"Even the bravest truths arrive softly, hoping not to startle the one who needs them."
The wind shifted as they moved deeper into the ruins, carrying the acrid scent of splintered wood and churned earth. The smell clung to the air like a memory that refused to fade, thick enough to sting the nose. Aarav felt the resonance beneath the ground thrumming like a heartbeat with no body—steady, unnatural, searching. It wasn't just vibration anymore; it was direction, feeling its way through the soil as though trying to locate what it had lost. The rhythm aligned itself with the pulse behind his ribs, tugging faintly every time he exhaled.
Arin kept his staff low. Not for support—Aarav understood that now—but as if he were listening to the land itself. The staff's carved grooves glowed softly under the shadowed light, humming with a faint vibration that matched the tension in the air. Arin's eyes followed the invisible pathways beneath the soil, scanning the ground the way others scanned the sky for storms.
"The survivors fled this way," Arin murmured. His voice was distant, not distracted—focused, as if he were piecing together a pattern only he could see.
Amar crouched beside a set of faint tracks leading out of the village and into the scattered tree line. "Four, maybe five people. Running hard." His fingers brushed the edges of the footprints, tracing the depth of each step with practiced accuracy. The weight distribution was erratic, the spacing irregular.
Meera studied the ground, noting scuff marks near the edge of a broken fence. "Someone stumbled. Twice." She pointed at the uneven impressions on the dirt. "They were terrified. You don't run like this unless you're running from something you can't look back at."
Aarav's gut twisted. He could _feel_ the panic in the trail. Not through magic. Not through resonance. Just through the shape of it—erratic, uneven, desperate. The path told its own story: a group fleeing in chaos, tripping over roots, pushing each other forward, breaking formation like prey being hunted.
Arin pointed ahead. "If we move quietly, we may reach them before the shard does." His tone made the air around them feel brittle.
Aarav still wasn't used to hearing that word—_shard_—a piece of the Voided King's will, wandering the world like a ghost with purpose. Every time Arin said it, Aarav imagined something sharp, angular, gleaming with malice—a fragment of a mind too broken to die but too powerful to disappear.
A purpose pointed straight at him.
"Can it kill them?" Aarav asked. The question slipped out before he could rethink it.
"Yes," Arin said. "But that's not what it's for."
Aarav's throat tightened. "Then what _is_ it for?"
"To find you." No hesitation. No cushioning.
Amar's jaw clenched. Meera's grip tightened around her notebook. Aarav didn't respond. Couldn't. His chest felt like it was being squeezed by invisible hands. He simply followed as Arin led them into the trees, each footstep heavier than the last.
The clearing muffled behind them. The air shifted—cooler, thicker, threaded with tension that pressed against Aarav's skin like a warning. The further they moved into the tree line, the more the world seemed to fold in on itself. Branches hung low, leaves rustled without wind, and every sound felt like it was being swallowed by something unseen.
"This place feels wrong," Meera whispered. Her eyes darted between the trunks, searching for symmetry that wasn't there.
"Not wrong," Arin corrected. "Thin." His tone was grave, as though the word itself carried weight.
Aarav stopped. "Thin how?" His stomach churned at the implications.
Arin tapped the ground. The soil vibrated faintly beneath their feet. "The Resonant Layer is close here. Very close. The shard will travel faster in places like this." His staff sank into the earth as if the soil softened around it.
Amar straightened. "Then we need to move." His posture sharpened; the forest seemed to draw out his instincts like a blade being unsheathed.
They did.
The forest swallowed the path quickly. Roots twisted underfoot like skeletal fingers clutching at their boots. Birds stayed silent. The world felt muted, as if something had told it to hush. The deeper they went, the more the air vibrated with unseen current, prickling along Aarav's arms.
Aarav slowed suddenly.
"Wait."
Meera turned. "What is it?" Her voice lowered instinctively, as though she understood he wasn't reacting to a sound.
He listened.
Or rather—he felt.
A faint tremor, barely perceptible but unmistakable, rippled under the soil. Not like the boundary fracturing. Not like collapsing earth.
This one felt… alive. Like a memory shivering back into existence.
"Something's ahead," Aarav whispered. His breath clouded despite the warm air.
Arin nodded grimly. "Good. You're sensing before it surfaces." Pride flickered in his expression, quickly replaced by caution.
"What is it?" Amar asked, blade half-drawn.
"Not the shard," Arin said. "Something smaller. An echo, lingering from the collapse. Harmless, but unsettling." His voice dropped lower. "Echoes are the shadows of moments too intense to fade."
They pushed forward, branches scratching their arms as the trees thinned.
And then they saw it.
A memory—hung in the air like a shimmer of heat.
Except it wasn't heat at all.
It was shape.
A suggestion of form, suspended between light and space.
A woman's silhouette, translucent as mist, frozen mid-run. A hand outstretched toward something unseen. Her hair billowed behind her in an invisible wind, strands flickering like strands of light unraveling.
Meera sucked in a breath. "What… what is that?"
"Residual imprint," Arin said softly. "When a collapse tears through a place, it pulls at people's thoughts, emotions, memories. Sometimes they leave… traces." His voice held a fragile respect.
Aarav stepped closer.
The silhouette turned—
not physically, but the flicker of emotion changed, shifting toward the shape of someone behind her.
And Aarav froze.
"Is that—me?" he whispered.
The echo leaned forward, ghost like, its outline trembling. Eyes flickered across its translucent form, searching for a face—finding a blur instead.
And then it spoke.
Not with sound.
With feeling.
Fear.
Urgency.
A desperate, echoing call.
_Anchor._
Aarav stumbled back, breath shaking. His vision swam as the imprint's fear washed over him like cold water.
Meera caught him. "Hey—stay with me." She kept her hand on his back, steadying him through the tremor.
Amar moved instantly, stepping between Aarav and the echo. "Arin, get rid of it." His stance was taut, ready to strike even at the intangible.
"I can't," Arin said. "It's not dangerous. It's memory. It will fade on its own." His tone softened. "It's a ghost of what she felt, not what she became."
Aarav's voice came out strained. "She wasn't calling me. She was calling him." His chest tightened as the truth slid into place.
Arin nodded once. "Yes. Echoes mix. Memory confuses. But the resonance inside you pulled the imprint toward your shape." His eyes softened, pained.
Meera exhaled slowly. "So what we're seeing—this woman—she tried to get away."
"And failed," Arin said. "There is no body because she was pulled across fully." His voice wavered with something unspoken.
Aarav's chest tightened.
He couldn't stop staring.
The silhouette flickered again—
fear breaking into desperation,
desperation into a final surge of hope,
hope into nothing.
And then it vanished.
The air shivered in its wake.
Aarav felt sick. "We're too late." His voice cracked under the weight of it.
"For her, yes," Arin said. "But not for the others." His tone sharpened. "They're still ahead. If we move now."
Aarav forced himself to stand straighter. "Then we keep moving." The resolve wasn't loud—but it held.
The forest thickened again as they left the clearing of the echo. Aarav didn't speak. Meera kept glancing at him, searching for signs he was about to break. Amar walked like a shield with legs, clearing obstacles without thinking.
Arin led them down a slope toward a narrow ravine, where water trickled weakly over stone. The air shifted—colder, heavier—as though they were stepping into the breathing space of something ancient.
Then he stopped.
"There," he said.
A small shape huddled beneath the roots of a fallen tree—motionless, curled tight, breathing shallow. Mud streaked the child's face; his clothes were torn, his eyes red from crying.
A child.
Aarav's heart twisted. They sprinted the last few steps.
The boy looked up at them with hollow eyes that had seen too much.
"You need to run," he whispered, voice trembling. "It's still coming." His words cracked at the edges.
Aarav knelt. "What is?"
The boy lifted a shaking hand and pointed behind them.
Aarav felt the hum spike.
Amar drew his knife.
Meera grabbed Aarav's arm.
Arin turned slowly toward the darkening path.
And the air shifted—
sharp, cold, unnatural.
Not a fracture.
Not an echo.
But presence.
A sliver of something not made for this world.
The shard had arrived.
"He didn't speak the whole truth, but he admitted enough for the world to shift."