The air was heavy—thick with silence.
After the encounter with the Shadowwrath, the fortress felt colder than death itself.
The fire had long since died, and the ashes on the stone floor looked like fragments of forgotten prayers.
I had no reason to stay.
Only the faint pull of instinct urged me onward—a whisper that said move, though it offered no promise of where.
So, I walked.
Each step echoed against the hollow corridors, like the scratch of a quill writing its final line.
The sound faded into the endless dark behind me, swallowed by the fortress's empty breath.
Somewhere deep within its walls, I thought I could still hear the faint hum that accompanied the Shadowwrath's presence, like the ghost of a song trying to remember its melody.
Outside, the world was vast and gray.
The forest loomed ahead—a sprawling ocean of withered trees that swayed without wind.
Their branches were pale and leafless, their shapes like skeletal hands clawing at the unmoving sky.
I didn't know where I was going.
Only that I had to find something.
A village. A voice. A reason to believe that this world was not entirely dead.
The soil crunched beneath my boots, brittle as old parchment.
Every few steps, I'd glance behind me, expecting to see the fortress crumble away—or worse, follow.
But it didn't.
It simply stood there on the horizon, a black scar against a bleeding sun.
Hours passed—or perhaps days; time had lost its pulse here.
Then, at last, I found a river.
It cut through the land like a silver vein, its surface shimmering faintly beneath the crimson light of the unmoving moon.
The water moved slowly, almost unwillingly, like it too was weary of existence.
I knelt beside it, cupped my hands, and drank.
The water was cold—painfully pure—like it hadn't been touched by life or time.
The taste burned through me, sharp and clean, washing away the grime of days spent wandering through ruin and shadow.
For the first time in what felt like centuries, I breathed deeply.
The air filled my chest, raw and thin, yet it carried a strange kind of peace.
For a moment, I almost forgot the weight of what I had seen—the eyes in the dark, the mirrored faces, the whisper that had carved itself into my bones.
"You were never chosen. You were written."
The memory of those words still pulsed like an old wound.
And though the night was calm, I couldn't shake the sense that the world itself was listening.
I sat there by the riverbank, watching the ripples distort the moon's reflection.
Each shimmer fractured my face into something unrecognizable.
Sometimes, it looked like a child.
Sometimes, a man I didn't remember becoming.
Sometimes, something that wasn't human at all.
Was I remembering… or imagining?
The days before this had blurred into a fog.
I had eaten nothing but leaves, survived on dew and exhaustion.
No beasts stirred in this forest. No birds sang.
Even the insects had abandoned this place.
A silence too deep for the living had settled over everything, as if sound itself had been erased.
It was a forest that didn't breathe.
I rested there a while longer, letting the river's quiet hum soothe the hollow inside me.
But something deeper—a thread woven through my very being—pulled me onward.
So I rose.
Brushed the dust from my cloak.
And walked.
The forest began to change as I moved deeper.
The green faded into dull gray, as though color itself was dying.
The trees grew sparse, their roots cracking the ground like veins beneath old skin.
Even the air thickened, turning heavy and stale, carrying with it the faint scent of ash.
Then, suddenly, the forest ended.
I stepped into a vast expanse where nothing grew.
No trees. No grass.
Only cracked earth stretching endlessly beneath the blood-red sky.
It was a place without horizon—without life.
And at its center stood a single stone pillar.
It was small, carved from black rock that swallowed all light.
Ancient runes glowed faintly across its surface—symbols older than memory, pulsing in slow rhythm, like the dying heartbeat of a god.
I approached carefully.
Each step forward made the air heavier, the ground colder.
It was as if the land itself didn't want me there—as if it was warning me away.
When I reached the pillar, I brushed my hand across its surface.
The stone was colder than ice.
And then, faintly, the runes stirred—breathing light just long enough for me to read the words carved there:
No living being shall endure this land.
I have cursed it—and all who dared to remember me.
The inscription faded.
But the words remained, echoing in the back of my mind like a prayer turned inside out.
A chill crawled down my spine.
Who would carve such a thing?
And what kind of being could curse an entire forest into silence?
The wind picked up suddenly—dry and hollow.
It carried no scent, no warmth.
It whispered against my ear like a sigh that didn't belong to the living.
I turned in a slow circle.
Nothing but endless gray stretched in every direction.
And yet… something about this place felt familiar.
Not through memory—but through instinct.
As though I had walked this path before, in another life, in another story written by another hand.
Perhaps this was another fragment of the truth.
Or perhaps it was just another lie left behind for me to find.
The moon hung unmoving overhead, watching like an unblinking eye.
The world had gone still.
Even my own heartbeat sounded distant, as though it belonged to someone else.
And then, faintly, I felt it again—that pulse.
That strange, invisible rhythm that seemed to guide me wherever I went.
It wasn't a sound, nor a thought, but something deeper.
Something written.
I took one last look at the pillar.
The runes were dark now, dead and unyielding.
Yet in that silence, I heard a whisper—not from the wind, but from within the stone itself.
"You were not cursed…
You were the curse."
The voice was neither male nor female, neither kind nor cruel.
It simply was—a truth spoken by the world itself.
I stood there for a long moment, the words sinking through me like cold rain.
Then I turned away.