Chapter 27 — The Street That Remembers
Claire slowed before the street.
She didn't say anything at first.
Her shoulders drew in, as if the air itself had turned colder.
"This is where it happened," she said.
My legs stopped with her.
Not because I chose to.
Because the fog froze them.
The street was narrow, boxed in by leaning buildings that blocked most of the light. Broken windows stared down like empty eyes. The fog was thin here—just enough to blur the ground, just enough to carry sound.
Nothing looked familiar.
And then my hand shifted on the sword hilt.
Adjusted itself.
Claire saw it.
"You feel it," she said.
"I don't remember it."
"That doesn't mean you don't know it."
I stared down the street.
My mind was empty.
But my body wasn't.
My stance lowered.
My weight shifted forward.
My grip tightened.
Not thought.
Habit.
Claire swallowed. "We lost two of them here."
I looked at her.
"One vanished," she said. "One died."
The fog pressed along my calves.
Not guiding.
Holding.
I tried to picture it.
The fight.
The screams.
The blood.
There was only a smooth blankness where something should have been.
My shoulders tensed anyway.
"You're standing like him," she whispered.
"Like who?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't need to.
The air felt heavy without fog.
Thick with something that wasn't there anymore.
The fog did not help.
It did not move me forward.
It did not pull me back.
It only held my legs in place.
And waited.
(Next chapter: The One Who Came Back)