The mist didn't arrive before. It didn't envelop. It infiltrated.
On the fourth night after Rava's arrival, the sky over Wamena changed. The stars didn't vanish, but they stopped shining. The moon appeared whole, but ist light was cold. In the village, people began speaking in hteir sleep. They uttered names no one recognized, and some wandered aimlessly, eyes open but vacant.
Yohwa stood in the center of the stone circle, trying to fell resonacne. But resonance didn't responde. It wasn't gone it was held back. As if something was absorbing it befire it could echo.
"The Soul Eclipse has begun," Rava said, standing beside him. "This isn't mist. it's the loss of direction."
Numa approached, carrying a freslhy carved stone. But when he touched it, the stone didn't glow. it only turned cold. "Our resonance isn't dead," he said. "But it doesn't know where to go."
Yohwa closed his eyes. He tried to dive into the resonance within himself. But what he found wasn't ancestral voices, not future echoes. He found an empty space. A space not frightening, but disorienting. He felt as if he were standing in a vast field with no direction, no light, no sound.in the village, children begna drawing new symbols. They didn't come from Rava, nor from Yohwa. They're calls from souls that don't lnow who they are."
Yohwa began to understand. He wasn't losing resonance. He was being confronted with himslef without legacy, whitout role, without name. He began writing on the ground, not with a chisel, but with his finger. He wrote one word.
The earth trembled gently.
The stones around him began to glow softly. Not brightly. But warmly. They didn't show strenght. They showed the courage to exit.
Numa looked to the sky. "The Soul Eclipse can't be fought," he said. "But it can be remembered."
Yohwa stood. he didn't carry his hammer. He didn't wear armot. He carried only that word.
And in the distance, the mist began to move. Not to attack. But to ask.