The town was quiet. Too quiet. Cipher's boots pressed against cracked cobblestones, the echo of each step swallowed by the emptiness around him. Smoke from chimneys curled into a sky still fractured by the Piper's discordant magic, curling like ribbons of ash across a fractured moon. Children huddled in the shadows, some awake, some frozen, faces pale and wide-eyed. Cipher's scythe, still humming faintly from warding the Piper's tune, felt heavy across his back, as if the weight of every choice he'd ever made was pressing down on him.
The Automaton perched on his shoulder, small gears whirring softly. Its eyes glimmered, almost hesitantly. "Teacher," it said, "you have not spoken for a long while."
Cipher's lips pressed into a thin line. Words seemed fragile here, almost trivial in the wake of music that could bend wills and shadow-children that could mimic lives. His gaze traced the empty streets, over broken cobbles, past shuttered windows, lingering on a swing in a deserted square that swayed on its own.
They always seem smaller when you're not looking directly at them.
His mind started to drift, fragments surfacing like echoes he'd tried to forget. The smell of chalk dust. The scuff of tiny shoes across linoleum. A timid voice calling out, "Mr. Starlight…?"
Cipher shook his head, trying to push it back.
No. Not now. Not here. I can't let it pull me into that memory. There is a story demanding my attention.
But it came anyway, creeping in through the edges of his thoughts. Snatches of sound, of life. The child's hand, small and trembling, reaching for his own. The way he had leaned on Cipher's words like they were a bridge over the chaos of the classroom.
And then… the fall.
The memory unspooled fully, dragging him down.
He had been nineteen, fresh into teaching. A classroom buzzing with energy he didn't yet know how to command. A boy, pale and quiet, sat alone at a desk too large for his small frame, eyes darting to every movement. Cipher had noticed him first not because of his silence, but because of the way he flinched at every raised hand, every shift of weight in the room.
"Stand up," Cipher had told him one morning, leaning over the desk with a kind smile, "tell them your answer. You have the right to speak. You must speak."
The boy's lips had quivered, eyes wide with both fear and resolve. He had nodded once, sharply, and raised himself from his chair, shaking but determined.
Cipher's heart swelled with pride. This—this was what he had come here to do. To guide. To inspire. To show courage where it had never been allowed to grow.
But the world outside the classroom did not share his idealism.
A group of older students had noticed, laughing, jeering, shoving him as he tried to navigate the crowded hallway. Cipher had moved fast, rushing to intercept, to shield him. But the boy had slipped, tripped into the path of a rolling cart—a moment too late, a misstep too small. He fell, and the impact… it wasn't fatal, but it left him broken for weeks. His confidence shattered, his trust shaken.
Cipher had stayed by his side, carried him to the nurse, apologized, explained, tried to make sense of the chaos that no amount of encouragement could prevent. But the boy had cried, staring into his face, eyes accusing:
"You said I could do it… you said I could stand."
Cipher had no words. There was nothing to say. His lesson had failed in the only way that mattered: it had cost the child his sense of safety.
From that day forward, Cipher carried the memory like a shadow along the edge of every classroom. Every student he encouraged was measured against that failure. Every act of teaching weighed against the cost of words misapplied, of lessons too brittle to shield against reality.
The present world pressed back in. The empty streets of the Piper's town, the faint scurry of rats in the shadows, the occasional echo of flutes far off — all collided with that memory, forcing it into the forefront of Cipher's mind. His grip tightened around his scythe.
"I… I can't lose them," he whispered to himself. "Not like that. Not ever again."
The Automaton stirred, metal limbs shifting softly. "Teacher," it said, its voice low and precise, "you still carry ghosts. Even here, even now."
Cipher's eyes didn't leave the warped cobblestones. "I carry them so I can teach," he said quietly. "Because of them, I know what it means to be helpless. I know what it means to fail. I know… exactly what's at stake."
The Automaton tilted its head. "And yet you walk forward into another story. Into another test. Into the song itself. Do you doubt your path?"
Cipher exhaled, a long, shivering breath. "Doubt?" His voice cracked, half disbelief, half confession. "Every step. Every child I've ever tried to help. Every story I've entered… I doubt I'm doing enough. But I can't stop. I won't stop. Because even if I fail, even if I cannot save them all… someone must be willing to stand beside them."
A silence fell over the streets. The children he had protected earlier slept fitfully in corners of the square, small forms curled into coats and blankets the town had never provided. The air smelled faintly of bread baking somewhere in a distant oven, the ordinary comfort of life reminding him that even here, in this corrupted place, normalcy could exist—if only briefly.
Cipher lifted his scythe slowly, inspecting the runes pulsing faintly along its blade. Each symbol felt like a heartbeat, a reminder that his presence mattered, that the lessons he carried could ripple into the world, bending a story's inevitable conclusion if wielded with care.
The Automaton stirred again, gears clicking softly. "Teacher… you have not been quiet in thought like this since… before your first story. What do you hope to teach them here?"
Cipher's gaze lifted to the horizon, where faint notes of piping drifted, curling around the spires of the crooked town like smoke. "I hope to teach them… courage. Not the empty courage of standing when you might fall, but the living courage of knowing someone will stand with you if you need it. And if I fail," he added, voice low but unwavering, "then at least I've shown them how to try."
The Automaton's light flickered, almost approvingly. "Even a teacher cannot control the end of every story."
Cipher let the scythe fall to rest against his shoulder, eyes tracing the rooftops and alleys. "No," he said softly, "but I can stand in the middle of it. That's enough. That has to be enough."
And somewhere, far off, faint and wavering, the Piper's music began to rise again. A note like a whisper, like a warning, like a promise. Cipher inhaled sharply, tightening his grip on the scythe. He had no illusions about what was coming. But for the first time since he had entered the town, he felt a strange steadiness. Not certainty, but readiness.
The past would not be ignored. The failures would not vanish. But he would walk with them. Step by step. Choice by choice. And if courage was the only thing he could offer… then he would offer it fiercely, completely, without hesitation.
Because that was the only lesson he had ever truly learned.