Months had passed since the deer.
The den was gone now, replaced by something sturdier. A small house built from wood and packed earth, walls raised log by log, roof layered with bark and dried leaves to keep the rain out. He had dug a well near the stream, lined with stones to keep the water clean. Not far from it sat a shallow pit for washing, and further still, a separate one for waste. None of it was clean work. His hands still carried fresh cuts from the stone tools he'd shaped himself, blades and scrapers, nothing sharper than what wood and rock could give him. No metal. He hadn't found any worth using since the dagger.
He sat outside the house that evening, back against the wall, looking at his hands in the fading light. Steady now. No shaking.
He thought, briefly, of the nineteen children still standing in that cellar. He wondered if they were still there. If anyone had come for them. He didn't let the thought stay long. There was nothing he could do for them from here, not yet, maybe not ever.
He pushed the thought aside and looked up at the sky instead.
"Axiom," he said, quiet, mostly out of habit now. He didn't expect an answer. He rarely got one unless it decided the moment called for it.
Silence.
He tried again anyway. "You said something, back at the start. About training somewhere outside of time."
Still nothing.
He almost gave up. Then the pressure came, light and familiar, settling behind his eyes the way it always did.
[Function Four. Simulation.]
He sat up a little straighter. "Yeah. That one."
[Simulation constructs a space outside the flow of external time. Host may train without consequence to the body or constraint of duration.]
"So if I go in, no time passes out here?"
[Correct.]
He turned that over in his head. No risk. No cost. Just time, as much as he needed, to get stronger without losing anything out here.
"Can I try it... Now?"
[Function available. Host may enter at will.]
He stood, brushing dirt from his knees, something close to nervous energy building in his chest. It wasn't the same fear he'd felt escaping the mansion, or facing the deer. This felt different. Smaller. Almost like curiosity.
"How do I..." He paused, unsure how to even ask it. "How do I start?"
[Intent is sufficient.]
He frowned. "That's it? Just... want it?"
Axiom didn't answer again, which he had learned by now meant yes, or close enough to yes that further questions wouldn't change anything.
He looked around at the house, the well, the quiet stretch of forest that had, somehow, become the only place he understood being safe. Then he closed his eyes.
"Alright," he muttered. "Let's see what this does."
He didn't know what to expect. But for the first time since waking in that cellar, he wasn't stepping into something because he had no choice.
This time, he was choosing it.
His mind opened into white.
No walls. No ground he could see, only felt beneath his feet. No sky. Just endless white in every direction, silent and still.
He took a step. The white held his weight like solid ground, though nothing marked where he stood.
"Axiom?"
No answer. He hadn't expected one.
He started walking, just to see if the space would change. It didn't. He walked further, then broke into a run, testing how far the emptiness went. Nothing appeared. No end, no wall, no marker of distance covered.
He stopped, breathing hard, and looked down at his hands.
"Alright. Training, then."
He began with his fists. Slow punches at first, testing his own balance, then faster, harder, until his arms burned and his breath came ragged. He kept going anyway. There was nothing else to do here, and no clock telling him to stop.
Days passed. He lost count of them quickly, since the light never changed and nothing marked morning from night. He ate nothing, felt no hunger, no exhaustion he couldn't push through. He punched air until his form steadied, ran until his legs stopped shaking with each stride, moved his body in ways that slowly stopped feeling foreign.
Weeks, by his own count.
His body hadn't changed. No new strength in his arms, no added muscle he could see. But something else had shifted, quieter, harder to name. He could feel each motion now before he made it. Control, not power.
He stopped, arms hanging at his sides, and looked around at the same white space that had surrounded him since he arrived.
"What do I do now?"
The pressure came, sudden and different from before.
[Notification]
He went still.
[Your enemy Brey has died.]
[Name: Brey.
Information: He was the boy who checked on you the night you were struck. He was killed by the mansion's owner, blamed for your disappearance.
Cause of death: struck by a thrown cup.]
He stared at the words hanging in front of him, unmoving, unable to look away.
Brey.
He hadn't known the name until now. Just a voice in the dark, a clumsy bandage, a shaking hand checking his pulse instead of his breath. Don't die, the boy had said. He hadn't meant it as kindness, not really. He'd been scared for himself. But it was still the only voice he remembered from that cellar.
And now he was dead. Because of him.
"He didn't even..." He stopped, throat tight. "He didn't do anything. He just checked if I was breathing."
No answer came. Axiom never explained why. It only delivered what it decided he needed to know, and nothing more.
He stood there in the white, chest heavy, hands curling into fists at his sides without him meaning to.
"Is this because I left."
Still nothing. But the pressure returned before the silence could settle, a different kind this time, not grief, not news. Information.
[Simulation Function. Additional application: host may engage any individual bound to Axiom through sufficient emotional connection or otherwise. Hostile or otherwise.]
He blinked, the words slow to land.
"Engage," he repeated. "You mean I can... see him. Fight him. Talk to him."
No response. Axiom had already said what it meant to say.
He looked around the empty white space, understanding now that it wasn't as empty as it seemed. Somewhere in this same nothing, if he wanted, Brey could stand in front of him again. Not the real Brey. Something built from what Axiom had recorded, maybe. But close enough to feel real.
He didn't know if he was ready for that yet.
"Not now," he said quietly, mostly to himself. "Not yet."
He stood there a long while longer, alone in the white, turning the boy's name over in his head like something he needed to hold onto before it slipped away the way everything else had.
He stood alone in the white space a long moment longer before he made his choice.
"I want to see him," he said quietly. "Brey."
The pressure came at once, cold and certain. The white around him didn't change, but a shape did. A few steps away, a boy stood where nothing had been before. Taller than him, thin, dark hair falling over his eyes. Brey.
He felt his chest tighten. Without thinking, he ran forward, arms out, meaning to hug him the way he never got the chance to before.
Brey's knee came up fast and caught him square in the egg.
Pain exploded through his lower body, sharp and blinding. He dropped instantly, curling forward, both hands clutching at himself, tears springing to his eyes before he could stop them.
"W-what–" His voice cracked, breath knocked out of him. "Why–"
Brey didn't answer. He didn't even look angry. His face stayed blank, flat, empty in a way that didn't match the panicked boy from the cellar at all. He swung again, a fist this time, catching him across the jaw.
He hit the ground hard, ears ringing.
"Stop!" he shouted, one hand still pressed low, the other raised weakly to block. "Why are you hitting me?!"
No response. Brey stepped forward and kicked him in the ribs, once, then again. Each hit landed clean, precise, nothing wasted. This wasn't the same nervous boy who had fumbled a bandage in the dark. This was something else wearing his face.
He realized then, through the pain, that no answer was coming. Whatever this was, it wasn't going to explain itself. It wasn't going to stop either.
He forced himself up onto one knee, breathing hard, tears still wet on his face. His hands shook, but not from fear this time. From something closer to desperation.
If it wasn't going to stop, he had to make it.
Brey came at him again, fist raised. He rolled to the side this time, barely, feeling the wind of the punch pass close to his ear. He scrambled back to his feet, putting distance between them, chest heaving.
The weeks of training came back to him in pieces. Balance. Control. He'd punched air for what felt like a month straight, learned how his own body moved before he moved it. None of that had prepared him for this, not really. But it was something.
Brey closed the gap fast. He swung low, aiming for his stomach. He twisted away, barely dodging, and threw a punch of his own. It landed, weak, glancing off Brey's shoulder instead of his face. Brey didn't even flinch.
A fist caught him in the cheek. His vision blurred white for a second, and he staggered, tasting blood.
"Why won't you stop," he gasped, more to himself than to Brey.
He swung again anyway, harder this time, aiming with everything he had left. It connected, right against Brey's jaw, and for the first time, Brey actually stumbled back a step.
It wasn't much. But it was something.
He pressed forward before he could think better of it, throwing another punch, then another, sloppy and desperate, more instinct than skill. Some landed. Most didn't. Brey fought back just as hard, fists coming fast, catching him across the ribs, the shoulder, once more against his jaw that sent him staggering sideways.
He fell. Got back up. Fell again.
His whole body ached, bruises forming faster than he could track them, but something in him refused to just lie there and take it anymore. He grit his teeth, tasted blood, and pushed himself up one more time.
"I'm not done," he said, voice shaking but steady enough. "I'm not done yet."
He charged forward, lower this time, aiming to close the distance before Brey could land another clean hit. He caught Brey around the middle, driving them both to the ground, and for a moment they were just tangled together, fists and elbows, nothing clean about any of it.
He landed a hit. Then another. His knuckles split open against something, he couldn't tell what, and he kept swinging anyway, breathing hard, until the shape beneath him finally stopped moving.
He sat back, chest heaving, staring down at what used to be Brey's face.
It didn't look like him anymore. It didn't look like anything. Just white light fading where the shape had been, dissolving slowly back into the empty space around him.
He knelt there a long moment, alone again, hands shaking, blood on his knuckles that felt real even if none of it had been.
"That wasn't him," he said quietly, to no one. "That wasn't really him."
He wasn't sure if saying it out loud made it easier to believe.
[Your opponent in here would never be your ally. Stop being naive.]
He froze. The words weren't cruel. They weren't kind either. Just true, the way everything Axiom told him was true, whether he wanted to hear it or not.
"Why? He is a human too," he said quietly. "I just wanted to see him."
No response.
He pushed himself to his feet, legs unsteady, and looked around the empty white. If this wasn't Brey, not really, then there was no reason to hold back. No reason to hope it would stop on its own.
The shape reformed a few steps away. Brey again, blank-faced, fists already raised.
This time, he didn't run forward. He waited, watching the way Brey moved, remembering the weeks of training that came before this. When Brey struck first, he was ready. He dodged, then answered with a hit of his own, harder now, more certain.
The fight dragged on. He took hits, gave them back, until finally Brey dropped to one knee, breathing hard, or seeming to.
"Brey," he said, stepping closer. "Can you hear me?"
Nothing. No answer, no flicker of recognition in the boy's blank eyes.
He crouched down anyway, close enough to speak low. "I'm sorry I left. I didn't know what would happen to you."
Still nothing. He reached a hand toward the still shoulder.
Brey struck without warning, fist catching him across the jaw before he could pull back. He hit the ground hard, tasting blood again.
He understood then. It hadn't stopped. It had only been resting.
He got back up, slower this time, and fought again.
It went on like that. He would win, Brey would fall, and for a moment it would look finished. Then Brey would rise again, fists ready, no memory of the last fall between them. He tried speaking each time, at first. Then he stopped trying. Whatever this was, it didn't listen.
Days passed, by his own count, though nothing here marked time the way the world outside did. He grew faster with each fight, sharper, his body remembering things his mind hadn't fully caught up to. He won more than he lost. He lost enough to remember pain wasn't something this place spared him from.
He beat Brey down again, and again, and again, the fights blurring together the way the forest days once had. Somewhere in the repetition, the shock of that first kick, that first punch, dulled into something closer to routine.
Then, on a day he couldn't have numbered even if he tried, the fight ended differently.
His hands closed around Brey's throat before he realized what he meant to do. He didn't stop. When it was over, Brey's shape lay still beneath him, and this time it didn't rise again. Slowly fading as uf like an ashes.
He sat back, breathing hard, staring down at what he'd done.
The shock came, quiet and familiar, an echo of the deer, the same tightness in his chest, the same weight settling where it shouldn't. But it didn't hit as hard this time. It came and passed faster, like something in him had already learned how to carry it.
He looked at his own hands, steady now despite everything.