---
The memory solvent had flushed from Kai's system days ago, but its aftertaste still clung to his nerves. At first, meditation had been impossible. Even the thought of stillness sent his body into tremors—too raw, too broken. His forearm pulsed with exposed nerves; the peeled flesh wept if he breathed too deep. His wrists were swollen from the rope burn, skin peeling in jagged patches where blood had crusted and reopened again and again. Each limb throbbed in sync with the infection blooming beneath his skin.
But it was the burn on his chest that ruined him.
Branded by searing tongs, the wound had turned from red to brown to green. It bubbled in places. When he coughed, the skin cracked and oozed. The edges were curling, dying. The pit's damp heat made it worse—every movement a flare of agony, every breath a punishment. Even the hallucinations, when they came, didn't distract him from it. They just layered horror on top of torment.
The puddle stank now. It wasn't just rot—it was piss. Someone had pissed in it on day four. He'd heard the laughter, the slow stream, the mocking words above the trapdoor. So he stopped looking at it.
Instead, he licked the pipe.
Once a day. Twice, if he could crawl that far. The rust cut his tongue sometimes. He didn't care. It was water. Barely. But it was his.
---
The days blurred, but he forced them to matter.
He worked—not on his body, which was failing—but on something smaller. Something no one could take.
A speck. That was all it was. A flicker of spiritual dust, barely visible even in his soulprint. The only thing Sovereign hadn't stripped. His guardian was gone. Velnix cut off, unreachable. But something new remained. Tiny. Watching.
It didn't have a form, so he gave it one.
He imagined it curled up in the far corner of the pit. A soot-colored ember, twitching like it was dreaming. He whispered to it in the dark. Not commands—companionship.
"You're real," he told it. "You survived."
He named it Flicker. Not because it glowed, but because sometimes, when he lost consciousness, it was the last thing he saw. A blink of presence. A soft hum in the blackness.
He started feeding it. Not food, not blood—he didn't have either. He fed it breath. Intention. Meditation built from broken posture and grit.
Every inhale was a lesson. Every exhale was an offering.
"You'll be stronger than me," he promised. "Smarter, too. I'm just the shell."
He etched memories into it—memories of Velnix's movement, his brother's voice, even the exact weight of the cigarette pouch still clutched in his hand. When he hallucinated, he forced Flicker to witness with him. When he cried, he apologized to it.
And when he passed out, face pressed to the stone, he hoped it curled closer.
By day seven, it pulsed back.
Only once.
But that was enough.
---
Day Eight
"I'm losing my mind."
The words fell out of him like teeth. He didn't know who he was talking to—himself, the pipe, Flicker, the tally wall—but they felt necessary. Like confession. Like ritual.
"I'm starving."
He laughed afterward. The laugh scratched his throat and made the burn on his chest peel. Something inside the wound popped. The sound made him gag, but no vomit came. He hadn't eaten since Forn.
He didn't even remember what the food tasted like.
He tried to stand. Made it halfway. His thigh gave out, and he fell onto his side, twitching like a dying animal. His face landed in dust and something else—bone shards or flakes of his own skin, he couldn't tell.
"I know no one's coming."
Not Neo. Not Forn. Not Daniel. Not even Sovereign.
He started seeing things again. A second Kai in the corner, eyes wide, smiling. This one had clean clothes. He was biting into a sandwich.
Kai looked away.
The walls began to talk. They repeated fragments of his old thoughts: Survive. Focus. Keep going. But they said it in the voice of the ghoul. Over and over.
Flicker pulsed again. But this time it recoiled.
"I'm not gone," Kai whispered to it. "I'm not—"
But he didn't finish the sentence. He forgot what he was trying to say.
---
He needed to mark the days. Just so he knew it was real. So he wouldn't wake up next to the bones and forget who he was.
He crawled to the flattest patch of wall, dragging his useless leg behind him. His hands stung. The missing nails—seven of them—were open wounds now, throbbing purple and red.
He had three left.
One on the left hand. Two on the right.
He pressed the longest one to the stone. It didn't want to move. His hand shook too much. But he leaned into it, forcing pressure, forcing a line.
A shallow scratch.
Uncomfortable.
Wrong.
He switched fingers. Tried again.
Each line hurt more than the last. The stone was unyielding, and his nails were too fragile. One cracked halfway down. He paused, gritted his teeth, kept going. The cuts weren't clean. Some were barely visible. Others dug too deep and bled.
Eight marks.
Eight days.
He stared at them until they blurred.
Not even lines anymore.
Just proof.
He pressed his forehead to the wall, blood and sweat dripping down his nose.
And then he whispered to Flicker.
"Don't let me die down here."