It reached him like heat touches frost.
He snapped awake.
The noise in his mind vanished. The guilt, the loops, the grief—it fell off him like rotted bark. He inhaled. Then exhaled. His jaw unlocked. His eyes sharpened. The soul behind them stirred fully.
He was back.
He turned toward her. Slowly. No panic. No doubt. Just gravity. He moved toward the man at the center. The one they had come for. The one who once turned them both away.
But no one stopped him.
No one dared.
The crowd parted—unknowingly. Their rage had lost its voice.
He walked through them like a man reborn—soundless, steady, unshaken. Then he slipped behind the white door.
And she?
She stood. But just barely.
Too much time on edge. Too much resistance. Her body gave in. Her knees folded, and the collapse was not graceful—it was brutal. Bone on stone. The sound rang out like a hammer striking metal. Sharp. Clean. Real.
Gasps followed.
Then—the smiles.
Ugly. Satisfied. They thought she had broken. That she had begged.
They were wrong.
This wasn't surrender.
It was ignition.
She braced her palms against the ground—not to hold herself up, but to draw power from it. Her breath grew steady. Strong. Like a boxer before the bell.
She was rising—not to apologize, but to burn.
And then…
She stopped.
Mid-rise. Mid-breath.
Not by fear.
By presence.
It wasn't a touch. Or a word. It was worse. It was the feeling in the air when something unspeakable enters the room. When the laws of reality seem to bend, just slightly. The way animals fall silent before an earthquake.
It rippled through the crowd.
Faces drained. Fingers froze mid-air. The color left their lips. Their eyes—wide, unblinking—twitched with horror. Muscles spasmed involuntarily, like their bodies were no longer their own.
Mothers clutched their children harder. Some tried to cover eyes. Others whispered apologies they didn't understand.
Then a voice broke the silence.
Low. Fragile. Desperate.
"Eva… is that you?"
It came not with accusation. But recognition. Wounded. Afraid. Unmoored.
It had been absent when they cursed her.
But now—now it returned.
Her eyes snapped shut at the sound. Her heart stuttered—an old, corrupted rhythm echoing from a life she thought was buried. The energy she'd summoned moments ago vanished, drawn out of her like breath into ice. She dropped—like a doll, limbs folding unnaturally, body emptied.
The voice hadn't just pierced the air.
It had pierced time.
Memories detonated in her head—jagged, fast, merciless. Not images. Moments. Touch, scent, the feel of her own voice swallowed by silence. She clamped her palm to her face, desperate to block it all. But it was too late.
Her bag slipped from her fingers.
It hit the earth with a dull thud.
The ribbon came undone on impact. The coins she had saved—each one a quiet sacrifice—scattered. Gold spilled like blood on dirt, ringing out in hollow clinks. The last coin rolled. Rolled. Rolled. And when it finally stilled, so did something in her.
She dropped again, knees crashing into the ground. This time it was real—the skin tore, blood surfaced. But the pain didn't land. Her mind was somewhere else, submerged beneath the weight of memory and a new, unnameable dread.
She had forgotten why she came here.
Forgotten her boss. The journey. The plan.
Then: the white door groaned open.
And he emerged.
Not alone.
Her boss's hand gripped tightly around someone else's. A towering figure, half-shadowed by fear. Then more followed—dozens—men and women moving like a silent procession, like soldiers abandoning a post they were no longer willing to defend. Not a word. Not even breath. Just movement. Like shadows peeling off the walls. The crowd stiffened.
No one had ever seen him like this. Dressed in black. Disrupting tradition. Pulling people away without explanation.
But not all had left the room.
Seven men stayed.
They didn't rise. Didn't question. They watched. One leaned back in a splintered chair, arms folded across a chest marred by years of scar tissue. Another toyed with a ring on his finger, glancing lazily toward the door. Two stood near the back—still as statues, but coiled like predators.
They weren't curious.
They were waiting.
Low whispers passed between them. Intentional. Ruthless. No expression. No flicker of emotion. They didn't need to act. Not yet.
And then—
a voice cracked through the air like thunder.
"Hello! Hope this is the reason you're all gathered here…"
Silence fractured. The crowd tensed, eyes swiveling. The voice didn't belong—it commanded. Loud, confident, rich with power. The kind of voice that doesn't just enter a room—it claims it.
"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here. Am I right?"
He gestured toward the central figure. The one everyone had come to see. The man whose stillness held gravity—who seemed to make the wind pause.
Then came the applause.
Not kind. Not grateful.
Cruel.
It started small—sharp claps, awkwardly spaced. Then it spread, as if the crowd was mocking him with his own stage. Sarcasm in sync. Applause that cut rather than praised.
And from behind it—
a sharper rhythm.
"Pah. Pah. Pah. Pah."
He turned.
There she was.
Wrinkles mapped her face like burns etched into time itself. Her very presence caused people at the fringes to slip away—quietly, quickly. She didn't move. She didn't need to.
She was one of the founders.
The mother.
The judge.
He felt the weight of it. The years. The pain. Her voice came next, like a strike of lightning.
"Leave your filthy hands off him. Now."
It hit harder than any weapon. Memory cracked open inside him—splintered shards of the hunt, of flames, of fear. His hand trembled on the staff. But still, he stood tall.
Her voice rose again, louder:
"This is the man who brought the curse. His very presence has poisoned us. And now he brings another—another agent of the same darkness."
Her words weren't just heard.
They were etched.
Branded into the air.
His thoughts broke.
'What curse?'
'Is that why my parents were burned alive?'
'Is that why she died, twenty years later—to the day?'
He looked at the woman who had once held his hand as a child. Her eyes were steel now—empty of mercy.
The crowd buzzed with new urgency.
They saw his coat—too clean.
His hair—too carefully wild.
His staff—twisted, crowned with bone.
The whispers turned into blades.
He stepped forward and shouted:
"Grandma!"
The word detonated.
Gasps. Silence.
All eyes locked.
"You never loved my parents. You let them die. You saw what was coming and stood still. Why? Why didn't you stop it?"
His voice cracked.
He didn't stop.
"They died in my arms. And I haven't had peace since—not in mind, not in soul, not in blood. Why now? Why her?"
He pointed to Eva, still on the ground.
Still rising.