Kai slept fitfully, his body curled on the rough mattress as though his bones could not shake the memory of the cold earth. Sleep was no refuge. The pit came for him even in dreams.
The pit was never silent. It breathed like a living thing. Damp stone walls seeped with moisture that collected into puddles blacker than ink. Rats scurried across the ledges, their teeth clicking, their eyes shining like coins dropped into a well. The stench of rot lingered, half-formed corpses pressed into the mud like forgotten relics. Every breath in that hole carried the taste of rust and blood.
In the dream, Kai was back there. His ribs jutted like iron bars from beneath his skin, his stomach an empty cavern. The hunger in that place was not a normal hunger—it was a rhythm, a drumbeat that rattled inside his skull, telling him he was nothing but need. The pit was full of whispers, too, and they never stopped. He could hear voices rising from the corpses. Some promised release, some mocked him for surviving. Others sounded like Neo, like Daniel, like Meredith—all accusing, all fading when he reached out.
He saw himself clawing at the dirt wall, nails splitting, blood darkening the soil. He saw a pale hand reach down for him, only for the arm to rot away before he could grasp it. He screamed for water, for food, for meaning, but the pit gave him only echoes and silence.
The worst part was the time. Time stretched like a punishment. Seconds drew into hours, hours into days, days into a life that might never end. He could not tell if he had been there a week or a century. That was the true cruelty of the pit: not just hunger or pain, but the erasure of the self until even his own name seemed foreign. Malakai Apolix was gone, and only the pit remained.
Kai tossed violently, sweat beading across his forehead. His breathing turned ragged. A strangled sound slipped out of him, half-whimper, half-snarl.
Matt woke instantly. Shadows stirred beneath the bunk, gathering at his command as he leaned over. "Kai," he whispered sharply, then shook his shoulder. "Kai. Wake up."
Kai jerked upright with a gasp, hand darting to his throat as if he'd been drowning. His eye darted around the room until it found Matt's silhouette sitting on the lower bunk.
"You were trapped again, weren't you?" Matt asked quietly.
Kai nodded, pressing his palms into his eyes as if to scrub the nightmare out. His voice was low, hoarse. "The pit. It never lets me go."
Matt sat back, giving him space but not distance. "You don't have to carry it alone."
Kai laughed, dry and bitter. "That place already made sure I was alone. That's what it does—it eats the part of you that thinks anyone could reach you. Even now, when I close my eye, I'm still down there."
For a while they sat in the half-dark, the hum of the building around them. Then Matt spoke again, almost sheepishly. "You know… I've always wanted a spirit guardian."
Kai blinked, caught off guard by the change in subject. "You? The shadowborn who can vanish out of sight whenever he wants?"
Matt shrugged. "Yeah. Doesn't matter what tricks I've got. Spirit guardians… they're different. They're proof that something out there chose you. That you're not just surviving because you were too stubborn to die."
Kai tilted his head, studying him. "You say that like you think you weren't chosen for anything."
"I wasn't," Matt said flatly. "My burden makes people forget me. Even my squad. I used to think a guardian would balance that. A companion who couldn't forget me, who'd stay no matter what. But nothing ever came."
The words settled heavy between them. Kai let them rest there before speaking. "Maybe it's not about waiting to be chosen. Maybe it's about surviving long enough to choose back. My guardian found me when I was already broken. Velnix isn't proof that I'm worth something. It's proof that I kept going anyway."
Matt gave a short laugh, though it carried more weight than humor. "You make it sound simple."
"It isn't," Kai replied, voice dropping to a murmur. "But the pit taught me one thing—companions are rare. If you find one, you hold on."
Matt leaned against the wall, shadows curling softly around him, less like weapons and more like a blanket. "Guess for now I'll settle for a friend who screams in his sleep and wakes me up."
Kai smirked faintly, exhaustion tugging at his face. "And I'll settle for the guy who pulls me back out every time."
The room quieted. The nightmare's grip loosened. Slowly, both of them lay back down—Kai staring at the ceiling, Matt already fading into the half-dream of someone used to sleeping light.
For the first time that night, the pit receded. Not gone, not forgiven, but pushed back far enough that sleep came or tried too.