The Bishop withdrew her hand.
The Choir inhaled as one—
a long, trembling breath—
and the hymn began again.
It didn't start gently this time.
It struck.
A blade of sound.
A wall of erasure.
A tidal wave of forgetting.
Evin staggered backward as the melody slammed into him. His knees buckled, palms skidding across the cold marble as the world smeared at the edges. His hearing warped—
the hymn drowning out his heartbeat,
his breath,
his name.
The remnants screamed.
Not aloud—
they had no voices—
but in the way their silhouettes twisted violently, unraveling into smoke.
"No—" Evin gasped. "Stop… STOP!"
But the Choir did not stop.
Their voices rose higher. Harmonized. Wove together into a single, merciless force. They were trained for this—for erasure so complete that even memory became dust.
One by one, the remnants around Evin flickered like dying candle flames.
A tall one collapsed to its knees, shape bending under the weight of the song.
A small one stumbled backward, its fingers dissolving.
A broken one—missing half a face—arched in agony as its outline shredded.
Evin reached toward them frantically, his voice cracking.
"Don't—don't disappear! Hold on—PLEASE hold on!"
But the melody only sharpened.
The Bishop watched with quiet confidence, hands folded as if overseeing a ceremony rather than a massacre.
"This is mercy," she murmured.
Evin screamed, "SHUT UP!"
But his voice was drowned beneath the Choir.
The remnants shuddered violently.
Then one stepped forward.
A remnant who had always hovered near the back—
small, hunched, nearly transparent—
like a child who had spent its entire existence apologizing for taking space.
It moved between Evin and the Choir.
Its faint hand lifted—
shaking,
weak,
barely holding form—
but lifted all the same.
Evin froze.
"No… no, you can't—don't—"
The child-remnant stood anyway.
And the hymn struck it full-force.
Its silhouette bent inward, limbs snapping into jagged angles as the erasure tore through it. Lines of shadow ripped away like strips of paper caught in fire.
Evin crawled forward, sobbing. "PLEASE—STOP—YOU'RE KILLING THEM!"
The remnant turned its head toward him.
Its face was gone.
Its features erased long ago.
But the shape—the tilt of its head—
conveyed something unmistakable.
Not pain.
Reassurance.
Evin reached out with trembling fingers, desperate to hold something solid—just once—but his hand passed through the remnant's fading chest like mist.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, NO—don't do this for me—"
Behind him, another remnant staggered forward.
Then another.
Then another.
Dozens.
They formed a wall of flickering shadows between him and the Choir—
shaking,
breaking,
refusing to retreat.
Evin watched them crumble, one by one.
Watched their edges dissolve.
Watched their shapes fold inward.
Watched their last moments of existence burn away in silence.
He pressed his forehead to the floor, sobbing so hard his ribs ached.
"DON'T DIE FOR ME—PLEASE—PLEASE—STOP—"
But the remnants didn't stop.
They stood.
Not because they were strong.
Not because they were fearless.
Not because they believed they could win.
But because Evin knelt behind them.
Because he remembered them.
Because he cried for them.
Because he had looked at their broken faces and said their pain mattered.
And for the first time in their existence—
someone had fought for them.
So they fought for him.
A large remnant—a man-shaped outline burned blacker than the others—pulled itself upright and stepped forward, shielding the smallest ones.
Evin recognized him.
Not from life—
but from the memory the Veil had shown him.
The first burning.
The remnant who had knelt with fire on his skin and begged for his children.
He lifted an arm—the movement slow, agonizing—and braced himself against the Choir's erasure.
He turned his head slightly toward Evin, even without eyes.
And Evin heard him.
Not in words.
Not in voice.
In feeling.
You remain.
So we remain.
More remnants stepped into place.
A woman with braided hair.
A novice-child.
A mother who had lost everything.
A nameless man with wide, trembling shoulders.
A half-faced shape with flickering hands.
All the forgotten.
All the erased.
All the broken.
All the loved.
Their shadows linked—
elbows, shoulders, backs—
forming a barrier of grief and determination.
The Choir pushed harder.
The melody rose to a devastating crescendo.
Light cracked through the corridor like lightning.
Remnants shattered.
Shapes burst like smoke struck by wind.
And still—
they did not move aside.
Evin dragged himself upright on shaking legs.
He stared at the wall of remnants—what was left of them—and felt his heart split open.
He whispered, voice raw and shaking:
"Why?"
The child-remnant turned.
It raised its broken hand—
the one it had left—
and touched Evin's cheek.
He felt nothing physically.
But the warmth—
the warmth of it—
made his knees buckle.
The remnants spoke in a single shared pulse:
Remember us.
Evin fell forward with a choked sob—
—and the remnants dissolved in unison.
Gone.
Gone.
Gone.
Evin's world collapsed.
He screamed—not in rage, not in defiance, but in devastation, a sound no living thing should make.
The Veil cracked open inside him—
a rending, tearing, agonizing split—
and something ancient flooded into him.
Memory.
Grief.
Loss.
Thousands of voices.
Thousands of deaths.
Thousands of final moments.
He collapsed.
Shaking violently.
Hands clawing at the floor.
Screaming until his voice broke.
And when he looked up—
the Choir was staring at him in horror.
The Bishop took a single step backward.
The remnants were gone.
But Evin still stood.
And the Veil—
stood with him.