The coastal winds were gentle that afternoon, but your arms trembled beneath the weight of your training weapon. Each strike against the straw dummy echoed with the rhythm of exhaustion—sharp, determined, and desperate. Sweat traced your jawline and dripped onto the worn earth below. The dummy's surface, shredded by hours of practice, looked less like a target now and more like a reflection of your frayed spirit.
Under the shade of a leaning mango tree stood your trainer—an older man cloaked in grey. His presence was still and sure, like stone untouched by time. Eyes like faded steel followed your every move. He never blinked. He never needed to.
"You're improving," he finally said, voice dry as old paper. "But there's more than technique to consider."
You halted mid-swing, the blade frozen in the air. Your breath came in heavy bursts. "What do you mean?"
He didn't answer right away. Instead, he stepped forward slowly, his shadow merging with yours. Kneeling, he drew a glowing ember from his pouch—how it burned without flame, you did not ask—and traced a circle in the dirt with it.
"Let's say one day you stand against the vessel," he said quietly, not looking at you. "Let's say that vessel is someone you once loved. A parent. A friend. Would you hesitate?"
The breeze that came off the sea should've been cooling, but the question made your spine tighten. It was not just a scenario. It was a memory unspoken. You opened your mouth, but no words came. Your throat was dry. Hollow.
He looked up, watching your silence with tired understanding.
Then, with no warning, he tossed the ember into your palm.
You flinched, expecting searing pain. But it didn't burn. It pulsed with warmth—familiar and strange. Like bonfires from your youth on the beach. Like something that could either comfort... or consume.
"Power," he said, "isn't just what you hold. It's what you're willing to lose."
You stared down at the ember in your palm. It pulsed once, twice—like a heartbeat.
And in that flickering light, you saw her.
Not clearly. Just a shimmer at the edge of sight. A woman, standing at the shoreline, where sand kissed sea. Her hair was long and strange—like vines swaying in a breeze the world had forgotten. She turned her head, just slightly. Not toward you. Toward the horizon.
Your chest tightened. You knew her.
No—something in you did.
And she… seemed to flinch. As if seeing you startled something buried in her. Her lips parted—not in fear, but in disbelief. Almost… grief. Her hand lifted a fraction, like she might reach for you, or say your name.
But the sea surged behind her, and she vanished like mist.
You blinked.
The old man stood silently nearby. You thought he hadn't noticed—but then he spoke, so low it barely carried.
"…So even she feels it now."
You turned toward him, but his face was unreadable.
"Feels what?" you asked, breath caught.
He didn't meet your eyes. Instead, he looked to the place she'd been, far out across the sea, and said quietly, "A soul can be forgotten by time. But not by those who remember what it once meant."
His voice carried the weight of an old sorrow.
You didn't understand the words, not fully.
But the ember pulsed once more in your hand, and this time, it felt like someone was calling out to you—from a life you couldn't remember.
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