Percy danced like a madman.
His feet slapped the black water, each step sending ripples across the ink-like surface. The water wasn't cold — it was empty, like it had forgotten how to feel. Droplets clung to his ankles, reluctant to let go, as if mourning the madness that gripped him.
He hopped. Twirled. Staggered forward.
A smile stretched across his face — too wide, too perfect, too wrong. It didn't belong to someone so beautiful. It didn't belong to someone real. The corners cracked, splitting like dry clay. His cheeks trembled beneath the strain.
He laughed.
The sound echoed across the sea like broken bells — sharp, uneven, hollow. It wasn't joy. It was survival. It was defiance.
He ran toward the island.
Arms flailing. Legs buckling. Laughter trailing behind him like smoke.
He fell — once, twice — face-first into the water. Each time, he rose again, slower, shakier.
His feet were no longer feet.
Wrinkled. Peeled. Bloated with sorrow. The skin sloughed off in strips, revealing raw flesh beneath. His hands matched — shedding like a snake mid-molt, fingers trembling with every movement.
But he reached it.
The island.
A real one.
A jagged mountain rose from its center, crowned by a town that looked carved from ash and memory. Buildings leaned like tired bones. Windows stared like empty eyes.
"Ha! Luck still smiles upon me!" Percy shouted, voice hoarse, throat raw from laughter and salt.
He began to climb.
"Goodbye, corpses."
"Goodbye, black sea."
"Goodbye, coldness at night."
There was more he could've said.
More pain. More memories. More ghosts.
But he didn't care.
Not anymore.
Not about anything but himself.
He reached the summit.
The town stood silent.
Deserted.
Grey buildings stretched across the mountaintop, their walls cracked, their doors ajar. The air was still — too still. Even the wind seemed afraid to speak.
Percy wandered.
His steps were uneven. His breath shallow. His body a patchwork of exhaustion and decay.
Then — a tavern.
It stood like a relic from another world. Flickering neon buzzed above the door, casting pale light across the cracked pavement. The sign read OPEN, but the letters flickered like dying stars.
He barged in.
People.
Actual people.
He froze.
Then ran — not to them, but to the food.
A thick, juicy burger sat on the counter. Fries beside it. Steam rising in gentle curls. The scent hit him like a drug — savory, warm, nostalgic.
His mouth flooded with drool.
He was starving.
Skin and bones. A ghost wrapped in flesh.
He devoured the meal.
Each bite sent tears down his cheeks. He sobbed as he ate — not from sadness, but from the overwhelming bliss of survival. The taste was divine. The texture perfect. The warmth real.
Then—
His expression changed.
From joy to horror. From relief to revulsion.
"It's… disgusting," he whispered.
He looked down.
It wasn't a burger.
It was a beetle.
A monstrous, demonic beetle the size of a fist — legs still twitching, mandibles glistening with slime. The fries were dragonflies. Alive. Buzzing. Crawling over each other in the cup.
He gagged.
But kept eating.
He had to.
He cried while chewing. Swallowed legs that kicked against his throat. His stomach rebelled. His soul recoiled.
Is any amount of power worth this?
Is this what survival costs?
The people watched him.
Their eyes were black — no whites, no light. Just void. Their teeth and gums were black too. Smiling. Always smiling. Never blinking.
They approached.
Touched his chain.
Bathed in its glow.
[The Wisp confirms: These are the Smiling Entities. Do not trust them. They will scream to notify the Bird of Forgotten Songs. If they find something interesting, they will hunt it. They represent the Greed of humanity.]
Percy didn't know what the Bird was.
Or the Forgotten Song.
But he knew one thing —
He wouldn't let them take his chain.
He shoved them away.
Barged out of the tavern.
The town was no longer deserted.
Smiling Entities filled the streets.
Watching. Staring. Waiting.
Percy's heart pounded.
He was afraid.
More afraid than he had ever been.
More than anyone could ever understand.
He ran.
Despite the mountain. Despite the starvation. Despite the peeling skin and broken body.
He clung to life like a thread unraveling.
He reached the beach.
Collapsed.
Breathed.
The town behind him sagged beneath the weight of its own silence.
Buildings leaned like weary elders, their grey stone walls cracked and crumbling, windows hollowed out like sockets that had long since forgotten how to see. The sky above was a bruised slate, swollen with pressure, pressing down like a lid on a boiling pot — thick, suffocating, unmoving.
The grass at his feet was black.
Not burnt — alive. It shifted in the wind like it was breathing, each blade curling and uncurling in slow, hypnotic waves. It whispered against his ankles, brushing his skin like fingers too familiar to be wind.
Percy sat.
No ceremony. No grace. Just collapse.
His body folded into the sand at the edge of the island, knees drawn close, arms limp at his sides. He was alone — not just in presence, but in feeling. The kind of alone that echoed inside your ribs and made your heartbeat sound like a stranger's knock.
And then, with hands that barely felt like his own, he began to build.
A sandcastle.
Each scoop of black sand clung to his fingers like ash. His skin peeled with every movement, flaking away in translucent sheets. The bones beneath his knuckles peeked through, raw and red, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop.
He didn't speak.
Not anymore.
Words had become useless — brittle things that shattered before they left his mouth.
He thought about letting go.
Letting the trial take him. Letting the Wisp win. Letting the cold, endless silence of this place swallow him whole.
But every time he tried —
Something stopped him.
Not strength. Not pride.
A feeling.
Unshakable. Iridescent. Bittersweet.
A memory.
Of warmth. Of laughter. Of hands that once held his. Of voices that once called his name like it meant something.
He smiled.
Just a little.
The sandcastle wasn't much.
Crooked towers. Lopsided walls. A moat that barely held its shape.
But it was his.
He stood, legs trembling beneath him, and wandered the island.
The Smiling Entities watched from the shadows of doorways and broken windows. Their faces were still, their grins frozen in place — but their eyes followed him. Always.
His chain glowed faintly at his chest — a soft, pulsing light in a world drained of color.
One of them stepped forward.
Its movements were slow, deliberate. It held something in its hands — a small, leather-bound notebook, worn at the edges, pages yellowed with age.
It offered it to him.
Percy took it.
The handwriting was jagged, frantic, as if scrawled in a rush.
"The Bird of Forgotten Songs is listening."
He frowned.
The words made no sense. They felt like a riddle. A warning. A prayer.
His voice cracked as he spoke — dry, unused, like a door creaking open after years of silence.
"What is the Bird of Forgotten Songs?"
The Entities stopped smiling.
Their faces twitched. Their eyes widened — not in curiosity, but in fear.
Then, without a word, they scattered.
Dashing into buildings. Slamming doors. Vanishing into the grey.
Gone.
Percy blinked.
They're scared, he thought.
Then it hit.
Pressure.
Not physical — existential. Like the world itself had turned its gaze toward him. Like something ancient had just remembered his name.
His bracelet chimed.
A soft, crystalline tone that cut through the silence like a blade.
[The Bird of Forgotten Songs knows where you are.]
Percy froze.
His breath caught in his throat.
He turned.
A building across the street exploded — not with fire, but with force. Stone and wood shattered outward, dust billowing like smoke from a dying star.
From the rubble, it emerged.
The Bird.
It walked — not flew — out of the wreckage, each step deliberate, each movement too smooth to be human.
Its body was that of a man — lean, tall, draped in tattered robes that fluttered without wind. But its head…
A crow's.
Long, jagged beak. Hollow sockets where eyes should've been. Feathers missing in patches, revealing pale, scarred flesh beneath. Blood — or something darker — stained its beak, dripping in slow, deliberate drops.
Its claws were long.
Black.
Dripping.
Wings stretched beneath its arms — not feathered, but veined like ancient parchment, twitching with every breath.
It didn't see.
It didn't smell.
It listened.
The Bird tilted its head, the motion sharp and unnatural, like a marionette tugged by invisible strings.
It was searching.
For sound.
And in that moment, Percy understood.
The Bird of Forgotten Songs was blind.
It had no eyes. No nose. No voice.
Only one sense.
Hearing.
And it had heard him.
Percy stared at the creature.
And it stared back — not with eyes, but with presence. With pressure. With intent.
He thought he had been caught.
His heart stopped.
But then…
The Bird turned.
And flew away.
Its wings tore through the air like blades, and in seconds, it vanished into the sky — leaving only silence in its wake.
Percy stood there.
Shellshocked.
Trembling.
His legs refused to move. His lungs refused to breathe. His mind refused to understand.
What the heck just happened, he thought, the words barely forming.
He stood there for what felt like hours.
The Smiling Entities peeked from their hiding places.
They were no longer smiling.
His bracelet chimed again.
This time, the tone was lower. Heavier. Final.
[Be wary, Star-Crossed. A manhunt for you in this town has begun.]