Emrys didn't speak.
He stepped forward, one boot crunching on soil that wasn't soil—dark and flaked, like burned paper made solid. The air moved weird here.
Too many directions. Too many temperatures. One gust hot, another cold, and then nothing at all. The grass stopped growing ten feet back. Everything after that was wrong.
Shapes hung in the air like smoke frozen mid-rise. Faces—not full ones, just parts—drifted in and out of them. A smile. A nose. Lips that moved but made no sound.
He didn't flinch. But his fingers found the scythe at his back without thinking.
"Still breathing," he whispered.
There was silence for a moment. Like someone turned down the volume on the television.
…
"Still breathing."
Something answered.
Not aloud. Just… echoed. His own voice, half-second delayed, from behind him.
He spun. No one there. Just mist curling backward, like it didn't want to be caught.
The deeper in he walked, the more wrong the world became. Trees without bark. Branches that blinked. Light that had angles.
And then the whispering started.
Not words. Not yet. Just familiarity. The feeling of someone else wearing your memories, dragging them behind them like broken limbs.
He passed a pool. Still water, shallow. Reflected the sky wrong. Fractured sun, yes, but with a second moon. One that pulsed like a heartbeat.
And in the water, his face stared back.
Except it blinked. First left. Then right. Then both.
He backed away. Something behind the pool stood up. He hadn't heard it arrive.
It was almost a person.
A body in the shape of multiple others. Faces welded together like broken masks. Mouths overlapping, blinking eyes sharing sockets.
"Why are you wearing his name?"
Its voice staggered between registers.
Emrys didn't answer. Couldn't.
The figure tilted its head. One of the mouths laughed. Another whispered something he couldn't make out—his mother's voice, maybe.
Or a dream pretending to be her.
"Do you even remember why you left?"
The scythe hummed low against his spine.
More figures stepped from the blur.
Their shapes didn't hold. Too fluid. Too known.
He saw the boots of a teacher he once hated.
The crooked wrist of a friend who broke his hand senior year. One face he swore belonged to someone he never met—but missed anyway.
These weren't demons.
Not exactly.
They were reverberations that learned how to want. And they wanted him.
"You shouldn't be here," the multi-face said. "You were supposed to be forgotten."
He stepped back.
Then stopped.
"No," he said, voice quiet but steady. "You were."
The scythe slid down into his hand like it knew. Not a weapon. A boundary.
The nearest creature surged, limbs disjointed, voices climbing into chorus. Screams layered with laughter. A barked order. A whispered apology.
He cut through the noise.
Literally.
The blade passed through the center figure, and it split. Not like flesh. Like film. Like it had only ever been projected.
The pieces melted into the air, and the voices inside it screamed once, then stopped.
The others paused. One backed away.
The scar pulsed.
Not light. Not power.
Just awareness.
It knew he was here now.
And he could feel it... watching.
Then—from deeper inside the scar—another voice. Clearer. Older.
"Come further. Let us remember you better."
He didn't move.
But the scythe burned cold in his grip, and every memory he thought he'd buried stood a little closer.
[Ping!]
[Player EXP: 13/12] [Level Up]
> > >
[Name: Emrys Katsunori]
[Age: 17]
[Class: Named (Mors-Influenced)]
[New Skill Unlocked]
Speed Demon — Lv. 1
Your speed is praised in Purgatory.
Each foe vanquished grants a temporary burst of speed. The effect stacks. So does the cost.
—————
The notification didn't make a sound, but it landed like thunder.
Emrys blinked once.
The message burned across his vision, crisp and too sharp. Then it faded, and everything around him moved a half-second slower.
He turned.
The remaining echoes were backing away, unsure now. Their mouths still flickered with half-spoken names. But none of them stepped forward.
He could feel it.
The pulse in his legs, the stretch just beneath his skin. Like the moment before a sprint. Like every muscle had been waiting for this.
"Speed Demon," he muttered, more to the scythe than to himself.
He moved.
The world barely kept up.
His first step cracked the soil. The second brought him nose-to-nose with a mimic trying to reform. He didn't swing. He slid.
Under it.
Came up behind.
And when the scythe arced, it didn't hum. It snapped.
The creature shattered, and something inside him lit up. Not fire—momentum. A thread of heat zipped through his spine, and his vision edged white.
[Speed Boost: +1]
He gasped. Smiled.
"Oh. I get it now."
Another form lunged from the mist. Too tall. Too wrong.
He met it halfway.
Two cuts. One breath.
Gone.
[Speed Boost: +2]
The ground tilted beneath him, or maybe he tilted over it. His boots stopped making noise. The air couldn't wrap around him fast enough.
Figures blurred past, trying to drag him back into the slow. But he was already further.
Every motion left a shimmer.
Every victory made the next one shorter.
The scar trembled at the edges.
And somewhere beyond the wrong light, something laughed—quiet and full of teeth.
He was moving too fast to stop now.
Too fast to forget.
But maybe—finally—fast enough to catch up to what he'd lost.
He ran deeper into the scar, faster.
Killing was easier.
Much easier.
He didn't slow down.
Couldn't. The world behind him kept cracking, and the one ahead refused to finish building. But it didn't matter. His feet touched ground that barely held together, and still—he ran.
Faster with every breath. Faster with every name the scar tried to drag from his bones.
He wasn't outrunning it. He was threading through it. The way you move through memory when you're not ready to feel it but can't forget it either.
Another flicker.
Another echo.
This one had her voice. Not Himani. Not really. Just the echo the scar thought he'd fall for.
He didn't stop.
Didn't flinch when the light split sideways and a mimic wore her silhouette wrong.
He let it reach for him.
Then broke it apart.
The scythe snapped through the air like it had been waiting for this exact shape of grief. The creature unraveled before it even screamed, dissolving into sparks that didn't land.
[Speed Boost: +3]
It surged again. The world lost focus. A blur on the edge of something he wasn't supposed to see yet.
His breath caught. Then steadied.
"Still here," he muttered.
The scar pulsed in answer.
A path opened—barely there, stitched from flickering angles and smoke made solid.
He followed it. Trees twisted sideways, then straightened. Time stuttered. Somewhere, his name whispered again. Not aloud.
Inside.
Like a thought he used to bury. Like the part of him that remembered how it felt to lose everything without anyone calling it loss.
He reached the ridge.
Stopped.
The world didn't. It kept shifting—slow this time. Like it was listening. Like it was… learning.
He looked back. No one followed. No more echoes. No more ghosts. Just Morana, far behind now, standing still. Watching.
He could feel her breath even from here.
Not literally—just the way it had synced with his once. In rhythm. In defiance.
She didn't wave. Didn't call out. She knew this part was his. Emrys adjusted the scythe on his back. His name still echoed in his ribs, quiet now.
Steady. He stepped forward. The scar didn't open. It unfolded. Soft. Deliberate.
Like it was making room for him—not as prey. Not as an intruder. But as someone it remembered.
And maybe, just maybe, wanted to see again.
So he walked in. And the world closed behind him. Not like a trap. Like a door that finally recognized the hand on the handle.
Light, at first. Not white exactly—just washed. Like the memory of brightness instead of the real thing. He blinked.
And when the glare softened, she was already standing beside him.
Same posture. Same face. Same voice when she spoke.
"Do you think we'll ever see each other again, Katsunori?"
Emrys didn't answer right away. The scythe pressed cold and certain along his back. His mouth moved like it wanted to speak before he was ready.
"I don't know how," he said, voice soft. "I'm just trying to survive."
She nodded like she understood. Like she always did, even when it hurt to.
"You should stay," she said after a beat. "Morana seems nice."
There was something under that word—nice—that made him shift. He looked at his hands again. Still scarred. Still his.
"She is," he said finally. "She's Death though, which is... something."
Himani—if it was her—just smiled. Not wide. Just enough to be real.
"We can't pick our saviors," she said. "Or who catches us when we jump off bridges."
They kept walking. No destination. Just a path made from whatever the scar remembered. Silence filled the spaces between their steps, but it wasn't awkward. Just careful.
After a while, Emrys looked over. She hadn't changed clothes. The same hoodie. The same half-tucked cuff she used to fidget with when she was thinking too hard.
And that's when he said it.
"You're a mimic, aren't you?"
He didn't say it cruel. Just… resigned.
She didn't stop walking.
Didn't deny it.
Just let the space between them stretch a little longer before she answered.
He didn't stop walking. Just let her words trail behind him like dust off his heels. The scar didn't shift this time. No ripple. No hum. Just the two of them—moving in rhythm, like they used to, before everything folded.
The mimic didn't breathe heavier. Didn't flicker. But something in her changed anyway. Like she'd stepped into a version of herself she hadn't been asked to play until now.
Emrys kept his eyes forward. Let the silence stretch until it felt less like tension and more like truth.
The scythe didn't weigh more. But it pressed different—like it knew what came next. Like it wanted to remember.
And still, neither of them stopped.
Because there was nothing left to say that wouldn't ruin the softness of the moment.
Just the lie walking beside him, wearing the shape of someone he loved.
And the truth, waiting in his hand.
"The closer you get to the center of the Scar," she said, voice light but steady, "the more connection we have to your memories."
Emrys nodded once. The scythe hummed low, like it was waiting for permission.
"You know I have to destroy this place, right?"
The mimic looked at him—really looked. Not like an echo, not like a trick. Just looked.
"Yes," she said. "And when you do… please don't make it painful."
He didn't answer. Not right away.
The path narrowed beneath their feet—grass thinning into something that looked like dust but felt like memory. The kind that's been walked through too many times to stay sharp. His steps didn't falter, but something in his chest did.
He turned to her again. Slowly.
"You're not scared?"
The mimic—Himani—shook her head once. "We don't feel fear the same way. Just remnants of it."
Emrys squinted. "But you're still her. A little."
She hesitated. That was the first real break. A flicker in her jaw. A stutter in her step.
"I'm not her," she said. "But you remember her so clearly, sometimes I forget."
The scar pulsed again—low and rhythmic, like a heartbeat under fog. The air tightened around them. Further ahead, the path flickered.
"Will it hurt?" he asked. Quiet. Almost too quiet.
The mimic looked up. The wrong sun—cracked and dull—cast no shadow between them.
"For you?" she asked. "Probably. For me?"
She smiled again, small and wrong.
"I was never real enough to break."
They stopped.
The end of the path had no edge. Just a flat space where everything ended—not cut, not shattered, just… paused. Waiting for him to move first.
"I don't know what happens after this," Emrys said. "I don't even know if there's a world to go back to."
"There isn't," the mimic said. "Not the same one. Not with you in it."
His fingers curled around the scythe.
It didn't hum this time.
It remembered.
And so did he.
He stepped past her. One breath. One truth.
And then—
He swung.
Not hard. Not cruel.
Just enough.
The mimic unraveled gently, like someone finishing a sentence.
No scream. No static. Just her smile, soft and silent, folding into ash before the wind could scatter it.
The path didn't vanish.
It continued forward.
One step. Then another.
Alone now.
But not lonely.
Because some grief walks beside you, even after you leave it behind.
"I love you, Himani… I will make it back. I promise."