's too loud."
"It's not making a sound."
"It doesn't have to."
She turned. Started walking.
He didn't follow right away.
"What happens if we go any closer?"
Morana stopped. Her fingers twitched like she wanted to draw something—ward, weapon, didn't matter.
"It starts to remember back."
Stray blinked. "The scar?"
"No," she said. "Him."
Then the light shifted again—white this time, and wrong. And the crack in the sky… widened. Just enough for something to breathe through it.
She looked up.
Whispered something he almost didn't catch.
Then louder:
"He's waking up."
Stray's stomach dropped.
"What the hell do you mean he's waking up?"
But she was already moving. Fast.
And the trees, once still, turned toward them.
"What the hell do you mean 'He's waking up'?"
Stray's voice cracked halfway out. Not fear exactly—just too much breath behind it.
Morana didn't answer. She was already moving. Fast. Downhill, back toward the path, coat snapping sharp behind her.
He ran. Didn't think. Just chased her shadow through the warped light. Branches clawed at his arms. The air turned thick—wet like fog but dry in his mouth.
"Who?" he shouted, lungs starting to burn. "Who the hell is he?"
Morana vaulted a fallen tree. Didn't look back.
"The scar's supposed to stay closed," she said. "That hum? That's pressure. Something on the other side pressing in."
"Something?"
She didn't clarify. Just veered left—hard—into a narrow ravine that hadn't been there an hour ago.
He followed. Slid once, caught himself on a root. Dirt filled his shoes. The sky above flickered like static.
"Morana—"
"If we're lucky," she said, "it's just a memory ghost. If we're not…"
She didn't finish.
They burst into a clearing that wasn't there yesterday. A ring of standing stones. One cracked down the middle. Air pulsing soft from the center.
Morana yanked a cloth from her pocket—dark blue, marked in silver—and snapped it into the wind.
It didn't flap. It stuck, like it caught on something invisible.
"What the hell is that?"
"Ward cloth," she said. "Old kind. You don't see it move, you're good."
He looked again. It was starting to move.
Morana's jaw clenched. "Not good."
Stray stepped closer. Felt the pull. Like the scar was looking for him.
"Is it after me?"
"No," she said. "Not yet. But it knows you."
Then the ground shuddered. Just once. Like a breath.
And from the direction of the scar, something called out.
Not a voice.
A memory—raw and wrong—of a hospital bed and a hand squeezing his that shouldn't have been cold yet.
Stray flinched so hard he hit his knees.
"He's inside my head."
Morana grabbed his shoulder. "No. You're inside his."
Then, low: "We're leaving. Now."
She reached into the ward and pulled the cloth back. It came free slow, like it didn't want to.
She stuffed it into his hands. "Fold it. Don't drop it. If it sings, cover your ears."
They ran again.
The sun cracked wider behind them.
And the village—quiet, listening—locked its doors.
Stray's voice came out thin. Cracked at the end. Like his throat hadn't caught up to the fear yet.
Morana didn't answer.
She turned.
And ran.
No warning. No order. Just a sudden shift—like her body knew before her mouth did. Like the ground had whispered something too old for language.
Stray didn't think. He followed.
The clearing spun behind them; the trees—bare and wrong—bent inward. Not from wind. From want.
They sprinted the way they came, feet thudding against soil that didn't echo right. Too soft. Too quiet.
Something was holding its breath.
"Morana," he gasped. "Talk to me—"
"Later," she snapped. "Just keep moving."
He risked a glance back. Shouldn't have. The light by the scar was shifting. No longer gold. Now… silver-white. Flickering. Like it couldn't decide what it was supposed to be.
And then the air twitched.
A ripple—not in wind, but in time. His legs stuttered; he hit the ground shoulder-first, slid in the dirt.
She was there before he could stand, yanking him up by the collar.
"No looking back," she said. Voice raw now. "Not when it's watching."
He staggered after her. The ridge came into view again. Trees bent out of the way. Grass leaned forward, not back.
"What is it?" he choked. "What the hell is waking up?"
Morana didn't stop. But her voice changed. Lower now. Careful.
"Not a creature. Not a god."
"Then what?"
"A memory that survived dying."
He almost tripped again.
"A what?"
She finally turned, just enough to meet his eyes.
"A scar so deep it started remembering you before you got here."
The cold hit harder now. Not weather—pressure. Like something standing too close behind him without making a sound.
They reached the marker grove. Strips of cloth rattled without wind.
Morana yanked a different path this time—deeper into the brush. Not toward the village.
"Where are we going?" he asked.
"Somewhere it can't trace you. Yet."
They ducked under low branches. The sky above them dimmed. Midday bleeding into dusk with no warning.
Behind them, the scar didn't howl. It listened.
Like the village did.
Only hungrier.
The woods thickened fast. Each branch felt placed, like the trees had grown with the intention of hiding something.
Or someone.
Morana slowed, breath even. Not panicked. Just precise. She reached into her coat again—pulled out another length of that wire, coiled tight like it didn't want to be unspooled.
"Wrap it around your left wrist," she said, passing it to him without looking.
Stray took it. His hands were shaking. "This is like the last one?"
"No," she said. "This one's worse."
He blinked. "Then why—"
"It's not for you," she added. "It's for what sees you."
The wire bit cold into his skin. The moment it clicked closed, the pressure in his head dipped—just enough to breathe.
A snap.
Not behind them. Inside the trees. Close.
They both froze.
Leaves rustled, but not with footsteps. It was slower. Lower. Like breath moving sideways.
Stray turned, and for half a second he thought he saw something standing between the trunks.
His height.
His posture.
But the limbs didn't move right. Like it was learning how. Like it remembered the shape of him, but not the details.
"Don't stare," Morana whispered.
He looked away fast.
"That's a mimic shard," she said. "It's not all here yet. Just a sliver, pulled through by what you remembered."
"I didn't mean to."
"You never mean to," she said. "That's what makes it dangerous."
The shard didn't follow. Just… watched. Its edges blurred like a smudge on glass.
He wanted to ask what happened if it caught up.
He didn't.
They kept walking. The trees thinned eventually. The light didn't come back, but it stopped flickering.
They reached a ridge. Lower than the last one. Nothing below it but flat rock and shallow water running in slow veins.
Morana crouched. Picked up a piece of chalk from beneath a loose stone. Drew a shape on the ground: three circles. One inside the next. Then slashed through the center.
"Sit inside it," she said.
Stray stepped in.
The moment he crossed the line, sound dropped away. Not fully—just dulled, like the world had been padded.
Morana stepped back.
"This won't last long," she said. "A ward this thin only buys minutes. But it'll keep the echoes off you. Let your head settle."
He nodded, trying not to shake.
She sat across from him, outside the line.
"You're not the first to pull something out of the scar," she said. "But you're the first to do it on instinct."
Stray looked down at his hands. "I didn't mean to. I just… I remembered."
"That's why you're different."
He looked up.
She was staring at him now. Not guarded. Not angry. Just… searching.
"You asked me what I am," she said.
He nodded.
"I told you I'm the last thing people meet. The first thing they forget."
Another nod.
"I wasn't lying," she said. "But I didn't tell you what that means."
Stray leaned forward. "Then tell me."
She exhaled. The kind of breath people only take before burying something deep.
"I'm not alive," she said. "Not like you."
The wind outside the circle rustled once. Then stopped.
"I don't belong to this world, or yours, or any other. I belong to what comes after."
His heart hit his ribs.
"You're—"
"I'm the reason Strays survive the landing," she said. "I only find the ones who are about to die. And I give them somewhere else to land."
He stared.
"You're Death," he said. Not a question.
Morana didn't flinch.
"But you're helping me."
"I'm allowed to help the dying," she said. "Not the world. Not the scar. Only you."
His chest rose. Fell.
"And if I'm not dying?"
"Then I broke a rule," she said quietly.
Outside the circle, something scraped against the rock.
The mimic shard again.
Or something worse.
She stood.
"We need to move. It's not going to sleep again."
He stood too.
And as they walked, he asked the question without knowing he was going to:
"Then why me?"
Morana didn't answer right away.
But when she did, it was soft.
"Because you're not supposed to be here."
They disappeared into the dark, and behind them, the chalk lines cracked—split by something that had almost remembered how to follow.
They walked without speaking.
The path didn't lead—it followed. Curved softly around them like it had been waiting. Every step they took, the trees leaned less like walls and more like watchers. Not hiding anymore. Just present.
Stray kept his hands clenched, the ward wire biting in just enough to feel real. His breath came shallow. Controlled. Like if he made too much sound, the world might remember something it wasn't ready to say out loud.
Morana moved ahead, quiet but certain, the way someone walks through their own funeral.
Eventually, the trees broke.
Not a clearing.
Just… stillness.
Flat space. A dip in the land too even to be natural. Grass growing in a spiral without pattern. In the center—nothing but a stone. Round. Unmarked. Waiting.
"This isn't a safehouse," he said.
"No," Morana replied. "It's quieter than that."
She sat first. Cross-legged beside the stone like it was a person she knew. He didn't ask how often she came here. He already knew the answer.
He sat, too. Not across from her this time. Beside her. Closer than he meant to be.
"You still feel it?" she asked.
He nodded. "It's not fading."
"It won't. Not until you stop trying to outrun it."
Stray didn't reply.
He stared at the stone. At his own hands. At the place where the mimic shard had watched him from a body it hadn't finished building.
"I saw him," he said. "The one from the alley. The one who took my place."
Morana didn't blink. "And?"
"I don't think he was pretending."
Silence. Long enough to feel like a question.
Then she said, "He might not be."
Stray looked up. "But I'm me."
"I didn't say you weren't."
She looked at him. Really looked. Not like someone trying to understand.
Like someone who already did, and was waiting for him to catch up.
"You're more you than you've ever been," she said. "That's the problem."
His throat felt tight.
The wind passed through the spiral and didn't leave. Like it'd found a new shape.
Morana reached into her coat again. Pulled out something thin, wrapped in old cloth. She didn't hand it to him.
Not yet.
"Next time you remember something," she said, "don't just see it. Use it."
He looked at the wrapped object. "What is that?"
"A key," she said.
"To what?"
Morana stood.
"To what you are," she said. "Or what the scar thinks you are."
She set the object down in front of him. Turned.
"We move at first light."
Then she left him with the stone, the wind, and a choice.
And for the first time, the world didn't press back.
It waited.