"I'm sorry I couldn't love you enough to stay."
-Heard by Marie on Blood Beach after number 3,043.
Green walked as quickly as he dared. The flame in his hand was small now, wavering with every step. He didn't want to push faster; the light was all that kept the War Shadows from drawing closer.
And they were there. Flickers at the edge of vision, shapes pretending to be smoke. The forest pressed in—trunks like black pillars, every shadow whispering his name.
He didn't fear it. Voices in his head were nothing new, but it showed him he still had nerves. He looked at his watch. Only the hour hand worked. Still, he could guess.
Ten minutes. That was all he had before the vow would call him again. His chest tightened. He turned his head. Yes, they were still there.
He moved faster. His breath starting to come in harder, smoke stinging his nose. The air smelled like scorched bark and iron. If the wind carried it far enough, the Septaroths would smell him.
Nine minutes.
He shook his head, then used the arts. It hit him like frost. His muscles seized, bones humming as though filled with broken glass. The ache deepened until it became something worse—a crawling inside his veins, a cold swarm chewing him apart.
The arts. Every Elf called it power. Few called it what it truly was—hunger. A quiet, patient addiction that gnawed the longer you fed it. Some called it a gift. Others, a curse.
Green never called it anything. He only endured it.
He rose from the ground, lightening his weight until his boots barely touched the earth. The torchlight flared as he pushed upward, parting branches with his forearm. He burst through the canopy, catching the moonlight across his face. The air was thin, cold. Quiet.
He balanced on a branch and scanned the horizon. The trees stretched endless, silver and black. There—an open patch, a slope cutting high enough to be a wall, showing tracks at its top.
He dropped, weightless, brushing against bark and leaves, until the forest swallowed him again.
Branches slapped his face. Something hissed behind him — a sound like sand dragged through water.
Seven minutes.
He hit the ground running. Each step sent dull shocks through his legs. His breath came faster; his torch sputtered. He didn't stop.
The wall appeared ahead—faint ridges carved into the dirt. He paused, scanning both directions.
He turned right, not knowing which way to go. He wouldn't waste time trying to decide however.
The smell hit him halfway down the line—rot, thick and sweet, heavier than smoke. Not Borxt mucus, but a carcass.
He knew what it was before he saw it.
The carcass lay across the clearing, massive, torn, hollowed by scavengers. The Septaroth. The one he'd killed days ago.
He approached, watching for movement. None. Only the stench. He checked his watch again—one minute. His chest tightened. The vow pulsed through his arm, a slow burn spreading to his ribs. Almost time.
His speed decreased all at once, causing him to trip and tumble across a filled of tall grass. He got up, then checked his watch again, it turned midnight a second later. Green's eyes twitched, his hands opening and closing.
He turned back to spot the tree—the one dented from his fight. He moved toward it, ducking under a rib-like arch of bone.
There.
The pistol gleamed where he'd dropped it. He picked it up, feeling the heat at its side. Still charged.
Eleven rounds? The mana should have leaked, not refiled. He shook his head. He wouldn't complain
He looked up. The forest trembled with whispering shadows. The flame flickered lower.
He turned, pistol ready, and started back the way he came.
Zachry saw everything. Everything from a Rocker to a blade of grass moving in the wind. You had to see everything when living in a nightmare.
He heard everything too, he heard the faintest whistle and rustle in the leaves. You had to hear everything, when living in a nightmare.
He walked with a step that barely made sound, his wooden bowls were separated by clothing in his pack. He took one step after another.
He had exhausted the dead wood in the area, so he had to move on. Move on to a place where fire could burn. Where his fire could burn.
You had to have a fire when living in a nightmare. You had to carry it with you, you had to keep it going, always. Aw weys, Zachry thought, a rare occurrence. Thinking was dangerous, thinking made him wonder, made him curious. Curiosity killed. Everything killed.
Even his fire that was his companion, his fire that made him food, his fire that kept them away. Even his fire had bitten him, yet he needed his fire. So then thinking was dangerous.
Yon laddie thocht, Zachry thought. That boy didn't seem weak, his eyes revealed that much. He'd been through mair than me. The eyes showed him.
His eyes showed him too, when he looked at his sword next to the fire. That boy had the same expression, an expression that told you, you were not ones with a soul.
The shadaws taen them, he thought. It was those shadows, the shadows that would either take your life, or your soul. They're aroond me noo, he thought, feeling the gaze of their one eye.
The shadows were always around him, they always follow him, they always have and always will. They've taen ma soul, but they'll no tak ma life. A thought that was, for once, comforting.
Though he couldn't risk anymore, anymore thoughts that could drag him into the abyss. So he stopped, he stopped thinking, letting his body look for more wood. He picked up pieces here and there, everyone he could find.
He remembered once when he hadn't been the way he was, when the shadows had yet to take his soul. A time when he didn't care to see the wood left on the ground, a time when he didn't care when the fire went out.
Foolishness. Had that man even existed? Had he ever been one to leave something behind? No, no surely that was not him. That man was one with a soul. That was a man who didn't know the shadows for what they were. A man that didn't see them in the dark.
He picked up a large piece of old wood, hefting it onto his shoulder. He almost had enough, enough to sit, enough to sleep, enough to eat.
He didn't think, he didn't have to, he just let his body decide when to give up. When it did, that would be the end.
The end of this nightmare.