The wrinkles on his face overlapped like the bark of an ancient tree, dry and full of cracks.
Every line looked like it was holding a piece of history no one else remembered. For a second, he just looked… tired.
Tired of being alive, of talking and maybe… of existing at all.
But that worn-out look didn't last long.
His dark eyes lit up again, sharp and alert, almost too young for the rest of his body.
"And you, Noah…"
He said my new name slowly, almost tasting it, syllable by syllable.
"…you brought fear back with you."
My chest tightened instantly.
What do you mean I brought something?
"Me?… What do you mean?"
He didn't answer.
And the smile he gave me didn't help at all.
It wasn't some soft smile from a kindly old man.
The veins on his hand stood out as he gripped the purple notebook harder, his thin fingers digging into the cover like the thing might run away.
He took a deep breath and said, low:
"You don't know it yet… but you will remember."
He took a step toward me.
Then another.
With each step, that strange discomfort inside me grew.
His voice changed.
It stopped being just calm and tired. There was a… fragile note in it now. Something right on the edge between clarity and madness.
When he went on, now closer, the wrinkles on his cheeks cast hard shadows.
"And when you remember… you'll have to choose."
I swallowed hard.
"Choose what?"
He tilted his head and laughed, but there wasn't a drop of joy in it.
"Whether you'll follow what it says… or whether you'll have the guts to disobey."
His eyes widened for a moment after that.
It who?
The Counselor took another step and, suddenly, his hands were on my shoulders, the notebook thumping against my chest, pressed between us.
His grip was surprisingly firm.
"Are you listening to me, Noah?"
His voice was a bit rougher now, and he squeezed my shoulders even tighter.
"You can choose. Better yet!… you must choose."
My throat closed up.
"I… I don't understand."
"Choose what? I don't even know what's going on here!"
I don't even know who the hell I am…
And suddenly, the screen.
It came back out of nowhere.
Purple… no…
It wasn't just purple anymore.
The dark tone was shot through with pulsing red veins. It looked… infected.
It appeared right in front of me like it had always been there, just waiting for the right moment to ruin everything.
The letters began to form.
MEMORY DEVIATION DETECTED…
ANALYZING…
STORY INTERFERENCE DETECTED
My stomach lurched.
The old man didn't react; he clearly couldn't see it either.
The edge of the screen shivered.
PLANNING CORRECTION…
CORRECTION IN PROGRESS
I blinked a few times and the screen was gone again.
Before I could say anything, a low sound cut through the air.
A beep.
Then another.
And another.
I instinctively looked toward the sound. There was a small device on the desk, half hidden under some papers. A red light was blinking in an annoying rhythm.
The beeping turned into a weak alarm.
And the weak alarm grew into a distant one, echoing through what I imagined was half that flesh city.
The sound got louder.
The Counselor raised his head slowly, his gaze narrowing.
And as if it had been waiting for its cue, the door slammed open so hard it hit the wall.
Mei walked in first.
Except she wasn't the same Mei as before.
The cold, steady captain who moved like nothing in the world could shake her was gone.
Her face was pale, almost grayish, and the arm holding the iron bar trembled just enough to notice, even though she was clearly trying to hide it.
Behind her, a few soldiers rushed in. Their improvised armor clanged against itself, filling the room with a nervous metallic racket.
"What happened?"
the Counselor asked, but no one answered at first.
Until the soldier in front—who looked like he'd been shoved into a shredder and spat back out—spoke.
He was covered in blood, and I couldn't tell if it was his or someone else's.
"Counselor…"
he began, voice shaking.
"The wall… it… it looked wrong. We got reports from Ring Three Patrol, they said it looked… swollen. We went to check and…"
He choked on his own words.
The others behind him looked away, like remembering it was dangerous in itself.
"Go on,"
the Counselor ordered, his tone hardening.
The soldier closed his eyes for a second and swallowed.
"When we got there… there were… there were Ecorvos."
What is that?
"How many?"
The soldier lifted his head, eyes wide and glassy.
"Hundreds… maybe… thousands of Ecorvos… coming out of the wall."
By the time he finished, his voice didn't even sound like a voice anymore, just someone trying not to cry.
The Counselor staggered.
He leaned hard on the edge of the desk, his knuckles turning white.
"How… how is that possible?"
No one answered.
Outside, the alarm seemed to blend with another kind of sound.
"Counselor… what should we do?"
A younger soldier asked, almost swallowing his words.
"Counselor?"
But the Counselor didn't seem to hear. He kept muttering under his breath:
"No… it can't be now… not like this…"
The soldiers all started panicking at once. Voices overlapping, shouts asking for orders.
It was a mess.
I looked from one face to another, completely lost.
With my heart racing too fast, I asked, louder than I meant to:
"What's going on?"
It was like throwing a rock into a nest of snakes.
Every pair of eyes turned toward me.
From a corner, Raul stepped out of the shadows.
I hadn't even noticed he was there.
He walked forward slowly, one step at a time, eyes burning, like he'd just found the piece missing from the puzzle.
"It's you… of course it's you."
Before I could back away, his hands grabbed my collar in a vicious grip.
"This has to be your doing, you Church dog!"
"Raul, let him go!"
Mei was already at our side, gripping his arm tightly, but he didn't seem in the mood to listen.
"This never happened!"
He was yelling, his face so close I could feel his hot, desperate breath.
"We've never seen anything like this! And right when he shows up…"
He shook me even harder.
"Right when you show up?!"
The other soldiers started whispering.
"Is he from the church?"
"What was one of the church crazies doing alone with the Counselor?"
"This is wrong… this is wrong…"
The whispers grew, little pockets of hysteria popping up everywhere.
"I'm not from the church!"
I shouted, losing it.
"I've already said that a thousand times! I don't even know what fucking church you're talking about!"
No one seemed to hear.
Great. What the hell happened out there?…
"Let go,"
Mei repeated, voice low but much more dangerous.
He glared at her, breathing hard, like he might attack either one of us, but before things could blow up for real, another figure appeared at the door.
Another soldier.
This one looked even worse.
Half his face was covered in a mix of fresh and dried blood. His chest was heaving way too fast.
"Some of them got through…"
he said, leaning on the doorframe, out of breath.
"We won't be able to hold them for long…"
A crash came from outside, like something massive had been knocked over.
The floor shook.
The lights above us flickered nervously, blinking on and off like eyes.
Through the crack of the open door, I could see smoke starting to creep into the hallway.
And behind the smoke…
Something big was moving.
A shadow with an inhuman shape, bones jutting out, covered in wet flesh.
My stomach flipped for the second time in less than five minutes.
The Counselor took a deep breath, like he was finally coming back into his own body, and called me:
"Noah."
In two movements, he tore Raul's hand from my collar like the man was just a tantrum-throwing kid.
Raul stumbled back, shocked, and the Counselor grabbed my arm, his eyes now clearly urgent.
"You need to get out of here,"
he said quickly, spitting the words out.
"Now."
"Get out where?! You're—"
He cut me off, sounding oddly sad.
"I was too impulsive… I shouldn't have brought you here. I… should've known they wouldn't let me."
Let you what?
The sound of something huge dragging itself outside got louder, along with screams echoing down the corridor.
The Counselor ran back to the desk, shoving it hard away from the wall.
The wood slid aside, revealing a metal panel inlaid in the floor. He crouched, pressed something with his hand, and I heard a click.
A bookcase behind him shifted a few centimeters with the groan of old mechanisms.
Then a door opened there.
"This way."
Mei, Raul, Josh and a few others all stared, confused. No one dared question out loud.
I, on the other hand, very much wanted to.
I looked toward the passage.
Stairway going down into total darkness. Exactly what I wanted.
I saw the rusted metal steps dropping away, swallowed by the shadows. The only light came from the Counselor's office spilling weakly over the first few steps.
The old man turned to me and his hand was shaking.
But his eyes weren't.
"Go,"
he said, voice a mix of urgency and some strange kind of… resignation.
"Go down those stairs and don't stop for anything. Got it?"
I opened my mouth to ask, "What about you?", but he didn't give me the chance.
He grabbed the notebook from the desk and pushed it into my hands.
The cover was smooth, unnervingly soft. It almost felt like human skin.
A shiver crawled up my arms.
"Don't lose it,"
he said, placing his bony hand over mine, closing my fingers around the notebook.
"Never. Even if you have to give up everything else… don't lose this."
"What's in here?"
I whispered.
He hesitated.
And for a second, his eyes looked even older.
"Proof that you're not crazy."
That's the same as not answering.
Outside, the noise drew even closer and soon the wall itself shook.
Screams of pain tore through the air. One of them was so loud my ears rang. The smell of blood seemed to flood the room all at once.
More people pushed into the office, some unarmed, others carrying sticks and knives.
The Counselor turned to face them all.
For a second, the man who'd been the picture of authority just moments before looked like he might break.
His face sagged and his shoulders dropped.
"I'm sorry…"
he murmured, so softly I almost missed it.
"I can't save all of you."
The sentence spread through the room like poison in water.
Some of the younger soldiers started crying. One even dropped to his knees, hands clutching his helmet like he might crawl inside it.
The older ones didn't cry, but their fists clenched tight.
One of them made a quick sign over his chest, like he still believed in some kind of blessing.
Another laughed, dry and humorless, shaking his head, the laugh of someone who doesn't expect anything from the world anymore.
Then the Counselor straightened his back.
He lifted his chin.
And when he spoke again, his voice carried the same authority as when I'd first seen him.
"But if you still trust me…"
he said, looking each of them in the eye,
"…then listen."
Silence spread fast.
"I need you to carry out your last mission."
Something lit up in their eyes.
Tears dried too quickly. Shoulders squared, hands tightened around weapons—makeshift axes, iron bars, old pistols.
Some of them were shaking.
But no one took a step back.
I saw fear.
But I also saw something I didn't know how to name.
Something between stubbornness and despair turned into courage.
The Counselor then turned to Mei, and his gaze softened.
"Captain…"
She stepped forward.
"Take your squad and protect Noah."
She flinched.
The face that had looked carved out of stone since the moment I met her cracked a little. Her eyes went red.
"But… what about you, grandpa?"
Grandpa?
He's her grandfather?
The old man sighed and walked toward her with slow steps.
He raised his wrinkled hand and laid it gently on her head, like someone giving a blessing and saying goodbye at the same time.
"My mission is already over, Mei,"
he said softly, with a sad smile.
"It should've ended a long time ago."
He drew a breath.
"For years I've felt useless… years thinking I was just delaying the inevitable."
Then he looked at me.
"But you…"
His eyes shone in a strange way.
"…brought someone who might actually relight what's left of our hope."
I felt all those eyes land on me.
Again.
I didn't ask for this…
Raul stared at me with a mix of rage and disbelief. Some of the soldiers looked at me with almost blind devotion, while others just looked confused.
Before anyone could say anything, a violent crash hit the door.
A group of soldiers nearly fell into the room, stumbling back.
Behind them, a roar that wasn't human or animal.
Something between a wet hiss and a drowned scream, echoing off the walls like the sound itself was trying to rip everything apart.
"Counselor!"
one of them shouted, gasping.
"We have to get you out of here! Now!"
He didn't answer.
At least not right away.
He looked at every face in the room, one by one, and then, with a calm that scared me even more, he said:
"Today… will probably be our last fight."
The silence that followed was cut only by the alarm, distant screams, and the muffled sounds of bodies and things smashing into each other outside.
He drew a deep breath and walked over to a side wall.
"Whoever still has courage… come with me."
He pulled on a panel I hadn't even noticed and drew out a sword.
The blade was bluish, with a strange sheen, like it had been dipped in something.
Some of the soldiers glanced at each other.
Then one of them raised his own weapon—a stained blade.
Another lifted an improvised axe.
A third, who looked more like a civilian, grabbed a wooden club studded with nails and slammed it into the floor once, twice, three times.
Others followed.
Soon the room was full of metallic and dull thuds, weapons hammering the floor and walls in an increasing rhythm.
A shout rang out.
Then another.
They weren't screams of panic.
They were screams of anger.
The floor seemed to vibrate with them, and the Counselor smiled.
A small, tired smile.
"That's enough."
Then he turned to me, and despite everything, his gaze was calm.
Almost… peaceful.
"Noah…"
he said, like it was just an ordinary conversation.
"Run."