I stood slowly. The air around him buzzed. Not magic. Not power.
Guilt.
"I didn't mean to intrude," the man said, lifting his hands. "I ...just .....come here... to think."
Antic narrowed his eyes, stepping out of the water, soaked and still half-naked. "You do a lotta 'thinking' in a murder robe?"
"I'm ....not.... dangerous," the man said. "Not .....anymore...."
"Who are you?" I asked.
He paused. Touched his face—traced the forced smile there like it hurt.
"They.... call me... Grin."
Antic scoffed. "You sure it ain't Grim?"
Grin gave a breath of laughter. Barely. "That was the joke. Once. A long time ago."
Dolly's eyes narrowed. "You live out here?"
"Sort of," he said. "I wander. Mostly."
He looked at the water. Something inside him flinched.
I stepped forward. "Why that name?"
He didn't answer right away.
Then: "I kept the smile... because..... I wanted .....to look like someone..... who could be happy."
And just like that, the joke died in Antic's throat. Dolly looked away.
I didn't.
His face was wrong for lying. Every flicker of guilt was written like it was inked on skin.
"You're lonely," I said.
His gaze flicked to me.
"You're hurting. And you don't know where to put it."
Grin swallowed. "How..... do ....you—?"
"I don't know who I am," I said quietly. "But I know what that feels like."
He took a breath. One of those deep, breaking ones.
"I.... don't ...know... if ....you'll ....let me stay," he said. "But.... I'd.... like ....to."
Antic hesitated. Then—grumbled. "Fine. But if you snore, I'm sleeping in a damn tree."
Grin actually chuckled.
Dolly crossed her arms. "You better not have fleas."
Grin smiled again. Still awkward. Still trying.
But it didn't look so forced anymore.
The air had gone quieter since Grin joined us. Not tense. Not peaceful either. Just… still. Like the forest was waiting to see what we'd do.
Antic had somehow managed to squeeze himself back into his damp overalls. He sat hunched by the water, a flat piece of fruit drooping off his fork like it had wronged him personally.
Dolly examined her arm, which now had a patch of pale moss stitched in like a badge of dishonor. "This is beneath me," she muttered, smoothing the thread with sharp, impatient fingers. "I should be in silk. I should be in pearls. Not... mildew and dirt and the company of emotionally constipated men."
Antic flopped onto his back with a dramatic groan. "Can you let us mourn our collective dignity in peace?"
"No," she snapped. "Yours died long before you met us."
I dipped my fingers into the water again. Cold, clean. It helped me think. Or stop thinking. Same thing.
Grin sat across from me, arms folded like he didn't know what to do with them. His robes curled around his feet like shadows with nowhere to hide.
He was watching the water. Not like he was admiring it.
More like he was remembering something terrible inside it.
"Why do you talk like you're afraid your voice might explode?" Antic asked, tossing a wet leaf in Grin's direction.
Grin blinked. Slowly. Then turned his head toward him.
"I...speak...the way I do...so people...don't...run."
Antic stared. "…Well now I wanna run."
Grin's lips twitched. That faint half-smile again.
"I used...to scare people...even...when I didn't...mean to."
"You still do," Dolly muttered, curling her knees to her chest. "But it's the quiet kind now. The kind that makes you wonder if you're cursed just by standing near you."
Grin didn't deny it.
I studied him. The stiffness in his shoulders. The way his hands curled against his knees like they were afraid of touching the ground.
"You were Death," I said. Not a question.
His head turned slightly, slowly.
"Once...I followed...the...rules. Names...on paper. Souls...to collect. No questions."
"Didn't you get tired of that?" I asked.
His eyes met mine.
"Yes."
Silence returned. A thick blanket.
Antic sat up. "I got tired of my job, too. They kept putting me on watch shifts and I hate sitting still. But did I defect from the cosmic order? Nooo."
"You fell out of a tree playing the flute during a patrol," I reminded him.
He pointed a finger. "That flute was emotionally vital to my process!"
Dolly rolled her eyes so hard I heard it. "You're emotionally vital to my headache."
Grin... chuckled. A low, creaky sound. Like a door opening that hadn't been touched in centuries.
Antic blinked. "Did you just laugh?"
Grin blinked back. "It...escaped me."
"That was alarming," Antic muttered, shivering.
He laid back again, arms flung wide. His voice came out soft this time. Almost sincere.
"Why'd you stop? Doing the job, I mean."
Grin didn't answer right away. His fingers twitched.
"There...was a girl. A fire. Her name...was written. But...I couldn't."
The words clung to his throat.
"I let her live. And they...banished me. Stripped my scythe. Said I...broke the chain."
No one said anything for a moment. The water kept moving.
Then Dolly spoke, voice quieter than usual. "What happened to the girl?"
Grin didn't look up. "She grew. Strong. Her family...never knew."
"And you?" I asked.
"I wandered."
That was all he said.
I looked at him again, really looked. The stiffness in his posture. The careful way he smiled, like it was armor more than expression.
He didn't want to be alone. But he didn't know how to be with people either.
It reminded me of the feeling I had when I tried to recall a name I should know.
Everything in me ached toward it.
But it wasn't there.
Grin wasn't Death anymore. He was something else. Trying to become someone new, with just that smile for a map.
I got it.
"Are you cold?" I asked, already pulling the edge of my ruined dress around my shoulders.
Grin looked startled.
Then shook his head.
"No...just...forgot how...to feel warm."
Antic reached over and dumped a wet leaf on his lap. "There. Now you're one of us."
Dolly gagged. "You're all disgusting."
Grin stared at the leaf, then laughed again. Just a little.
And somehow, the waterfall sounded softer when he did.
The fire cracked like it was laughing at us.
Antic squatted beside a second pile of sticks, muttering under his breath. He struck two rocks together—again—and only managed to hit his own knuckle.
"Bloody hell's stinger," he cursed, sucking on his finger. "Don't look at me. This is a ceremonial flame. Not meant for light. It's spiritual. Intimate."
No one said anything. The silence judged him better than words could.
Grin sat unmoving on a flat stone, legs drawn in, fingers loosely clasped in his lap. He hadn't blinked in what felt like ten minutes.
"Do you ever... sleep?" I asked.
His eyes flicked toward me.
"Rarely... It...feels like falling...the wrong way."
Antic gave up on the second fire and flopped backward with a groan. "That's a very sexy way of saying 'no.' Like, hey babe, wanna fall the wrong direction into shared unconsciousness?"
I turned toward him. "Are you flirting?"
His mouth opened. Closed.
Then opened again, slowly. "Define flirting?"
"Romantic intentions. Subtle manipulations of language for physical or emotional gain. Usually illogical. Often messy."
Dolly snorted so hard she choked.
Antic stared at me, face slack. Then blood began to trickle from his left nostril.
"I'm gonna... lay down for a minute."
"Maybe put your pants back on while you're at it," Dolly muttered, curled on her side, still clutching her cracked arm like it held a secret.
Antic grunted but didn't move.
The firelight flickered over all of us like it was choosing which parts to expose.
Grin hadn't looked away from me. Not in a threatening way. Just watching. Trying to understand.
"You...don't know...what that was?" he asked, slow and careful.
"Know what was?"
He paused.
"The...feeling...in your chest. When he...speaks to you like that."
My brow furrowed. "Mild confusion. Increased body heat. Interpersonal irrationality. A possible virus?"
Dolly sat up, glaring. "Dear Gods, it's worse than I thought. She's got no clue."
"I don't see the point of irrational reactions to another being's blood pressure," I said simply. "It seems unnecessary. Like accessorizing with meat."
Antic made a high-pitched noise from the ground.
Grin's head tilted slowly. He looked... almost impressed. "Literal...is safer. But...not always...kind."
"I'm not trying to be unkind. I'm trying to understand."
"I know," he said. "That...might be worse."
For a while, we didn't speak. The fire cracked again. Dolly hummed a song I didn't know—high, broken, like something from a music box with rusted teeth.
I let my eyes close, just for a moment. My head tilted toward the bark at my back.
Grin's voice came, just above the edge of my hearing. "You...don't sleep easy."
I opened my eyes. He wasn't looking at me anymore.
He was watching the flames.
"Neither do you."
"No."
Dolly suddenly sat upright. "Do you smell that?"
Antic, half-asleep, groaned. "Is it me? It's me, isn't it. You always say it's me."
"No," she hissed, standing. Her joints made little ceramic ticks.
I sat up, too.
It was faint. But it was there.
Like burning sugar. And rotting teeth.
Grin rose to his feet without a word, pulling the edge of his robe tighter.
"Something...is coming."
The forest, silent until now, exhaled.
Antic muttered, "I knew I shouldn't've eaten that weird fruit. I knew it."
And just beyond the edge of the firelight, something moved.
Not fast.
Just close.
Something moved behind the trees.
Not fast. Just... deliberate.
A scraping.
Dolly drew herself up taller, her tiny fists clenched. "That's not forest wind. That's company."
Grin didn't blink. His voice floated out, low and slow. "They...don't belong...here."
I rose to my feet. The ground felt thinner beneath me. Brittle, like bone under frost.
"'They' who?" I asked.
Grin's head tilted, slow as a dying clock. "The...forgotten ones. Breaths...too broken to fade."
Antic grabbed a stick, realized it wasn't a weapon, and grabbed a pan instead. "Oh, perfect. We're haunted andunderdressed."
Dolly didn't speak. She was staring into the dark like she saw something the rest of us didn't. Her body quivered—not in fear. In rage.
"Come out," she snapped. "Come out or I'll bury you with my teeth."
That's when it stepped out.
No footsteps. Just... appeared.