Whoosh.

Whether it was the wind threading through the trees or something else entirely, I couldn’t say for certain anymore. The sound of sticks snapping along the forest floor echoed from every angle, a series of sharp, dry cracks with no consistent rhythm. One might burst out to my left—close, maybe ten feet—only to be answered by another behind me, distant, brittle, maybe forty yards out. It was impossible to distinguish whether something was circling us or simply... existing all around.

It was that kind of noise you feel in your teeth. The kind that’s always just at the edge of perception, tugging at your thoughts like a whisper you’re not quite meant to hear.

Even the wind didn’t behave right. Sometimes it came with a gust, other times with utter silence, and I couldn’t help but notice that the snapping branches never quite aligned with the movement of the air. Something was moving, yes—but was it one thing? Two? A hundred?

My fingers slid from beneath my coat and gripped the hilt of the chain blade as it shimmered into existence. The pistol was out of the question. Firing it might give Tom a reason to look in my direction—and the last thing I needed was him knowing I was here. The quest had been clear: do not directly interact.

But what did that mean exactly? Could he hear me but not see me? Was knowledge of my name a violation? Did proximity matter, or only intent?

My thoughts spiraled too loud, so I stopped thinking altogether. Even that felt like a risk. The damn watch might hear me.

I glanced sideways. Tom stood firm with the lantern clutched tightly in both hands, his thumb hovering near the smooth, bowl-shaped base. He didn’t move. He didn’t speak. But something in the way he held it... showed he knew something was coming.

*Whoosh*

Something spiraled down from the canopy above, disturbing leaves and flinging them outward like shrapnel. It had no form—just a force, an outline pressed into the world by its absence. Branches bent, bark cracked, and debris scattered from its path, as though the forest itself recoiled at its presence.

Tom didn’t flinch. He waited.

“DIEEE!” he roared, slashing his thumb across the base of the lantern.

A blinding radiance burst forth—not warm like campfire light, but something raw and elemental. The air heated violently as the energy poured outward, and Tom reflexively closed his eyes. The temperature jumped like a fever, and I watched the wind recoil, curling backward as if the light itself burned reality around us.

For him, it must have felt like hope—a divine warmth kissing his face in the moment he needed it most.

But for me?

For me, the trees lit up in nightmare clarity.

In the brief second of blinding illumination, I saw hundreds of figures at the tree line. Wreathed in shadow, their shapes were indistinct—half-melted, eyeless, weeping in silence. Their limbs twitched as if pulled by unseen strings. And every one of them was watching Tom.

Not stalking. Not hunting.

Waiting.

These things weren’t students. They were people of countless years passed.

Then, in a flash, they were gone. Scorched silhouettes flickered and vanished like paper burning from the edges inward.

And I—

I was on my knees, slumped against a trunk, my lungs burning. I held my palm out in front of me, still trembling, watching the faint remnants of the second lightning rune fade from my skin like dying embers on ash.

I spat out a breath. “Fuck me…”

The energy that erupted from the lantern wasn’t just illumination—it was rejection. The light didn’t reveal the world; it scoured it. Like a flare detonated in a sealed room filled with gas, it changed the chemical makeup of the moment itself. The cursed spirits—whatever they truly were—couldn’t exist inside it. Not even briefly.

Malcolm had once described it as a kind of magical transference—converting ambient motion and friction into stored elemental fire. A metaphysical distillery that took energy around and converted it into the source of the lantern itself. It in this world displaced other fundamental sources of energy.

I looked down to my chain blade, one that would emulate my own power. To its rune of sharpness, carved of something to harness ambient magic, enchanted by a god.

To Tom, it was warmth.
To everything else in this forest, it was death.

And yet… it wasn’t over.

I twisted the bracelet on my wrist, muscles screaming as my body flared with energy again. The ground cracked beneath my boots as I launched myself forward like a cannonball, the cape flaring behind me, streaked with shadow.

The second Tom’s eyes shut to shield himself from the flash, I struck. My chain blade tore through the tree line, carving through those that remained. Each stroke glowed with electric fury, lightning dancing from link to link as I cut through wailing, writhing husks of spirit-flesh. They didn’t scream—but their bodies shuddered like they wanted to, as though pain could still echo inside beings made of nothing but regret.

Then they were gone.

All of them.

The forest swallowed their remains like it never wanted to remember them at all.

I crashed against another tree, breath rasping, and slid down to a crouch. My arms were shaking, my heart pounding, but my eyes never left Tom. He was still standing there, confused, but alive. Clutching the lantern like it was more than a tool. Like it was a promise.

And I sat there thinking, What would’ve happened if I hadn’t been here?

What if it had only been him, holding that little fire like it could keep back a sea of darkness?

Or worse—what if the only reason this happened the way it did, was because I was here?

That thought felt worse than anything. That maybe I was the wrench in the wheel. Or the reason the wheel kept turning.

I let out a shaky breath and slumped back harder into the bark. The wind had died. All that remained were the faint sounds of leaves rustling and the occasional creak of trees too old to stand silently anymore.

Tom moved. He gathered the strange branches scattered around the clearing—pre-laid, almost as if someone had arranged them for him. He shrugged it off, chalking it up to wind or chance, and started reshaping his camp.

For me? It was like getting smacked in the face by fate itself.

I let myself sink further into the tree, draping the dark cloak over my form. The warmth of the fight lingered like phantom adrenaline, and with a conscious effort I let my body slip toward half-sleep. Just enough to rest. Not enough to dream.

Dreams weren’t safe tonight.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daylight bled through a slit in the folds of my cloak. My eyes shot open. I didn’t move at first—just stared through the veil of shadow, letting my gaze adjust as my head slowly crept forward like prey testing the edge of its burrow. The chill of morning had not yet burned off.

Tom sat slouched against a log, the fire beside him nothing more than fading embers. He looked like someone who had gotten rest without ever truly sleeping. His head lolled slightly, the weight of exhaustion pulling at his limbs. Whatever peace he had managed was shallow—scraped from the surface of a mind still trembling from the night before.

I let out a slow breath of relief. He was still here. Had he awoken and gone on without me… I didn’t know what I would have returned to.

Pk.

“...Ow.” Tom rubbed the side of his forehead, a grimace cutting across his face as he hissed softly to himself. It was familiar now. That subtle sting before awareness kicked in.

Another pebble. He never saw them coming.

I waited until he finally stood, stretching with a stiffness that betrayed how much he had held in. I kept a hundred meters between us—far enough to stay hidden, close enough to intervene. He moved forward, clutching the lantern close to his chest like a newborn. And maybe that was what it was to him now: warmth, protection, the only proof he had that something good could still exist in this night-cursed world.

I was almost glad to leave the lantern behind. There were other artifacts, sure, but this one had proven itself. More than that, it had proven Tom. The fear hadn’t won.

More importantly, it had proven that the artifacts from my world—those designed to transmute or displace magical energy—hurt the spirits here. That was gold. That knowledge gave me a literal weapon.

I just hoped it wouldn’t cost him his life if it bled out.

Hours passed. We trudged through dense brush and winding paths, weaving between tree lines and patches of thick, dew-wet grass. The further we moved, the more I saw pieces of the past flicker through my thoughts—ghosts of this place I had known, now rendered in brighter colors and untouched stone.

Ahead, Tom paused.

I followed his gaze and found him standing at the crest of a hill, joy painting his face in rare, raw lines. His arms were slack at his sides. His posture relaxed for the first time since we left.

I rubbed my chin. ‘That has to be it. The church.’

He ran ahead like a child glimpsing their home after a long journey, disappearing over the hilltop. I quickened my pace and reached the edge, eyes scanning downward toward the horizon.

And there it was.

The fort. But not as I remembered it. A castle now loomed behind its frame—stone-black and old as myth, with high bridges arched like the spines of dead giants. The walls were worn by time but untouched by ruin. A thick, barred gate stretched across its front, wide enough for two horses abreast but tight enough to keep out anything with a formation of blade. Between the ironwork of the gate, only the width of a hand could pass.

No sliding mechanisms. No cameras. This wasn’t a modern fort with digital locks and steel doors. This was medieval, all stone and shadow, and yet unmistakably the same place.

Or its ancestor.

A chill crept along my back. My eyes scanned the architecture, noting subtle similarities between the gate before me and the entrance I had once forced my way through under entirely different circumstances.

Perhaps this wasn’t the fort. Maybe it was simply the inspiration for it. A style passed down through time. Or perhaps the two were bound by something deeper—a history caught in its own echo.

But my gut twisted again, the way it always did when something unseen was coiling too close to ignore.

‘No. Not again. Not this soon.’

Pack.

“Ow—damn it!” Tom whipped around, glaring at the air like the wind had slapped him. “If you’re gonna help, could you not aim for the bone?!”

I chuckled quietly to myself. That one landed square on his shoulder. Maybe a little too hard.

My attention returned to the castle walls. One window to the right hung open just wide enough to suggest an invitation, or worse, a trap made to look like one. Tom followed the stone path along the right side, slowing as he came upon the opening.

Pack. Right on the ass this time.

He jumped forward with a hiss and scrambled through the window.

I gave it a minute. Then, after another glance at my watch, I approached with cigarette in hand, taking a long pull as I leaned beside the window frame. My fingers trembled, just slightly. I pressed them to my forehead and exhaled smoke into the wind.

‘Will it come from outside… or from within? Or will something else come while we're distracted by the curse? No. Not distracted. Divided.’

The end of the cigarette glowed briefly before I crushed it out against the stone wall. With one fluid motion, I vaulted through the window and landed silently inside. The smell hit me first—old paper, varnish, and something faintly metallic.

An office.

A wooden desk stood beneath a large cross, flanked by a tall cabinet and a plain foot-wide crate. The door at the far end had been left ajar. Tom was already gone.

I stepped softly to the threshold, gaze flicking left and right. The corridor beyond was as I remembered it—similar in layout to the place I had bled through once before, though this version bore darker wood, older doors, and fewer signs of modern life. No screens. No wiring. Just stone and quiet.

I followed the memory-map in my head. If this place still mirrored what I knew, then the central room—the one where I'd once burned in a cage of fire—should be four steps forward and up a short incline.

The place where weapons had once been. The heart of the fort.

Only now, it would be something else. A chapel, maybe. A sanctum.

Frog appeared on my shoulder in a puff of mist, looking around with a quiet tilt of the head. He didn’t make a sound.

“Free wards, totems, and maybe a little holy backup,” I whispered.

Rounding the corner, I stopped.

Down the hallway, the central room door was swinging open, pushed by a slow-moving figure. The floor before it was slick—red-streaked and glistening like a butcher’s floor. The scent hit me a moment later: old blood and newer death.

Tom stood in the doorway, peering into whatever waited beyond.

‘No, no, no—’

I rushed forward, my steps near silent, and stopped just before the door. The wood was heavy and darker than the others—aged oak, carved with intricate crosses at top and bottom, the edges wrapped in ornate silver trim.

I took a half step forward and peered inside.

Tom stood at the edge of a wide circular room. Bodies littered the stone floor like discarded robes—monks, priests, and others I couldn’t place. Their faces were frozen in expressions that went beyond pain—locked in final moments of terror, lips curled back, eyes bulging with a fear so raw it had etched itself into bone.

No one had died fighting. No bloodied fists. No signs of defense.

Only surrender.

Tom turned and vomited into the corner.

I moved inside, silent as the dead. My boots made no sound on the floor as I circled the edges of the chamber. Every face I passed looked the same—paralyzed in unknowing dread. No wounds, no symbols, just bodies. Dropped like dolls.

Tom wiped his mouth, then turned toward a hole in the room’s center. It was jagged and ringed with twisted stone, like the earth itself had caved inward to consume what had happened here. He lifted the lantern and leaned over the edge.

The light spilled downward, illuminating the tunnel of bones.

They weren’t packed neatly. They weren’t organized. Just... piled. Tens of thousands of skeletal remains forming the very structure of the pit, packed so tight they had fused into the dirt itself.

A foundation built of the forgotten.

My breath caught.

Tom began his descent without hesitation, clinging to the walls and stepping over jutting femurs like footholds.

‘You don’t even know what you’re walking on, kid…’

I summoned my chain blade, whipped it skyward, and embedded it deep into the ceiling. With a click and a hiss, the links unraveled, lowering me into the void like a condemned man choosing his own gallows.

When I reached the bottom, I left the chain dangling behind me. If anything down there turned nasty, I wanted a quick way out.

The light above didn’t reach this far. The shadows were thick and broken only by the odd glow of bone polished with age. Protrusions jutted out from the ceiling, casting warped shapes along the tunnel floor. The silence here wasn’t natural. It was manufactured—a silence imposed, pressed down like a lid on something waiting to wake.

I turned slowly.

The air didn’t feel empty.

It felt expectant.