The figure did not move closer again. Instead, it retreated slowly and unsteadily. Its incomplete body drifted backward as if something within it had withdrawn.
The fragments that formed its shape flickered more violently for a moment then stabilized just enough for it to move away.
It did not turn its back, but its presence pulled away from Erend, returning toward the others.
The scattered figures shifted faintly as it approached them. They remained incomplete, broken, unfinished.
The figure joined them once more.
Erend stood alone in that dark unstable space.
His gaze lingered on them for sometime before his eyes narrowed slightly. His thoughts began to move faster to thread together everything he had seen and felt.
If it doesn't want to go back, that was already a problem.
But the words it had conveyed…
"Dead… is best… for me…"
Erend sighed slowly. That wasn't just rejection. That was the conclusion this being came to.
