The fighting had come to an end, but the silence didn't feel like peace.
The creature didn't die clean.
What was left of its skull had split against the edge of Averics scythe—now clutched one-handed.
The blade dragging behind Averic like a tether to the world he refused to leave.
Averic stood over it.
Or rather—he hadn't fallen.
His hand locked around the haft. Not to fight. To stand. To keep the rest of him from collapsing under weight he wasn't built to carry anymore.
Every step tore loose from stone.
Every breath hurt worse than silence.
He moved anyway.
The path didn't open because he wanted it to. It opened because it had to.
Because the Plateau answers blood with passage.
The Plateau responded to violence with structure.
——
The air cracked. The ground peeled itself open in silence.
A rift now yawned ahead, waiting to swallow the one who earned its right to pass through it.
Averic limped forward—not a stagger, not a crawl. Something in between. He didn't look triumphant. He didn't look alive in the way people were meant to.
He looked like what the monster had tried to turn him into—but unfinished.
The scythe scraped behind him, a slow, trailing sound that followed like memory.
He didn't flinch.
He just kept going.
Because if he stopped now, he wouldn't start again.
A moment passed before horror knew its name.
The Plateau split.
Not with sound. With consequence.
The rift opened like a wound remembering how to bleed.
Miyako turned, already moving. Her breath caught in her throat before she even saw him.
She bolted—until she saw what came through.
Then she stopped. Not from fear, but from something colder.
She didn't freeze. She fractured.
And suddenly, she hated herself—for not being there. For not reaching him before the Plateau had to teach him how to bleed this deep.
She'd left him to do it alone.
Even now, she didn't know if she could put him back together.
He was already through.
Already standing—if it could still be called that.
Whatever remained of him was a horror Miyako was not prepared to see.
His body was a wreckage of skin and sinew.
His right arm was gone entirely—severed at the shoulder, nothing left but mangled bone wrapped in blood-slick cloth that clung like burned tissue.
His left hand gripped the scythe—but barely.
The fingers were mangled, bent at angles no hand should bend, bones jutting beneath torn skin.
And still, they clung to the haft like letting go would finish what the fight couldn't.
The blade dragged, its edge leaving a stuttering trail of red that wasn't pooling—it was pouring.
His chest… Miyako stared.
His ribs were visible—three of them, maybe more. Split like a door torn off its frame, swinging on flesh instead of hinges.
Flesh hung in torn folds. Something inside pulsed—but weakly, like it was deciding whether to keep going.
His right leg…
She nearly dropped to her knees.
It was still attached—but wrong. The knee bent the wrong direction. The lower half flapped with each step like it had been glued back on with wet thread. The boot was gone.
What remained of his foot was shattered, toes split or missing.
Every step sprayed blood like punctuation.
He wasn't walking.
He was dragging pain across the Plateau with the last threads of will left in his body.
Miyako took a step forward. Her voice caught.
"Averic…"
It wasn't a question. It wasn't even a whisper. It was disbelief wearing her voice like a mask.
He looked up.
One eye swollen shut. The other ringed in black and red.
Blood caked his face like war paint. His mouth didn't move—but his breath came ragged, sucking air like the world was too thin.
Miyako's throat closed.
She'd never seen anyone survive looking like this.
She wasn't sure he had.
And for the first time, she didn't know what to say to someone who refused to die.
He didn't fall. But he should've.
What walked out of that rift wasn't a survivor.
It was the aftermath wearing skin.
Miyako inched forward.
Not fast. Not frantic.
Just… carefully. Like any sudden movement might knock what was left of him off the edge he was barely clinging to.
She didn't go for his hand.
She went for the scythe.
Because he was leaning on it like it was the only thing keeping him upright—like if she touched him, the spell would break.
Her fingers wrapped around the haft beside his.
It was warm. Slick. Breathing, almost, with the pulse of a life he shouldn't have still had.
When their hands touched, she finally looked up at him.
He didn't meet her gaze.
Couldn't.
His one good eye stared forward—blood-matted, glassy, ringed in black like the soul had started retreating.
It was as if he lost consciousness long before he crossed the rift.
She leaned in, face tilted up toward his.
"Averic," she said.
Not to get his attention. Just to hear it. Just to believe he was still real.
He didn't speak.
His mouth moved, maybe. But it was slow. Detached. Like his body hadn't gotten the message that it was supposed to stop.
And then she saw it.
The way his chest stuttered. Not rose. Not breathed.
Stuttered.
As if his ribs were caught on the memory of movement.
As if life was a pattern he couldn't quite trace anymore.
His right side was a ruin—arm gone, shoulder split, bone exposed.
His leg… she didn't look again. She couldn't.
But it was his face that broke her.
Not the bruises. Not the blood.
But the expression.
He looked tired.
Not like someone who needed rest.
Like someone who'd given everything away.
And just hadn't found a place to lie down yet.
She reached for him.
"Please," she whispered. "You can stop now."
The words shook on the way out.
Not because she didn't mean them.
But because he didn't move.
Didn't let go.
Didn't even blink.
The scythe stayed locked in his grip, dragging along the stone as he forced one more step.
The rift behind him was still open.
But it twitched.
The air bent. Not loud—but deep, like pressure snapping through skin.
She turned. Just in time to feel something… shift.
The rift hadn't closed.
It was swelling.
Changing shape. Like it hadn't finished yet. Like something inside had waited—for the winner. For the last one standing.
And now that it had one, it wasn't done with him.
Miyako stepped in front of Averic, hands raised, body tense.
She was ready to call on every thread of power she had—
Then—his fingers slipped.
The weapon clanged against stone, heavy and final.
He lifted that same hand, slow and trembling, just enough to brush her arm.
It barely registered as touch—but it stopped her like a command.
Light. Barely there.
She turned to him. And he looked up, just enough to meet her.
"Still… here…" he breathed—voice shredded, barely sound at all.
Like the words weren't meant for anyone but himself.
Like saying them was the only way to keep from disappearing.
"Im still…"
His leg buckled.
She moved toward him—
But Averic stepped past her.
Just one step. Just enough to put himself between her and the rift.
His body trembled like it might come apart with the effort.
Blood still poured in places it should have clotted. His leg dragged useless behind him.
But his eye—his one remaining eye—was clear.
Locked forward.
Unflinching.
The scythe had slipped from his grip. Still he stood.
No weapon.
No balance.
Just the shape of someone who refused to fall while something behind him was still moving.
The rift trembled.
Whatever was inside… shifted.
Miyako felt it too. The pressure. The promise. Something in the rift had stayed behind—unfinished. Waiting.
And Averic stepped in front of it like he could take one more hit. Like he should.
Miyako reached out—desperate.
"Averic… stop. There's nothing left to fight. Nothing left to prove. Please… just let me hold what's left of you."
His body was already failing.
But he turned to her, just enough.
He didn't say it. Couldn't. But she saw it—'I'm still here'—buried in the way he looked at her. Like the words had died on the way up. Like he needed her to believe them, because he no longer could.
It wasn't defiance.
It wasn't pride.
It was all he had left to give.
Then his knee buckled.
And this time, he didn't catch himself.
She did.
Barely.
His weight slammed into her like stone and blood and consequence.
"Still…" he breathed—barely a word. Just the shape of one, crumbling in his throat.
Not a promise.
A plea.
She held him tight, not wanting for him to fall apart more than he already was.
"I know," she whispered.
"I know."
And behind them—
The rift, still pulsing with heat and hunger, gave one final shudder.
Then it closed.
Not with fury. Not with light. Just absence—like it had been waiting to vanish.
Just… silence.
Like it had only stayed to see if he'd break.
Waiting to see if he'd stand one second longer.
And when he didn't—
It vanished. Like it had never been there at all.
The Plateau exhaled, slow and hollow.
Dust settled.
Stars watched.
And Miyako, kneeling in blood and ash, held what was left of him.
Not a warrior.
Not a victor.
Just a boy who had nothing left to give—except the will to still be standing when the silence came for him.