The void was quiet.
Too quiet.
Ren staggered to his feet, every breath scraping like sandpaper in his lungs. His knees trembled, and his vow-thread flickered faintly, dim but alive. Around him, the endless corridors of shattered glass lay in ruins—burned to a husk of jagged silhouettes. Black ash drifted through the air, weightless and endless, like snow that carried screams in its silence.
The shard-winged girl knelt beside him, one hand steadying his arm. Her feathers had lost their glow; half of her wings looked chipped, brittle as cracked porcelain. Still, her eyes clung to his face with fierce intensity.
"You… held on," she whispered, her voice uneven. "I thought… you were going to disappear into him."
Ren clenched his fists. His knuckles were scorched, skin splitting from the fire's backlash. His reflection's last words echoed in his skull, gnawing, clinging like tar.
Burn with me. Stop pretending. Let it all fall into the flame.
