The village lights dwindled behind them until they were no more than distant sparks swallowed by the horizon. Red kept glancing back, as though expecting the glow to fade entirely—vanish like a dream—and leave her stranded in a world of endless trees. Cipher didn't stop her from looking. He simply kept walking, his scythe resting across his back, the steady rhythm of his boots against the earth a tether to the present.
The air outside the village was colder, sharper. Each breath carried the resin-thick scent of pines and the faint, metallic edge of damp soil. The night pressed down heavy, not with silence but with the subtle noises that never let one forget they were being watched—the scrape of branches, the settling of unseen weight in the canopy, the occasional whisper of wind that almost sounded like words.
Red walked a pace behind Cipher, her cloak trailing in the dirt. It had been cleaned since the forest's belly, but its fabric still carried the stains of ash and shadow, a reminder that even light could not erase everything. She pulled it tighter around her shoulders.
"Why do they stay?" she asked suddenly, her voice hushed as though afraid the forest itself might overhear.
Cipher didn't look back. "The villagers?"
"Yes." She hurried her steps to catch up beside him. Her expression was pinched, frustrated. "They saw the Wolf. They know the story always ends the same way. And yet they… live there. As if waiting for it to happen again."
Cipher's gaze flicked briefly toward her. His eyes were calm, though tired. "Because it's easier to live inside a story than to step out of one."
She frowned. "But it's killing them."
"Not yet."
The words struck her like a slap. She wanted to argue, to shout at him for being so cold, but when she looked again at his face she saw no cruelty there—only the quiet recognition of someone who had watched this pattern too many times before.
They walked until the treeline thinned, opening to a small clearing. The moonlight spilled in silver across the grass, and Cipher stopped. He dropped his pack to the ground and, with slow care, began setting a circle of stones. Red tilted her head, uncertain.
"You're… making camp?"
"For a while." Cipher crouched, striking flint until sparks caught on a bundle of dried grass. Firelight soon bloomed, soft orange against the silver of the clearing. He leaned back, resting his hands on his knees, watching the flames breathe into life. "Running without pause wears down more than the body. Sometimes it eats at the spirit too. That's what the Wolf waits for."
Red hugged her knees to her chest, staring at the fire. Its warmth seemed almost foreign after the chill of the forest's belly. Her voice came small. "So what are we supposed to do now?"
"Wait. Listen. Learn." Cipher's eyes caught the firelight, reflecting faintly like molten steel.
For a long time, they simply sat there—the crackle of the fire filling the spaces where words did not. Red found herself tracing patterns in the dirt with her finger. Every time she tried to ask the question burning in her chest—Am I really safe? Am I really not going to die like the story says?—the words tangled in her throat.
Cipher broke the silence first. "Back in the village… you noticed them, didn't you?"
She blinked. "Noticed what?"
"The Fades."
A shiver ran up her spine. Images returned unbidden—half-formed figures at the edges of the crowd, their eyes empty, their mouths moving in lines that didn't belong to them. She had tried not to look too closely. The villagers never acknowledged them. But Cipher had.
"They're not people?" she asked.
"No. They're pieces of the story. Fragments. Think of them as the ink that doesn't quite form into letters."
"That's…" Red swallowed, her throat dry. "That's horrible."
Cipher nodded slightly. "Stories don't waste space. If something doesn't serve the narrative, it becomes background. Filler. Forgotten." He looked at her then, his voice lower. "But you saw them. You felt how wrong they were. That means you're not just inside the story—you're resisting it."
She bit her lip, staring into the fire. The thought was almost worse than not noticing them at all. To see them meant she couldn't pretend ignorance.
Cipher leaned back, hands braced in the grass. His tone shifted, softer, almost reflective. "When I was a boy, I used to think the gods wrote everything. That our lives were a script and we just performed it. That made me feel small. Helpless."
Red looked up at him. "And now?"
He gave the faintest shrug. "Now I think they only write the beginnings. The rest…" His eyes drifted to the night sky, where constellations stretched like faint scars across the dark. "…the rest is interpretation."
As if in answer, his scythe—resting against a stone—gave a faint hum, its runes flickering like sparks beneath ash. Red's gaze snapped to it, wide-eyed.
"Does that mean… they're watching us now?"
Cipher's lips curved faintly, not quite a smile. "Maybe. Or maybe it means they left a tool behind for those willing to look. The gods don't hand us answers. They give us echoes. What we do with them—that's ours."
The fire popped, a burst of ember spiraling upward before fading into the night. Red's eyes followed it until it disappeared. She wanted to believe him. But part of her still wondered if the story would allow her to choose at all.
Cipher stretched out on the grass, folding one arm behind his head, the other resting lightly on the haft of his scythe. He closed his eyes, though his breathing carried the sharp awareness of someone who never truly slept.
Red remained upright, hugging her cloak, staring into the flames. The quiet pressed in heavier now, but it was not suffocating. It was thoughtful. She leaned closer to the fire, whispering so softly she wasn't sure if she wanted Cipher to hear.
"What if my story really is just… being eaten?"
His voice came steady, not opening his eyes. "Then we'll rewrite it."
Red shut her mouth quickly, cheeks heating, not sure if it was from embarrassment or the warmth of the fire. She lay down at last, curling beneath her cloak, eyes fixed on the wavering light until sleep edged closer.
The forest beyond the clearing groaned, branches bowing as if listening. The whispers did not intrude here. Not yet. For the moment, there was only the fire, the steady breath of the Teacher beside her, and the uncertain comfort of believing—just believing—that the story might not be finished.