The wrinkles on his face overlapped like the bark of ancient trees, dry and full of cracks.
Each line seemed to hold 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.
But that worn-out gaze 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 at once.
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 the cute smile of a harmless old man.
The veins on his hand bulged as he squeezed the purple notebook, his thin fingers digging into the cover as if that thing might run away.
He took a deep breath and said quietly:
"You don't know yet… but you'll remember."
He took a step forward.
And another.
With each step, a strange discomfort grew inside me.
His voice changed.
It stopped being just calm and tired. There was something… unstable in it now. Something right on the edge between sanity 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 single drop of joy in it.
"Whether you're going to follow what he says… or if you're going to have the courage to disobey."
His eyes widened for a moment after that.
He who?
The Counselor took another step and suddenly his hands were on my shoulders, the notebook pressing against my chest between us.
His grip was surprisingly firm.
"Are you listening to me, Noah?" His voice was a little hoarse now, and he squeezed my shoulders even harder. "You can choose. Better yet… you must choose."
My throat closed.
"I… I don't understand. Choose what? I don't even know what's going on here!"
I don't even know who the fuck I am…
Suddenly, the screen.
It reappeared out of nowhere.
Purple… no.
It wasn't just purple anymore.
The dark tone was now shot through with pulsing red veins. It looked… infected.
It popped up right in front of me like it had always been there, just waiting for the perfect moment to ruin everything.
The letters began to appear.
MEMORY DEVIATION DETECTED…
ANALYZING…
INTERFERENCE IN STORY DETECTED
My stomach flipped.
The old man didn't react — it looked like he couldn't see it either.
The edges of the screen shook.
PLANNING CORRECTION…
CORRECTION IN PROGRESS
I blinked several 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 looked instinctively toward the sound. There was a small device on the desk, half-hidden under some papers. A red light blinked in an irritating rhythm.
The beeping turned into a weak alarm.
And the weak alarm swelled into a distant siren, echoing across what I imagined had to be half that flesh-city.
The sound grew louder.
The Counselor lifted his head slowly, his eyes narrowing.
And as if it had been waiting for a cue, the door swung open so hard it slammed into the wall.
Mei came in first.
Only… it wasn't the same Mei as before.
The cold, firm captain who walked like nothing in the world could shake her was gone.
Her face was pale, almost grayish, and the arm holding the iron bar trembled slightly, even though she was clearly trying to hide it.
Behind her, a few soldiers rushed in. Their improvised armor clanked against itself in a nervous metallic racket.
"What happened?"
The Counselor asked, but no one answered at first.
Until one of the soldiers — the one at the front, who looked like he'd been shoved into a shredder and spat back out — spoke.
He was covered in blood; I just didn't know if it was his or something else's.
"Counselor…" he began, voice shaking. "The wall… it… it looked strange. We got a report from Ring Three Patrol, they said it looked… swollen. We went there to check and…"
He choked on his own words.
The others behind him looked away, like just remembering it was too dangerous.
"Continue," 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 the hell 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 — more like someone trying very hard not to cry.
The Counselor staggered.
He gripped the edge of the desk so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"How… how is that possible?"
No one answered.
Outside, the alarm seemed to blend with another sound.
"Counselor… what should we do?" a younger soldier asked, almost swallowing his own words. "Counselor?"
But the Counselor didn't seem to hear. He kept mumbling under his breath:
"No… not now… not like this…"
The soldiers started panicking all at once. Overlapping sentences, shouts begging for orders.
It was chaos.
I looked from one face to another, understanding nothing.
With my heart pounding too fast, I asked, louder than I meant to:
"What's happening?"
It felt like I'd thrown a rock into a snake pit.
Every eye turned to me.
From one corner, Raul stepped out of the shadows.
I hadn't even noticed he was there.
He walked slowly, one step at a time, his eyes burning, his expression saying he'd just found the missing piece to the puzzle.
"It's you… of course it's you."
Before I could back away, his hands grabbed my collar in a tight grip.
"This must be your doing, you church dog!"
"Raul, let him go!"
Mei was already at our side, clutching his arm firmly, but he didn't look like he planned on listening.
"This has never happened!" he shouted, his face so close I could feel his hot, desperate breath. "We've never seen this! And the moment he shows up…"
He shook me even harder.
"The moment you show up?!"
The other soldiers started whispering.
"He's from the church?"
"What was one of the church lunatics doing alone with the Counselor?"
"This is wrong… this is wrong…"
The whispers grew, turning into small pockets of hysteria.
"I'm not from the church!" I yelled, unable to hold back. "I've said that a thousand times! I don't even know what the fuck this church is!"
No one seemed to hear.
Shit! What the hell happened out there?…
"Let go," Mei repeated, her voice low — but much more dangerous now.
He glared at her, breathing hard, looking like he might attack either one of us — her or me — but before the situation could explode completely, a new figure appeared in the doorway.
Another soldier.
This one was in even worse shape.
Half his face was smeared with both dry and fresh blood. His chest rose and fell way too fast.
"Some of them got through…" he gasped, propping himself against the doorframe. "We won't be able to hold them for long…"
A crash sounded from outside, like something huge had been knocked over.
The ground shook.
The lights above us flickered nervously, turning on and off like eyes.
Through the crack of the open door, I saw smoke starting to creep into the corridor.
And behind the smoke…
Something big moved.
A shadow with an inhuman shape, exposed bones, and slick, wet flesh.
My stomach flipped for the second time in under five minutes.
The Counselor took a deep breath, like he was finally returning to his own body, and called me:
"Noah."
In two movements, he pried Raul's hands off my collar like the man was nothing but a tantrum-throwing child.
Raul stepped back, startled, and the Counselor grabbed my arm instead, urgency now clear in his eyes.
"You need to get out of here," he said quickly, spitting the words out. "Now."
"Get out to where?! You're—"
He cut me off, sounding almost melancholic.
"I was too impulsive… I shouldn't have brought you here. I… should have known they wouldn't allow this…"
Allow what?
The sound of something big dragging itself along grew louder, together with screams from outside.
The Counselor rushed back to the desk, shoving it away from the wall with surprising force.
The wood slid aside, revealing a metal panel embedded in the floor. He crouched, pressed something with his hand, and I heard a click.
A bookshelf 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 watched, confused. No one dared to question him out loud.
I, on the other hand, really wanted to question it.
I looked at the passage.
Stairs going down into the dark. Exactly what I wanted.
I saw rusted metal steps leading down, swallowed by darkness. The only thing breaking it was the weak light bleeding in from the Counselor's room.
The old man turned to me, and his hand trembled.
His gaze didn't.
"Go," he said, his tone a mixture of urgency and a strange sort of… resignation. "Take those stairs and don't stop for anything. Understood?"
I opened my mouth to ask "And you?" but he didn't give me the chance.
He grabbed the notebook from the desk and put it in my hands.
The cover was smooth, disturbingly soft. It almost felt like human skin.
Goosebumps crawled up my arms.
"Don't lose it," he said, laying 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 it?" I whispered.
He hesitated.
And for a second, his eyes looked even older.
"Proof that you're not insane."
Which is basically the same as not answering.
Outside, the noise drew even closer and the wall shook.
Screams of pain split the air. One of them was so loud it made my ears ring. The smell of blood rushed into the room all at once.
More people stumbled inside — some unarmed, others carrying sticks or knives.
The Counselor turned to look at them.
For a moment, the man who had been the image of authority until now seemed to crack.
His face softened, his shoulders sagged.
"I'm sorry…" he murmured so quietly I almost didn't hear. "I can't save all of you."
The sentence spread through the room like poison poured into water.
Some of the younger soldiers started crying. One of them dropped to his knees, clutching his helmet like he could crawl inside it.
The older ones didn't cry, but their fists clenched.
One made a quick sign over his chest, like he still believed in some kind of blessing.
Another laughed — dry, humorless — shaking his head. It was the laugh of someone who expects nothing from the world.
Then the Counselor straightened his back.
He lifted his chin.
And when he spoke again, his voice had the same aura of authority it had when I first saw him.
"But if you still trust me…"
He looked each of them in the eye.
"…then listen."
Silence spread quickly.
"I need you to carry out your last mission."
Something lit up in those people's eyes.
Tears dried too fast. Shoulders squared. Hands tightened around weapons, improvised axes, iron bars, old pistols.
Some of them trembled.
But no one stepped 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 reddened.
"But… what about you, Grandpa?"
Grandpa?
He's her great-grandfather?
The old man sighed and walked to her with slow steps.
He lifted a wrinkled hand and rested it gently on her head, like someone blessing and saying goodbye at the same time.
"My mission is over, Mei," he said quietly, with a sad smile. "It should've been over a long time ago."
He took a deeper 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 rekindle what little hope we have left."
I felt all their stares land on me.
Again.
I didn't ask for this…
Raul looked at me with a mix of rage and disbelief. Some soldiers had expressions of almost blind devotion, while others just looked lost.
Before anyone could say anything, a violent crash hit the door.
A group of soldiers nearly fell into the room, stumbling backward.
Behind them, a roar that was neither human nor animal.
Something between a wet whistle and a drowned scream, echoing off the walls like the sound itself was trying to tear 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 the people in the room, one by one, and then, with a calm that made me even more nervous, he said:
"Today… will probably be our last fight."
The silence that followed was broken only by the alarm, the distant screams, and the muffled sound of bodies and things crashing outside.
He took a deep breath and walked to a side wall.
"Whoever still has courage… come with me."
He pulled on a panel I hadn't even noticed, and from there he drew a sword.
The blade had a bluish tint, with a strange sheen, like it had been dipped in something.
Some soldiers exchanged glances.
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 full of nails and banged it on the floor. Once. Twice. Three times.
Others followed his lead.
Soon the entire room was filled with metallic and dull sounds — weapons hitting floor and walls in a growing rhythm.
A shout rose.
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 back to me, and despite everything, his gaze was calm.
Almost… peaceful.
"Noah…"
He spoke as if it were just a normal conversation.
"Run."