The flickering lantern light cast Devon's elongated, trembling shadow as he ascended each creaking wooden step, leaving the madness buried in the cellar behind. Each step felt heavy, as if he were climbing not just from a storage room, but from the depths of his own grave. The air upstairs, which just hours ago had felt stuffy and laden with the silent stench of death, now seemed fresh and vibrant compared to the thick reek of ozone, chemicals, and dried blood below.
He paused on the top step, half his body still within the darkness of the trapdoor. The soft glow of the lantern's flame swept across the cabin's main room, and now, his eyes, having witnessed the legacy of Corvus Nightshade, saw everything differently. This was no longer merely a shelter found by chance. It was a stage. A laboratory. A mausoleum. And now, it was his.
The pool of his own blood, beginning to dry near the center of the room, was the first evidence he had to confront. Its dark red hue appeared almost black against the dusty floorboards, a macabre map of his own folly. He stared at it, not with the revulsion or horror he had felt before, but with a cold, analytical detachment. It was a mistake. An uncontrolled variable in his first experiment in survival. And like all failures in a laboratory, it had to be cleaned up.
"Ah," he murmured, his voice hoarse as he slammed the trapdoor shut with a resounding thud, locking the horrors below away for the time being. "I'll think about that later."
He had no time for existential dread. He had no luxury to dwell on the madness of a dead genius. He had work to do. He had a house to clean. He had weapons to master. He had a new world to conquer, not with magic or innate power, but with intellect, strategy, and the terrifying legacy of a genius who had been waiting for him in silence.
The first task was the most intimate and the most disturbing. Cleaning up the traces of his own suffering. He found an old wooden bucket near the hearth and a piece of rough cloth that might once have been a sack. With methodical movements, he walked to the seep in his cave—which now felt like part of his property—and filled the bucket. The water was cold and clear.
Back in the cabin, he knelt down. He dipped the cloth into the water, then wrung it out. As the wet cloth touched the dried bloodstain, a pinkish hue began to spread into the water in the bucket. He scrubbed. The rough wooden planks held onto the stain stubbornly. He scrubbed harder, his knuckles turning white, the muscles in his newly healed arms straining. This was an atonement through physical labor. With each scrubbing motion, he wasn't just cleaning the floor; he was trying to erase the memory of pain, screams, and humiliating, hysterical laughter from his own mind. The water in the bucket quickly turned murky red. He had to dump it out and refill it three times before the last faint traces of the stain finally gave way, leaving only darker, damp floorboards.
Once the blood was gone, the rest felt easier, more impersonal. He began to clear away the dust and cobwebs. In his old world, Devon had been a fairly diligent person. His mother had always made sure his room was tidy, and the habit had stuck. He wasn't a slob. He found order in organization, a quiet satisfaction in putting everything in its place. Here, the habit was no longer about aesthetics; it was about control.
He worked with silent efficiency. The cobwebs, hanging from the ceiling and corners like tattered shrouds of time, he swept away with an old broom he found leaning against the wall. The thick dust that coated every surface—table, chairs, bookshelves—he wiped clean with the same damp cloth, revealing the dark, sturdy wood beneath. The air slowly cleared, the pillars of sunlight piercing through the gaps in the walls no longer illuminating dancing particles of dust, but falling onto clean floors.
As he cleaned, he began to take inventory. He found a leather pouch containing hardtack biscuits that were surprisingly still edible, although they tasted like sawdust. He found some dried jerky wrapped in waxed leaves. Enough for a few days. On the shelves, among the gruesome anatomy books, were jars filled with dried herbs and mineral powders, each labeled in Corvus's neat, slanted handwriting. He couldn't read them, but he knew these were resources.
He gathered the scattered spellstones he had dropped in his panic. Blue stones that were cold to the touch, red stones that radiated warmth, and some pale yellow stones that seemed to vibrate with a faint electrical energy. He arranged them neatly inside a wooden chest, separating them by color. And then there was the green spellstone. There was only one. He picked it up from the table, its smooth surface cool and soothing in his palm. Its soft glow seemed to pulse in sync with his heartbeat. This wasn't just a tool. It was life. He slipped it carefully into a small pocket in his new trousers, keeping it close.
The last room to face was Corvus's bedroom. The door was slightly ajar, and Devon pushed it open hesitantly. The room was small and spartan, a reflection of a mind focused on function above all else. There was no comfortable bed; just a narrow cot with a thin wool blanket folded neatly at the end. A small desk and chair stood near the cabin's only small window, which overlooked the densest part of the forest. On the desk, lay another leather-bound journal, open to a page filled with intricate ballistic calculations, and next to it, a heavily worn whetstone, with deep grooves worn into it from thousands of knife strokes.
On the wall above the cot, hung the only object that seemed like a personal decoration: a hand-drawn star map, but the constellations were completely unfamiliar to him. The stars and nebulae were painted with silver and gold ink on black parchment, a window into the night sky of a world he might never understand. Here, in the most private space of this monster, there were no family photos, no mementos. There was only work, calculations, and an alien sky. Cleaning this room felt like violating a tomb, but it had to be done.
After hours of relentless work, the cabin had transformed. It no longer felt like an abandoned relic; it felt like a home. A strange, eerie home haunted by the ghosts of the past, but a home nonetheless.
And that brought him to the final task. The most important one.
Corvus Nightshade's skeleton still sat in his chair, as if overseeing the entire cleaning process with silent approval. Now, in the tidy room, his presence felt more pronounced, more out of place. He was no longer part of the chaos; he was an anomaly that needed to be dealt with.
"Alright," Devon said to the skeleton, his voice sounding clear in the silent room. "It's time for you to go."
He approached, not with fear, but with a strange sense of respect. He had read Corvus's journals, he had peered into the mind of his mad genius, he had stood within the cathedral of his killings. He hated what this man had done, but he couldn't deny his intellect. And most importantly, this place, this legacy, had saved his life.
Carefully, he tried to lift the skeleton. It was surprisingly light, the dry, brittle bones barely possessing any weight. As he lifted it from the chair, an arm detached from its shoulder joint and fell to the floor with a dry, pathetic 'clack'. Devon flinched, then gently picked up the arm bone and placed it in the lap of the skeleton now in his arms. Holding the human remains felt surreal. The skull's head rested against his shoulder, its empty eye sockets seeming to stare into the distance.
He carried him outside. The golden light of the late afternoon sun felt warm on his skin, and the fresh air was filled with the scent of pine. The contrast between the peaceful beauty of nature and the gruesome remains in his arms was so stark that it almost made him laugh. He walked across the small meadow, toward a large tree that stood alone at its edge, its thick roots gripping the earth like giant fingers. It seemed like the right place. A permanent place.
He grabbed the shovel he had found beside the hearth—another of Corvus's abandoned tools—and began to dig. The work was hard. The soil here was dense and riddled with roots. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped into his eyes, but he didn't stop. Each swing of the shovel, each clod of earth lifted, felt like a final act of cleansing. He wasn't just digging a hole; he was creating a closure.
Once the hole was deep enough, he stopped, panting. He approached the skeleton, which he had carefully leaned against the tree trunk. Before placing it in the grave, there was one more thing. His eyes were drawn to the skeleton's right hand. On its bony index finger, was a ring. The ring didn't shimmer; it was a deep, matte black, as if it absorbed the light around it. It was made of a dark metal he didn't recognize, and in its center was set a square black crystal cut with perfect precision.
With a moment's hesitation, Devon reached out and gently tried to remove the ring. It slid off easily. He held it in the palm of his hand. It felt cold to the touch, a strange coldness that seemed to draw warmth from his skin. The black crystal looked like a window into the void. He didn't know if it was magic or just a piece of jewelry, but it felt... important. It felt like a key. A final legacy. He slipped the ring onto his own right index finger. It fit perfectly.
Then, with unexpected gentleness, he lifted Corvus's skeleton one last time and placed it in the hole. He arranged the bones, trying to make it seem as if it were resting, not just discarded. He positioned the skull so that it 'faced' the sky it would never see again.
He stood at the edge of the grave for a moment, looking down.
"I don't know who you really were," Devon whispered. "I know you were a monster. You hurt a lot of people. You were a nightmare to this whole country."
He paused, swallowing hard.
"But..." he continued, his voice cracking slightly. "But if I hadn't found this place... if I hadn't found your equipment... I would have died. I'd be rotting in the woods, being eaten by those birds. You were a killer, but you saved my life."
He inclined his head slightly, an awkward gesture of respect. "Thank you... for everything."
With those words spoken, a weight he hadn't realized he was carrying seemed to lift from his shoulders. He picked up the shovel again and began to shovel the earth back into the hole. The sound of dirt hitting bone was the final sound of Corvus Nightshade. A deep, final sound.
When the grave was filled, and the earth above it had been smoothed over, Devon took the hunting knife hanging from his belt—Corvus's knife. He approached the trunk of the large tree. With slow, deliberate movements, he began to carve. The bark was tough, and the knife was sharp. He wasn't an artist, and the letters came out rough and uneven, but the message was clear.
C-O-R-V-U-S
N-I-G-H-T-S-H-A-D-E
He stepped back, admiring his work. It was a headstone. A reminder. An acknowledgement.
Night was beginning to fall as he walked back to the cabin. The twin moons were beginning to show in the fading lavender sky. He stopped in front of the door, which was now firmly closed. From the outside, no light was visible. It was just a dark silhouette in the middle of the woods. But now, it didn't feel threatening. It felt like home.
He pushed the door open. The inside was clean, tidy, and silent. The silence was no longer the silence of death and neglect. It was the silence of potential. The silence of a blank page waiting to be written.
He walked to the small window in the bedroom and looked out, toward the tree where he had just buried his predecessor. The black crystal ring on his finger felt cold against his skin. He had cleaned the house. He had buried the past.