⚜️ Saga 0: The Ash Years
🗓️ Location: Abandoned Safehouse | Border Forest, Slovakia
🕯️ Late Night, Underground, Snow Falling
The ride was mostly silent.
Pietro didn't ask where Dante got the blacked-out jeep or why Wanda trusted him enough to crawl in the back and sleep against his shoulder. Too much had happened in too little time, and somewhere inside, Pietro was more afraid of what 'didn't' make sense than what did.
By dawn, they were across the border.
The safehouse was buried partway within a cliffside—quarry stonework overgrown with moss and frost, the kind of place meant to be forgotten. A rusted iron hatch opened into narrow cement halls reinforced with old Soviet sigils and newer runework carved by someone who knew what hunted reality.
Wanda's hand never left Dante's coat sleeve.
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Later, when Pietro finally dozed near the upstairs entry, Wanda found Dante in the lower chamber lighting incense from a cold burner. The room smelled faintly of smoke and cedar—remnants of rituals long since abandoned. Shelves of old tomes sat beside bundles of ghost-moss and serrated blades etched with names no living tongue remembered.
Wanda stood in the doorway, silent at first.
When she spoke, it wasn't a question.
"The dream was real."
Dante didn't look away from the candle until the flame steadied.
"Some dreams are echoes," he said flatly. "Others are traps.This one might be both."
Wanda stepped inside, arms folded, but her voice cracked beneath the steel. "I saw her. Our daughter and I 'felt' what it was to hold you in peace."
He finally looked at her.
those tired eyes, Crimson edged with quiet violence, but no mockery.
"I didn't put that in your mind."
"I know. That's what scares me more."
A hush settled around them. The safehouse creaked faintly with the squeezing cold outside.
She crossed the room, stopped in front of his chair. "I don't just want that dream. I remember those days - I felt it - your love,our childrens love —like we'd lived a life before this one. It wasn't an illusion-dream."
Dante sighed through his nose. "You were never meant to see that far. Not this soon."
"How far does it go?" she whispered. "This... bond. This 'thread' between us."
Dante leaned forward, lacing his fingers.
"When you touched destiny," he said slowly, "it touched you back. Some soul-threads loop across realities. Yours latched onto one that found *me*. And the system doesn't let go of what fate marks twice."
Wanda's fingers clutched her arms tighter. She leaned in. "Then tell me: am I cursed to love you—or does that thread tie both ways?"
Silence.
Then, for the first time, Dante answered without deflection.
"It ties both ways."
Her breath hitched. "So you remember it too?"
He didn't answer verbally. He just looked at her—and in that look was a weight that silence could not contain.
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From upstairs, Pietro's voice echoed angrily down the corridor.
"Hey! Are we going to talk about this soul-thread nonsense? Because Wanda nearly blew herself up and now she's linked to a demon with a gun—"
Dante stood.
"Tell your brother if he walks ten more feet into this room, the protective glyphs will brand his nervous system with Sanskrit warnings that he won't survive."
Wanda smirked faintly despite herself.
"...He might still come down," she said.
At that, Dante grabbed his coat and moved toward her. He looked exhausted—but he paused long enough to murmur something low in her direction:
"Get some real sleep. No dreamscapes tonight. The next one might not be so pretty."
She caught his sleeve before he could leave. "You can see them too, can't you? Our children, The house. Our happy little family."
He didn't lie. "Sometimes."
"Was I always yours?" she asked.
"No," he said. "But I think I'm always yours eventually."
The system flickered in the background of her soul—quiet and red.
> [Soul Sync Progress: 34.7%]
> Emotional Thread: Longing / Claiming
> Connection Status: Stabilizing
> Next Phase: Unlocked only upon **Red-Sigil Trigger Response**
Wanda didn't know what that last part meant yet.
But she would.
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