I drew in a slow, deliberate breath. The kind you take when you’re not sure it won’t be your last. The air down here was anything but fresh. It reeked—like old earth, mildew, blood that had long since dried and sunk into stone. It clung to my throat, settled behind my eyes. I didn’t light my cigarette. Felt wrong, somehow, to bring fire into a place like this. Felt like disrespecting the dead. Or worse—inviting something.

“Frog,” I muttered. “Drop me the portable gen.”

A light rustle stirred against my jacket before Frog emerged, gave a short hop, and vanished again into a misty flicker. A moment later, the weight of the small portable crank generator settled into my palm.

Whirr.

The low hum was steady as I began to crank. I didn’t discharge the power—just built it, letting it collect in the crystal tip at the end. A soft, cerulean glow pulsed outward, casting the world in luminous waves of ghost-light. Not bright. But enough to see by.

A torch might’ve worked better. But fire didn’t feel like the right choice, not here. Not with what I’d seen it do. The lantern’s blaze had burned that spirit out of existence. That meant fire, or at least energy, mattered in this place. A generator ran on kinetic force converted to power—a current rather than combustion. Maybe that mattered. Maybe not. Either way, it wasn’t a torch. And I wasn’t going to make one.

“Heavenly lightning…” I muttered, watching the generator’s faint blue light cast strange shadows down the corridor. “They say it burns spirits to ash. Right?”

Down here, the light didn’t reflect like normal. It absorbed everything. Gave the world that sunken, oceanic distortion, where shadows drifted slower than the movements that cast them. Even my own silhouette seemed to follow just a second behind.

The passage ahead curved and slithered like a buried serpent. It was carved—not natural. Stone arches arched above like the ribs of some ancient behemoth. Unlit braziers lined the walls in intervals, thick with layers of sediment so packed I dented it half an inch just running a finger across one.

The further I went, the more the corridor changed. A fork appeared. And with it, something that made my skin crawl.

Two sets of footprints.

Identical in weight. Identical in pattern. Identical in stride.

One veered left. One veered right.

At first glance, it looked like the corridor had mirrored itself—cut cleanly down the middle by some unseen force. A trick of symmetry, of geometry. But no—these weren’t illusions.

“No…” I whispered, lighting up my smoke without a second thought. “It’s the other Tom.”

Somehow, the path he had taken had branched—a split in fate. Two choices, now etched into the stone. One path was a memory, a scar left by failure. The other... a future still unraveling. If Tom had died here in another loop—then these were the ghosts of decisions.

And something about them was real.

The right path was cleaner. Polished. Man-made. It reeked of design and purpose.

The left… it was rougher. More primitive. Forgotten. The kind of path someone might overlook. But paths are made to lead somewhere. And the ones people bury?

They’re often buried for a reason.

I went left.

A beam of reddish-white light flickered faintly in the distance, too far for warmth but enough for recognition. I smiled behind the cigarette’s glow.

Tom.

I extinguished the generator with a click of a switch into my own hand and tucked it away. My hand still glowed faintly with residual current, but I pulled on a glove to smother it and crept forward—low to the wall, quiet as breath.

Tom stood in a wide chamber. The cavern around him had the look of an ancient tomb—rough stone, wet air, the sound of water trickling somewhere just out of view. His lantern cut clean through the dark, dancing across the walls in fractured reflections.

That’s when I saw it.

A waterfall clinging to the far stone face. The stream was thin, silent except for a soft trickle, but it dropped into a basin that fell away into utter darkness. A pit within a pit. A well. The light couldn’t reach its bottom, and neither could mine.

I circled along the opposite side, cloaked in shadow. The water below was still, but something about it made my spine tighten.

Tom turned away.

I followed.

Ahead, two massive stone legs emerged from the dark like sentinels. Barrel-thick. Towering. My heart leapt into my throat and I nearly drew—but then Tom stepped forward, lantern raised.

Statues.

Relief surged and I exhaled, quietly. Still—I couldn’t shake the unease. These weren’t decorations. They were monuments. And they hadn’t been made by ordinary hands.

Tom backed up slowly, lantern held out. The figure was armored, sword at its waist, shoulders carved in perfect proportion. A grave marker. A king, maybe.

“Spirit of the afterlife,” Tom said suddenly, his voice steady, reciting from memory. “That in which protects this land—tell me your wishes.”

I blinked. ‘What kind of fucking curriculum is this kid on?’

But the words worked. The sound of water shifted behind us. A soft ripple. Then a pulse. The trickling waterfall turned to lapping waves—as though something vast had stirred beneath it.

Tom took a step back, and I tensed.

Then the figure moved.

Stone became flesh, or something like it. The spirit stepped forward with the same stance, same shape, same eyes carved by grief and duty. He looked down at Tom. Then past him.

Right at me.

“Child…” the spirit’s voice echoed, deep and ancient. “You carry many burdens. Not unlike my own.”

Tom stood tall. Braver than I expected. “What burden do you carry, valiant spirit?”

A chuckle—quiet, but not mocking. The figure’s gaze drifted once more to mine, but he said nothing, then turned back to Tom.

“I guard the door to Purgatory. One of many. This door formed not from magic, nor spell, but from the weight of man’s nature. A faultline in the soul of this land. There are rules.”

I winced at those words. Seemed they had the same motions one must make in regards to things here. He paused, then added with quiet gravity, “The curse that haunts you… it stems from another door. One fed by blood and sacrifice. One that cannot be sealed from this side.”

Tom’s eyes widened. “The well…”

The spirit nodded. “Yes. One such name. A passage opened by agony. Only by entering from the other side, by dying, can it be closed. Not by force. By will. A self-sacrifice.”

Tom shuddered. I did too. Not from cold. But because I already knew what he would say.

“Then I’ll do it,” he said. “If it’ll protect my friends… then I’ll go.”

The spirit looked at him long, long enough that the air grew heavy again.

“These are the words of an old man.”

He turned back to his statue, his presence humbling. Regal. As though the stone had never forgotten the shape of its king.

I understood him too well.

My life had followed that same rhythm: task after task, step after step, never for myself. Always for someone else. Always walking into storms so others could rest under clear skies.

I didn’t even know who I was protecting anymore. But I was still walking.

Tom looked up. “What must I do?”

“The door has already begun to open,” the spirit replied. “The monks that once stood guard are gone. Killed. You have a choice now. Close this door—or the one at the school. Either way, the cost will ripple.”

My gut turned.

The spirit’s words matched the Boon of Mystery exactly.

“Choice,” Tom repeated, gripping the lantern tighter. “Do I just leap into the well?”

The spirit didn’t smile. “Certainly not. First… you must die.”

Understanding clicked behind Tom’s eyes. “So only my spirit can go through.”

“Yes. That is how I became the gatekeeper. I gave my final breath at the foot of this cave, so I might protect my soldiers in death. And still I failed.”

Tom’s voice was a whisper. “What would’ve happened if I chose the other path?”

“You would have died,” the spirit said, without hesitation. “You would’ve made it back to your friends, yes. But the head monk, corrupted, would have used the spirits of this church—soldiers buried beneath us—to feed the door and claim the land as his own.”

My eyes narrowed.

So that was it.

The land would tear itself from life, stuck between realities. A purgatory under the monk’s command. No rest for the dead. No peace for the living. The other way, a curse would grow so strong it’s wake and gravity would do the same.

The spirit turned to Tom. “But you… you gave me what I never had. A voice to call me back. Someone to tell me I mattered.”

His grin turned feral as he drew his blade.

“And now I get to make that monk pay.”

With that, the spirit vanished in a blaze of golden fire.

Tom stood in silence. Then, without a word, turned and walked past me. Didn’t see me. Didn’t need to.

But I followed.

And behind us, I heard the bones rise.

Skeletal soldiers—his men—rose from the earth with silent screams. They didn’t look at me. They didn’t need to. They knew where they were going just as Tom did.

I heard their swords clang, the golden figure at their head. Then silence.

Then the monk’s scream.

When the spirit returned, he carried the monk’s twisted specter like torn parchment—ripped, chewed, warped by guilt and hatred. “I’ll drag him to hell myself,” he muttered, dropping the thing to the ground.

“Fuck you,” the monk snarled, writhing in phantom agony. “Fuck the church! I will control the darkness!”

The spirit just smiled. “No. You won’t.”

Then he turned to Tom, clapped him on the shoulder, and faded into the light.

Tom stood alone in silence.

“I hope it’s that easy for me…” he whispered.

He turned back toward the path, only to stop at the edge of the pit.

There, swinging like an answered prayer, was my chain.

“Did he leave this for me to climb with?” Tom grasped the chain and hauled himself up. I on the other hand rolled my eyes before a *ding* sound rang out.

‘Boon of mystery: Successfully bring Tom to the church completed, closing the door of purgatory layed beneath it. Reward will multiply later if not chosen now.

Y/N’

‘No…I’m not done yet anyway.’ I sighed as I waited a minute or two and then gripped the dangling hand of the chain and whipped up to the ground level floor, the cape unfurled into wings as I swooped over the edge and landed softly.

*ding*

‘Boon of mystery: Follow Tom back to the school, and help close the door to purgatory. End the curse, and save the students.’ 

‘Why is this one so much simpler this time…'

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

It took us a full day to return, with one stop to rest along the way. By the time we stood before the entrance to the school compound, dusk had already begun to swallow the treetops behind us. The sky was bleeding into rust and shadow. The last light of day cast long silhouettes over the cracked steps, and the school itself—tall, still, and watching—loomed like a mausoleum that remembered its dead.

Tom stood before the main door, one hand resting on the handle. His expression was a complex war—stoic, resolved, but under that, I saw it. The faintest tremble in the jaw. The kind that comes when you’re trying not to fall apart.

He could leave. Right now. Turn, walk away, and vanish into the forest’s embrace before the moon even cleared the trees. Nobody would fault him for it. He was human, after all. He didn’t want to die. No one truly does.

But Tom had never been the kind to break a promise. And though he hadn’t returned from the church with reinforcements or holy relics, he had brought something far more valuable: the knowledge of what needed to be done to stop the horror unfolding within these halls. That… counted for something.

Still—he stood before this place like it was already his grave. I could feel it radiating off him. That deep, cold weight in the gut. That knowing.

He knew.

And so did I. I had heard the spirit’s words. I’d seen the look in its eyes. Tom was destined to die. And now he was struggling to gather the will to walk willingly into that fate.

That’s when I saw her.

A figure stepped out from the trees behind the gate, light-footed but cautious. She paused at the sight of him and gasped.

“Tom?”

He flinched. The name seemed to knock the wind out of him. His fingers slipped from the gate handle as he turned.

“C…Cadence?”

She broke into a warm smile and ran toward him, throwing her arms around his shoulders. “It’s been too long. I heard you left. Heard there were still some students holed up here… so I came to check on everyone. My uncle—he’s the head of the village near here. When he told me what was going on, I figured the least I could do was look into it for him.”

Tom tensed at first, then allowed the embrace. His voice was quiet. “You didn’t tell him?”

She chuckled nervously. “You know how he is.”

Tom exhaled a breath through his nose, part amused, part overwhelmed. The village chief was infamous for his strict expectations, a man of rules and reputation. I remembered that myself. Cadence never followed in his footsteps. Instead, she’d trained under his old comrade Isaiahh—took up the path of a warrior, not a politician.

And now… here she was.

My throat tightened. I shifted slightly in the shadows, whispering to no one in particular, or maybe just Frog perched on my shoulder: “No… no fucking way.”

Because if Tom had died at the church—if I hadn’t intervened—Cadence never would’ve seen him at this gate. She would’ve come, found nothing, and eventually returned. Or worse—gone straight to the church in search of answers. Alone. Where she would’ve died. Sacrificed herself to close the door in place of the words spoken by Tom to awaken the spirit.

She would’ve been the ghost girl. At the fort.

And now? Now they both stood here, alive. Because fate had bent. Because someone had changed the cycle.

Tom glanced toward the dark school, then back to her. His face was drawn. “I… I need to tell someone what’s been going on. Everything.”

I turned away, half out of respect, half out of the gnawing ache in my chest. He shouldn't tell her. Not if he knew I was here. But how could he? To him, he was alone. He just needed someone to bear the weight for a moment. I understood that too well.

He told her. Not everything, but enough. Enough to darken the fire in her eyes. Cadence listened, and didn’t interrupt. She knew him. They had a past—classmates, friends, maybe something more once upon a time. You could see it in the way she looked at him. That deep kind of care you don’t just develop—you grow into it. You earn it.

When he finished, her arms dropped to her sides. She stared at the school.

“I see…” Her tone was low, steady. Then she smiled softly. “Mind if I come in with you? If what you say is true… maybe I can help.”

Tom hesitated. His mouth opened to protest—but closed again. He gave a slow nod.

And just like that… the wheel turned again.

She had chosen to step in. Chosen to walk beside him. She had unknowingly volunteered to take his place.

I watched her with narrowed eyes. No… she wouldn’t have just gone home if he hadn’t been here. She would’ve gone to the church. Found the bodies. Found the spirit. Taken the burden onto herself.

She would’ve died there. Alone. And her soul would’ve anchored to that place—a martyr without witness. A lost spirit in a place designed to trap the dead.

That was how I met her.

The ghost girl who wandered the fort in purgatory.

And now?

Now both she and Tom were alive. But the debt hadn’t vanished. No—the scales were still waiting to be balanced. One of them would die.

Someone still has to pay.

I clenched my fists as they walked together into the school compound. The door creaked shut behind them, sealing the dark inside.

I had changed fate. But fate didn’t forget.

And it never left debts unpaid.