The Graveyard's atmosphere had changed.
The fog no longer rolled in waves—it hung in still sheets, so dense that even the starlight from Cipher's scythe seemed to struggle to breathe. Every step he took sank into ash-colored dust that glowed faintly underfoot, as though light itself had been buried alive here.
"Auto," he murmured, the word a grounding ritual. "Still with me?"
"Always, Cipher," came the Automaton's soft reply, its voice slightly distorted by interference—static bleeding through its mechanical tone. "But I detect distortions. This place is not… stable."
"Neither am I," Cipher said dryly, though the edge of weariness in his voice dulled the humor.
They walked in silence for a time. The Graveyard shifted around them—structures rising and dissolving, statues half-formed, then melting back into the mist. Broken fragments of stories jutted from the ground: a clock frozen at midnight, a slipper filled with sand, a cracked mirror whose reflection lagged behind reality.
Cipher's eyes lingered on the mirror. The reflection stared back just a moment too long before matching his movements.
He tore his gaze away. "Do not look for long," he muttered. "They will notice you watching them."
The Automaton clicked quietly in agreement. "Noted."
As they pressed onward, the fog thinned just enough to reveal an incline ahead—a slope of pale, shattered marble leading down into a vast basin. The basin shimmered faintly with liquid light, and countless shapes lay beneath the surface, too indistinct to identify.
Auto's eye-lens rotated. "This basin… readings are inconsistent. It's not liquid. Not entirely."
Cipher descended carefully, boots crunching on fragments of crystal and bone. The closer he drew, the clearer the reflections became—faces flickering across the mirror-smooth surface. Not alive, not dead. Frozen expressions of fear, pain, longing.
"Memories," he said softly. "Or what's left of them."
A faint whisper drifted across the basin, low and tremulous. Not a voice exactly, but a vibration in the air that brushed his thoughts like the touch of cobwebs.
Teacher…
Cipher froze.
The word slithered through him, wrong in its intimacy, too close to the echoes he carried from other stories. He turned slowly, but there was nothing behind him. Only fog, heavy and patient.
"Auto," he said, tone steady but taut. "You heard that."
"I… processed an auditory anomaly. But it did not match your frequency. Cipher—look."
The Automaton gestured toward the basin. The surface rippled, and one of the reflections rose.
Not the water. The image. It peeled upward, stretching out of the mirrored light like a figure being lifted from beneath glass. Its body was colorless, translucent, but its face—its face was Cipher's.
"Another imitation," he murmured, but even as he spoke, his hand tightened around the scythe.
The reflection smiled—not mockingly, but with a weary sorrow that felt too familiar. When it spoke, its voice was his own, softer, quieter.
"You teach them to defy endings… but what of your own?"
Cipher's pulse thudded in his ears. "You're not me."
"I'm the part that stayed behind," it said. "The one that stopped believing there was more to tell."
The reflection's form shuddered, then multiplied. Dozens of half-Ciphers rippled into being, each twisted slightly wrong—one blind, one burned, one faceless, one holding a broken scythe. They stood in a semicircle across the basin, staring at him through the glassy membrane of unreality.
Auto's tone sharpened. "Cipher, resonance shift—these constructs are linked to you. If you engage, they will mirror your motion."
Cipher drew a slow breath. "Then let's hope they're bad students."
He slashed the scythe downward. The blade met the mirrored surface, and the world fractured.
The explosion of light and sound was disorienting. Shards of reflection flew outward like glass razors, slicing the fog into ribbons. Each piece carried a moving image, a boy holding a book, a burning classroom, the faint silhouette of a girl whispering "Teacher."
The echoes howled as they fell apart, their voices overlapping in dissonant harmony.
Cipher crouched, bracing against the shockwave. "Auto! Containment—now!"
"Attempting—!" The Automaton's lens flared, projecting a ring of light that formed a containment sigil around them. The fragments struck the edge and scattered, dissolving into a haze of silver motes.
For a moment, silence.
Then came the breathing. Ciphers took a deep breath in, "Good thing I learned about you ability from the book, honestly would have been nice to know that before".
Then around them Cipher saw figures shallow, ragged, and circling them from all sides.
Cipher stood, muscles coiled. The air shimmered, and shapes began to coalesce at the edge of the basin—figures tall and gaunt, their forms static and flickering, as if drawn by an unstable hand. They didn't move forward immediately. They only appeared, each blink of Cipher's eyes revealing more of them.
"Auto…" he whispered. "What are they?"
"Unknown," the Automaton murmured. "Not Fades. Not echoes. They have no narrative residue."
The nearest figure twitched, and its head snapped in Cipher's direction. Its face was a smear—eyes sunken voids, mouth trembling as if struggling to remember how to scream. When it took a step forward, the sound wasn't a footstep but a distortion—like a radio signal tearing through static.
Cipher's heartbeat slowed into focus. His instincts took over. The scythe came up, its edge flaring faintly with runes.
The figure lunged.
He swung, a perfect arc. The blade passed through air—but the figure didn't vanish. It simply shifted, disappearing from his line of sight and reappearing to his left. A whisper brushed his ear.
Do not look for long.
Cipher turned sharply, but the voice had no source. Two more figures flickered into existence, forming a loose triangle around him.
Auto's voice cut through the fog. "Cipher, their movement is quantum—probability distortion. You cannot track them visually. They are reacting to your attention."
Cipher's mind raced. He closed his eyes.
He inhaled once, deeply, grounding himself in the starlight sigil beneath his boots. The scythe pulsed faintly in his grip, attuned to his breath.
"Then I'll fight blind," he said quietly.
He swung again—not at where they were, but where they would need to be. The scythe flared, runes bending space for the briefest heartbeat. The blade struck resistance, and something shrieked—not aloud, but inside his skull. The sound was like glass teeth grinding.
He pivoted, spinning the scythe into a low sweep. A second impact. Another shriek.
When he opened his eyes, the static figures were gone—but the mist rippled where they had stood, like water disturbed.
Auto's tone was low, cautious. "They retreated. But they're not gone."
Cipher exhaled, sweat trickling down his temple. "They never are."
The basin was still again. The mirrored surface reformed, but it no longer reflected him. Instead, it showed a distant shape—a vast, skeletal tower rising from the heart of the Graveyard. Lightning crawled through its hollow ribs, illuminating silhouettes writhing inside.
"The source," Cipher whispered. "The center of this place."
Auto processed silently for a few moments before replying. "Distance uncertain. Terrain distortion ahead. Cipher… I advise caution."
He looked down at his reflection one last time. The mirrored Cipher stared back, lips moving soundlessly. Cipher couldn't hear the words, but he thought he could read them.
You don't belong here.
He turned away.
The basin rippled again as he left, and behind him, the static figures flickered back into being—watching, but not following. Not yet.
Cipher and Auto climbed the ridge beyond the basin. The fog thinned for the first time in what felt like hours, revealing more of the Graveyard's sprawl: fields of broken towers, rivers of shattered glass, and twisted monuments dedicated to forgotten myths. In the distance, the skeletal tower pulsed faintly, each flash in its hollow heart syncing with Cipher's own heartbeat.
He tightened his grip on the scythe. "Let's move."
Auto clicked softly. "Cipher… what if this place is not meant to be fixed?"
He paused at the crest of the hill, glancing back once at the shifting basin. "Then I'll survive it. That's lesson enough for now."
As they descended the slope, the fog stirred once more—and far behind them, the static people began to move.