1: Of Monsters and Men
The air felt thinner today.
Hinata sat on a jagged ledge outside the cave, overlooking a valley of ash and bone. The Nether
stretched before him in grotesque glory--crimson lightning arcing across a sky that never truly
darkened, yet never saw dawn.
His palm still burned.
The soul mark--Val'Kyros's cursed gift--glowed faintly under his glove, as if pulsing in rhythm with
the Nether itself.
Behind him, Alis stirred.
"You've been quiet," she said, stepping out with her coat draped lazily over one shoulder. "Which
usually means something's about to explode. Preferably not me."
Hinata didn't turn. "I saw them. The gods."
Alis stopped. "You dreamt again."
"No," he said. "I remembered. They weren't just dreams this time. I think... I was there. A memory
echo.""Of the Accord?" she asked.
Hinata nodded slowly. "They weren't judging. They were terrified. Of what happens when someone
like me--someone broken--survives."
Alis leaned against the stone, arms crossed. "Good. Let them be scared."
He glanced at her. "That doesn't bother you?"
"I live in the Nether," she said flatly. "Every day is 'bothering.' But if the gods fear you? That means
you matter."
Hinata smirked weakly, but the weight in his chest didn't lift.
---
The ground shifted again by midday.
They traveled west, toward what Alis called "The Hollow Spine"--a stretch of broken ridges where
ancient battles had left scars in the land... and fragments of something older.
"Remnants of lost realms get stuck here," Alis explained as they walked. "Time doesn't work
properly. Sometimes you see ghosts of cities, or people who've already died--twice."
"Cool," Hinata muttered. "Love a haunted time loop. Great tourism spot."
They passed the remains of a tower once white, now blackened and cracked like burnt bone.
Statues of faceless angels lined the path, each whispering nonsense as they passed.
Hinata stopped at one.
The statue turned.
Its mouth moved.
"He sees you, Echo-born."
Hinata recoiled.
Alis was already pulling him back. "Ignore it. They're echoes. Dead things trying to matter."
But as they moved on, Hinata felt the words etch themselves into the back of his mind.
Echo-born.
---
Night in the Hollow Spine was worse.That's when the screams began.
Not monsters. Not beasts.
People.
Hundreds. Thousands. Begging. Pleading. Laughing. Dying.
Hinata curled into his bedroll, hands over his ears. "Make it stop--why won't it stop--?"
Alis sat nearby, sharpening her blade. Her eyes were tired but firm.
"They're not real," she said.
"They sound real."
"Because part of them still is. This place feeds on memory. On pain." She looked at him. "Yours is
louder than most."
He tried to breathe through it. Inhale. Exhale.
But then he heard it.
A voice.His own.
"Why did no one ever come for me?"
Hinata snapped upright, eyes wide.
That wasn't from outside. That was from inside.
The mark on his chest flared.
Alis was on her feet instantly. "Hinata?"
He clutched his chest. "I think something's--"
The ground cracked open beneath him.
And Hinata fell.
---
When he landed, he was somewhere else.
A mirror of himself stood before him. Ragged clothes. Blank eyes. No light in his face.
"You weren't supposed to survive," the echo said.Hinata clenched his fists. "I know."
"Then why did you fight?"
"Because no one else would."
The echo laughed--a broken sound.
"Then fight me."
Hinata barely dodged the first strike. His double moved like smoke and shadow, blade forming from
memory and pain. They clashed, blow for blow, each strike echoing with old shame.
"You are nothing!" the echo screamed. "A discarded life! A soul without purpose!"
Hinata's soul mark burned brighter.
"No," he said, rising.
"I'm proof that even discarded things can choose."
He roared and drove his dagger forward--not into the echo's heart, but into his own fear.
The echo shattered.And Hinata woke.
---
He gasped, drenched in sweat, back in the cave.
Alis was kneeling over him. "Took you long enough."
"What... happened?"
"You slipped into a soul fracture," she said. "The Spine does that sometimes. Forces you to confront
what you hate most."
He looked at his hand.
The mark had changed again. Sharper. More intricate.
Alis noticed. "Your soul is evolving."
"Or unraveling," he muttered.
She offered him a hand. "Either way. You're surviving."
Hinata took it.
And for the first time since entering the Nether...
He believed her.