Kale woke up with gravel in his mouth and a raccoon trying to eat his boot.
He blinked blearily at the little beast, which hissed at him before bolting off into the ruins below.
"Right," he mumbled, spitting out dirt.
"Another beautiful morning in Hell's armpit."
He stretched, groaning as joints cracked like old wood. His back protested every movement. The city skyline behind him still smoldered from last night's dungeon collapse. Another whole block swallowed, and no one to care. No news reports. No panicked civilians. Just the ruins of another place no one would come back for.
Breakfast was half a protein bar and a bite of something that claimed to be "mushroom jerky" but tasted like regret and bad decisions. Still, he made himself eat it. Survivors didn't get picky.
He packed up camp, slung his blade across his back, and headed down the fire escape into the maze of alleyways.
The air was warmer than usual. That meant one of two things: either a mana fault had opened nearby, or the atmosphere was slowly killing him with radioactive affection.
Probably both.
He walked in silence for a while.
That was his first mistake.
Because silence had weight. And worse — it had echoes.
After twenty minutes of trudging through broken pavement and abandoned streets, Kale muttered to himself,
"Alright, objective for today: don't die. Stretch goal: maybe find some canned soup. Bonus points if it's not possessed."
He paused.
There it was.
A second voice.
Softer. Higher-pitched. Slightly behind him.
"Alright, objective for today: don't die," it repeated, almost sing-song.
He froze.
His eyes scanned the street. Empty. Still.
"Stretch goal: soup. Bonus: not cursed," he said again, this time deliberately.
From somewhere behind a crumbling wall:
"Soup. Not cursed," came the mimicked reply, quiet… amused?
Kale didn't draw his weapon. Not yet. Not this time.
Instead, he turned toward the source of the voice and grinned like he wasn't deeply unnerved.
"Alright, ghost child," he said.
"I see how it is. Gonna steal my best material? At least give me writing credit."
Silence.
Then, faint giggling. So brief he wasn't sure if he imagined it.
It was the same presence from the school. He knew it. He'd felt her then — watching, breathing the same dusty air. She hadn't attacked. Hadn't approached. Just lingered.
Now she was bolder.
Still hidden, but echoing him. Like a shadow trying to learn how to become a person again.
He pretended not to care.
He made his way down toward the edge of the Old Quarter — a sector overgrown with mana-infused moss and strange twisting vines. It looked like nature had tried to take the city back but got confused halfway through and decided to add teeth.
He passed an overturned billboard. On it, someone had scrawled in red paint:
"THE DUNGEONS ARE WATCHING. SO SMILE."
Kale tilted his head.
"Wow. Corporate branding's gotten really weird."
"Wow," the second voice echoed faintly.
"Really weird."
He snorted. Couldn't help it.
"That was a test, you know. You failed. That joke was garbage."
More silence.
Then a rustle, just beyond the broken metro entrance.
Something small moving fast. Out of sight.
Kale didn't follow.
He set up camp that night in a hollowed-out café. It had walls — mostly. Enough to call it safe by post-apocalyptic standards. He built a tiny fire in a rusted coffee tin, careful to keep it smokeless. The flames danced quietly, casting flickering shadows against the ruined counters.
He leaned back against a shelf of shattered mugs and rubbed his eyes.
His head ached.
The thing about being alone this long — truly alone — was that you stopped noticing how heavy it was. Until it shifted. Just a little.
And then it crushed you.
He pulled out the photo again.
Traced the lines of the faces he'd lost. Whispered their names like a mantra. As if saying them out loud might let them hear him somewhere.
He didn't cry. He hadn't in a while.
Didn't mean he wasn't still bleeding.
From somewhere just beyond the walls, close but not too close, came a voice again:
"Didn't cry. Still bleeding."
He exhaled sharply, not a laugh, not quite a sob either.
"You know," he said, louder this time.
"if you're gonna keep following me, the least you could do is bring snacks. Or a playlist. Or — I don't know — a reason."
The shadows didn't answer.
But something shifted on the edge of the firelight.
A small object. Rolled gently into view.
He leaned forward.
It was a cracked compass.
Old. Rusted. But still ticking north.
He picked it up slowly, cradling it like it might vanish.
She'd left it.
Not stolen. Not taken. Left.
A message, maybe. Or a gift.
Or just a way to say:
"I see you."
He held it tight and stared into the dark.
This wasn't just loneliness anymore.
Someone was here.
And for the first time in months… he didn't want to be alone.