The bonfire was gone.
Ash scattered across the jagged plain, carried by a wind that didn't exist. It clung to my boots, stuck to my skin, and refused to let go, as if the ruin itself wanted to mark me. The glow had burned out, leaving no warmth, no light, no voices.
Only silence.
And silence here wasn't peace.
It was pressure. Heavy. Suffocating. The kind of silence that didn't just fill your ears but climbed into your skull, waiting for you to speak first so it could answer in ways you wouldn't like.
I walked.
Because if I stopped, I wasn't sure I would move again.
✦
Every step carried me farther from the memory of that fire, but not from what I'd done there. The fractured faces clung like shadows behind my eyes.
Kavya's blur of rage.The mother's silent scream.The boy's cracked staff.And Dev—half-real, half-ash—smiling in his last breath before he vanished into sparks.
I had cut them down. Not the people I knew, but not illusions either. Something in between.
Was that mercy? Survival? Or just another lie I was telling myself?
The Inkblade pulsed in my hand, warm as blood, smug in its silence.
"…you ended them… false or true, they were never you…"
I clenched my grip until my knuckles burned. I wanted to throw the blade away. Watch it tumble into the void, vanish into the endless dark.
But when I tried to imagine my hand opening, it wouldn't.
The whispers weren't chains.
They were habits.
✦
The landscape bent as I moved.
One moment, jagged stone ridges stretched ahead, sharp enough to cut the soles of my boots. The next, they folded inward like parchment, collapsing into a flat plain of dust. The air shifted too, salty one second, smoky the next, and once—sweet, like ripe fruit rotting too fast to eat.
The Real Script was alive. Not in the way of forests or oceans, but in the way of wounds that refused to close.
And it wanted me lost.
Shadows flickered at the edges of my vision—battles frozen mid-motion. Beastborn jaws locked in eternal snarls, Murim blades clashing forever without landing. They didn't touch me. They didn't even notice me.
Until I started hearing them.
✦
At first, it was battle-noise. Echoes of the siege replaying in fragments.
"Hold the line!""The rift's widening—!""Behind you!"
I shook my head. Illusions. Nothing more.
But then a different word slipped through the static.
My name.
"Ishaan…"
I froze.
The Inkblade hissed, shadows twitching.
"…trap… nothing but bait…"
The voice came again, softer this time, almost swallowed by the ruin.
"Ishaan… help…"
I spun in place, scanning the shifting horizon. Nothing moved. No glow. No figure. Just fractured stone and the endless void.
But I'd heard it.
And it wasn't like the blade's whisper.
It wasn't like the fractured survivors at the bonfire, either.
This was fragile. Human.
Alive.
✦
I followed.
The ground sloped downward, splitting into a chasm that glowed faintly from within. I hesitated at the edge, but the voice carried upward again.
"Ishaan… don't leave me…"
And I climbed down.
The walls weren't stone. Not really. They pulsed faintly, like skin stretched too thin, light bleeding through the cracks. Ash drifted upward in steady streams, glowing embers carried on a windless current.
Each ember whispered.
"Stay behind me—""No—please—""The gods are watching—"
My stomach twisted.
These weren't random echoes.
They were moments. Memories. Ripped from the Neutral Zone before it collapsed and stored here like broken recordings.
A graveyard.
Every ember was someone's last word.
And I was walking through them.
✦
The Inkblade pulsed, eager, shadows licking across my wrist.
"…take them… devour their fragments… grow stronger on what they left behind…"
I ground my teeth and pushed forward.
Because beneath the storm of whispers, one voice remained constant.
"Ishaan… it hurts…"
Not broken. Not looping. Not fading.
Calling.
Alive.
✦
The deeper I went, the louder the ash became. Whispers overlapped into a storm, hundreds of voices crowding my head.
"Run!""Don't let him die—""We trusted you—"
Their grief pressed against my skull until I staggered, hands clutching my temples. For a heartbeat I couldn't tell which thoughts were mine and which belonged to the dead.
The Inkblade thrummed in delight.
"…let them in… let them replace you… there is no you left to protect…"
"No," I hissed aloud, forcing my steps forward.
My voice cracked the storm for a moment.
And through it, the voice rang out again.
Clearer now.
"Ishaan… please… find me…"
I stopped breathing.
That wasn't just anyone.
It was Arjun.
✦
The air thickened with ash until I could barely see my own hands. The glow grew brighter ahead, pulsing like a heartbeat.
I pressed on, each step crunching embers beneath my boots. The voices clawed at me, pulling, accusing, begging, but I didn't stop.
Because now I knew.
This wasn't illusion.
This wasn't echo.
It was a trace.
A thread of someone who had survived.
And if Arjun's voice could reach me—
Then he wasn't gone.
Not yet.
The chasm widened as I descended.
The ash thickened until it clung to my skin like damp snow, glowing faintly with its own dying light. Each ember drifted upward, brushing against me with whispers that cut like glass.
"Don't let me die—""We can't hold—""Stay with me—"
Every word was too familiar. I'd heard them before, in the plaza, during the siege. But hearing them now, ripped from context, stripped from faces, was worse than reliving the fight.
It was like the world wanted to remind me that nothing I saved stayed saved.
That everything broke anyway.
✦
The chamber at the bottom was vast, carved not by stone but by memory itself. The walls shifted constantly, flickering between scenes—Kavya cutting through beasts, Dev roaring with his sword raised, Arjun shielding too much with too little.
They weren't visions. They weren't illusions. They were pieces of reality, trapped here and replaying like broken records.
A memory graveyard.
I staggered forward, the Inkblade whispering in my skull, pressing harder with every step.
"…all of this is wasted… fuel for you… devour their fragments, fracture, and you will never fear loss again…"
I gripped the blade tighter, forcing it down. My chest heaved, my legs shook, but I didn't stop.
Because the voices weren't all the same.
Beneath the storm of echoes, one voice cut through.
"Ishaan… please… it hurts…"
✦
The sound dragged me forward.
Through ash that rose to my knees. Through embers that burst into sparks as I touched them. Through screams that weren't mine, replaying over and over.
Once, I heard Dev's roar—steady, furious, unyielding. For a second I almost believed he was here, alive, waiting just around the bend.
But when I turned, it was only light on a wall.
Then I heard Kavya, her voice sharp as a blade: "Move, damn it!"
I spun again. Nothing.
Each ember wanted me to follow. Each ember wanted me lost.
But only one voice begged, soft and breaking.
"Ishaan… don't stop…"
That was Arjun.
✦
The Inkblade writhed, the shadows wrapping higher across my arm.
"…the boy is gone… only his echo remains… cut it, end it, and claim what's left…"
I ignored it.
Because for once, I didn't need to question if the blade was lying.
I knew that voice.
Too soft for war. Too stubborn for silence.
Arjun wasn't gone.
Not completely.
✦
At the center of the graveyard, the ash swirled into a storm. Embers spun faster and faster, a whirlpool of memory dragging itself into a single point.
And there—
A light.
Blue-white, faint but steady, like a star fighting to stay alive.
It pulsed weakly, flickering every time the storm surged, but it didn't vanish.
When I stepped closer, the voice rang clear.
"Ishaan…"
I dropped to my knees. The ash burned cold, searing like frostbite, but I didn't care.
I reached out.
✦
The ember flared brighter, the storm shrieking as if it knew I'd found something it wanted hidden.
The voices around me rose into chaos.
"You broke us!""You killed us!""You can't save anyone!"
The ground shook. Embers burst into malformed shapes—half-formed survivors, their faces cracked, their bodies bleeding sparks. They lurched toward me, hands clawing, mouths muttering accusations that weren't theirs anymore.
I raised the Inkblade, shadows exploding outward.
The whispers roared, delighted.
"…yes… devour them all… every false one… feed and take what remains real…"
I slashed, shadows impaling the constructs, tearing them apart. They shrieked, dissolving into sparks that hissed into the ash storm.
But the light at the center still pulsed.
Arjun.
I forced myself forward.
✦
The ember burned against my palm when I finally touched it.
Not fire. Not heat.
Light.
Warm. Familiar.
The whispers recoiled, hissing like they'd been cut.
"…don't… touch… that is not yours…"
For once, I smiled. Bitter. Shaking. But real.
Because the Inkblade sounded afraid.
✦
The system's voice flickered faintly, weak, like it was bleeding through the void.
[ Survivor trace detected. ][ Subject: Arjun. ][ Status: Bound. Location unstable. ]
My chest clenched.
It wasn't a memory. It wasn't an echo.
It was him.
Alive. Somewhere.
Trapped.
The light flickered again, and for a moment, I thought it would vanish.
But then his voice whispered, faint but steady:
"Ishaan… don't leave me…"
✦
I bowed my head, gripping the ember with both hands, the ash storm raging around me.
"I won't."
Not this time.
I had broken the Zone. I had killed shadows that wore the faces of people I'd tried to save. I had carved the story open with a cursed blade until even the gods stared too close.
But if one ember still burned—
Then I wasn't done.
Not yet.