I woke up choking on water.
Cold.
My lungs seized, sputtering as I rolled onto my side and coughed river water onto the concrete floor. Every muscle screamed and my head throbbed like someone was pounding nails into it from the inside.
The Keeper dropped to her knees beside me.
"Kai! Hey...hey...stay with me," she said, gripping my shoulders. "You stopped breathing for almost thirty seconds. I had to..."
Her voice broke before she finished the sentence.
"…I had to drag you back."
I could still feel her hands on my chest. The compressions. The desperation. The fear.
I swallowed hard.
"Sorry," I rasped.
She shook her head in frustration. "Don't apologize. Just...what happened to you?"
I knew the moment she asked that I couldn't lie.
Because I didn't have an answer.
"I don't know," I said honestly. "I just… collapsed."
Her eyes flicked to my scar. The glow had dulled, but faint pulses still rippled beneath the skin like something moving underneath.
Something alive.
"You didn't collapse," she whispered. "You were pulled under."
I blinked at her. "…What?"
She took a shaky breath.
"Kai… when we got inside, you blacked out. Then your scar lit up again...brighter than before. You started whispering something, but it wasn't English. It wasn't any language I've heard."
A cold spike entered my spine.
"Whispering what?"
Her face tightened. "Kai, your voice didn't sound like your voice."
The Echo.
It had been quiet when I ran from the creature. But now…
It was awake.
And waiting.
I wiped a hand over my face. "Did I say anything else?"
She hesitated.
I felt the answer before she spoke it.
"You kept repeating…"..she swallowed..."'Bring her back.'"
My stomach dropped.
Her.
Again.
That missing, shapeless silhouette in my mind. The void that wasn't a memory but a person. Someone I had cared for. Someone I had forgotten.
My chest tightened painfully.
"I don't remember who she is," I whispered.
The Keeper shifted closer. "You will."
"How can you be so sure?"
Her hand hovered over my scar—not touching, but close enough that I felt the warmth of her skin.
"Because I'm not letting you lose yourself to that thing."
Before I could respond, a faint metallic sound echoed through the abandoned rail building, an empty echo that made the hairs on my neck rise.
The Keeper stiffened. "Did you hear that?"
I did.
And worse, I recognized it.
A dragging sound.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Like claws scraping lightly.
No.
Not claws.
Fingers.
I stood up quickly. My legs wobbled, but the adrenaline steadied them.
The Keeper grabbed her lantern. "Stay behind me."
"I'm the one with super strength," I said dryly.
"You're the one who died for thirty seconds," she snapped. "Behind. Me."
I didn't argue.
Not because she was right.
But because the sound wasn't coming from in front of us.
It was above.
The metal ceiling vibrated.
Then...
BANG.
Something hit the roof hard enough to shake dust from the rafters.
Another bang.
Another.
Rhythmic. Like a heartbeat.
The Keeper's lantern flickered.
"Kai… is that..."
"No." I cut her off. "It can't be. It couldn't have followed us."
But I didn't believe my own words.
The creature couldn't fit through the narrow rock passage. But if it had circled around...
The roof groaned.
A shadow moved above the skylight.
Then the whisper cut through my skull.
"You ran."
I stumbled backward, pressing a palm to my temple. The Keeper rushed toward me.
"Kai? What's wrong?"
The voice pressed harder.
"You ran… but you came back."
I fell to one knee, jaw clenched as the Echo snarled inside me.
The Keeper knelt beside me, gripping my face.
"Kai. Focus. Listen to me. Not the voice."
But the voice was stronger.
Closer.
"Come outside, Kai."
"I kept her name for you."
I gasped. Air scraped into my lungs like shards of ice.
"Tell me," I pleaded aloud. "Tell me her name!"
The Keeper grabbed me by the shoulders. "Kai! Snap out of it! Nothing is there!"
But something was there.
The roof dented inward.
Metal screamed.
A massive, shadowed paw pressed against the skylight...too large, too heavy, too deliberate.
The Keeper's eyes widened in horror. "No way… no way… how did it..."
The skylight shattered.
Glass rained down like icy rain. The Keeper shoved me aside as shards exploded across the concrete. I rolled, shoulder slamming into a pile of old wooden crates.
She scrambled to her feet, lantern clutched tightly.
"Kai, MOVE!"
A massive shape dropped through the broken skylight...landing silently on the concrete floor in a cloud of dust.
The creature stood before us.
But it wasn't fully wolf.
Not fully beast.
It was changing.
Evolving.
Its shape stretched and ripple-shifted, bones cracking softly as it rose onto hind limbs. The muzzle shortened. The chest broadened. Claws elongated.
A half-wolf, half-human silhouette.
The Alpha of the Forgotten.
Not fully transformed.
Not fully restrained.
A nightmare caught between forms.
The Keeper froze. "Kai… what is that?"
"It's not a regular werewolf," I murmured.
My breath trembled.
"It's something older."
The creature's eyes locked onto mine.
Silver.
Patient.
Intimate.
"Kai," it whispered into my mind.
"She said your name like it mattered."
My heartbeat staggered.
"Who?" I whispered.
It stepped closer.
The Keeper stepped into its path, holding the lantern like a shield.
"Stay back!" she shouted. "Or I swear..."
The lantern flickered.
Died.
Darkness swallowed the room.
I heard the Keeper's breath hitch.
I felt the Echo surge inside me, eager and violent.
But the creature didn't attack.
It… knelt.
Slowly.
Gracefully.
It lowered its head toward me, not in submission, but in invitation.
"Come, Kai. Remember her. I will show you the path."
My pulse roared in my ears.
"Kai," the Keeper whispered behind me, "don't take a step. Don't move. Not toward it. Not even an inch."
But my foot moved.
Not forward.
Sideways.
Toward a rusted beam where the carved letters were etched:
K A I O
The creature followed my gaze.
"You carved her name on the metal to remember. Even then… you knew you were losing her."
The Keeper grabbed my wrist. "Kai. Do. Not. Listen."
"I already am," I whispered.
"Then stop!"
"I can't."
The creature smiled again.
A slow, knowing curl of its lips.
"Kai O was what she called you."
"Her nickname for you."
"Her last memory of the boy she loved before you became this."
My blood froze.
My throat went dry.
"What's my real name then?" I whispered.
The creature leaned closer.
"Kai is what you named yourself to forget the pain."
The Keeper's gasp cracked the air.
"That's not true," she snapped. "He's always been Kai."
The creature ignored her.
"Tell me her name," I demanded.
The beast's voice slid into my mind like warm oil.
"I will tell you…"
Its silver eyes glowed brighter.
"…but first, you must remember something else."
The room tilted.
Not physically.
Psychically.
A memory ripped open inside me..
Not an image.
Not a sound.
An emotion.
Fierce.
Burning.
Addictive.
Love.
Not the soft kind.
Not the gentle kind.
The kind that scorches everything it touches.
The kind that rewrites the shape of your bones.
And then...
Just as the heat grew unbearable...
It was ripped away again.
Stolen.
Consumed.
The Echo snarled inside me, desperate, clawing, furious.
The Keeper grabbed my face. "Kai? Kai! What did you feel? Talk to me!"
I opened my mouth.
No sound came out.
Because I realized something horrific:
The Echo hadn't just taken a memory.
Tonight..
It took my ability to feel love for whoever she was.
Not the memory.
Not the name.
The emotion.
The bond.
The creature watched my expression shift.
And it whispered softly...
"Now you understand the curse."
"It doesn't eat memories."
"It eats the parts of you that make those memories matter."
I fell to my knees, shaking.
The Keeper knelt beside me, panic in her voice. "Kai… Kai, look at me. Stay with me. You're losing color. Your pulse is..."
But I barely heard her.
Because inside my mind, the Echo whispered back at the creature.
"Take more."
My skin crawled.
The Keeper realized it too.
"Kai," she breathed, "you're not just losing memories."
I raised my head slowly.
"No," I whispered.
My voice cracked.
"I'm losing myself."
The creature stood tall, towering over both of us.
"And when nothing remains," it said gently,
"you will join me."
The scar on my arm blazed white-hot.
And for the first time...
The Keeper's voice trembled with real fear.
"Kai… your eyes."
I looked up.
"What about them?"
Her voice was barely audible.
"They're turning silver."