The door was open.
Orev stood inside the house, though he did not remember rising from his bed. The wooden frame before him was familiar—the same uneven grain, the same faint crack near the hinge—but something about it felt misplaced, as if it had been taken from another memory and set here without care.
Cold air drifted in from outside.
He did not feel it.
Beyond the threshold, his brother stood beneath the crimson moon.
The light fell softly over him, turning his long, wavy blonde hair into strands of muted gold. It moved with the wind, yet the stillness inside the house remained untouched. That quiet contradiction lingered, subtle but insistent, like a thought that refused to form completely.
"Brother…"
Orev's voice sounded distant to his own ears.
His brother turned.
Golden-brown eyes met his, carrying that same warmth—steady, unhurried, unchanging. It was not comforting. It did not try to be. It simply existed, like something that had already accepted its place in the world.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Orev felt it then.
Not grief. Not yet.
A kind of heaviness, as if the moment itself had been repeated too many times and was beginning to lose its edges.
"Come back," he said.
He had meant to say more. He always did. The words gathered somewhere inside him, pressing upward, but they never reached his lips.
His brother watched him quietly.
"You've grown," he said.
The sentence settled into the silence between them.
Orev took a step forward. The ground beneath his feet felt firm, though he could not remember crossing the distance.
"You don't have to go," he said.
This time, his voice held more weight, but it still lacked something—something he could not name.
His brother's gaze drifted slightly, as if considering something beyond the moment, before returning to him.
"At some point," he said, "you'll understand."
The same words.
Always the same.
Orev's fingers curled slightly at his side.
"I don't need to understand," he said. "Just stay."
For a brief moment, something softened in his brother's expression. Not doubt. Not hesitation. Something quieter.
Then it was gone.
"Take care of them," he said.
Not a command.
Not a request.
The words felt final in a way that did not ask to be questioned.
Orev shook his head.
But his brother had already begun to step back.
The shadows behind him deepened, folding inward as if making space. They did not rush forward. They did not consume. They simply waited, and his brother walked into them without resistance.
Orev's chest tightened.
He wanted to call out.
To say his name.
Just once.
But the name never came.
It never did.
His brother did not look back.
The darkness closed around him slowly, until even the outline of his figure disappeared, leaving only the faint glow of the crimson moon behind.
Orev opened his eyes.
The ceiling above him came into view, unchanged. The same thin crack ran along the corner, barely visible unless one looked for it.
He lay still for a while.
The dream did not leave him. It never did. It settled quietly, like something that had found its place.
He raised a hand and brushed it across his forehead. A thin layer of sweat had formed, though the air was cool.
The crimson light filtered through the window, steady and unmoving.
Orev turned his head.
Across the room, his parents slept peacefully. Their breathing was slow and even, the faint rise and fall of the blanket the only movement in the stillness.
He watched them for a moment.
Then his gaze shifted.
The empty bed beside his own remained untouched.
The blanket was neatly folded. The pillow lay where it always had. Time had passed, yet nothing about it had changed.
Orev looked at it a moment longer than necessary before lowering his eyes.
He sat up.
Sleep would not return.
It never did after the dream.
The door opened without sound.
Orev stepped outside, closing it gently behind him. The village lay quiet beneath the crimson moon, its light casting long, muted shadows across the ground.
Nothing stirred.
The air carried a faint metallic scent, subtle but ever-present.
He walked.
The path toward the mountains was familiar. Each step fell into place without thought, guided by something that had long since become routine.
This was not the first time.
It would not be the last.
The village gradually receded behind him, its clustered houses shrinking into a single, indistinct shape. From a distance, it no longer felt like a place filled with people. It felt contained. Complete.
Small.
Orev continued upward.
The climb was steady, unhurried. The stones beneath his feet shifted slightly at times, but never enough to disrupt his pace.
Halfway up, he paused.
Not to rest.
To look.
Below, the lake stretched out in quiet stillness, its surface glowing with a deep, sanguine red. The light did not reflect so much as it lingered, as though the lake held it within itself.
Something moved beneath the surface.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
At the edge of the water, a figure emerged.
A deer.
Its body was a deep, muted blue, almost blending into the surrounding shadows. Its antlers rose in smooth arcs, glowing faintly with an azure light that stood in quiet contrast to the crimson world around it.
It lowered its head and drank.
Ripples spread across the surface, distorting the red glow before settling once more.
Orev watched.
The deer did not look up.
After a time, it turned and disappeared into the darkness beyond the lake, its faint glow fading until it could no longer be seen.
Orev resumed his climb.
The summit was as it always had been.
A narrow stretch of rock overlooking everything below.
He stepped to the edge.
The village lay beneath him.
From here, it seemed smaller than before. The houses clustered together tightly, their shapes softened by distance, their details lost.
It could fit in his palm.
Orev lifted his hand slightly, as if testing the thought.
For a moment, he imagined closing his fingers around it.
Holding it there.
Keeping it safe.
The thought lingered.
Then faded.
He lowered his hand.
His gaze shifted outward.
Toward the mountains.
Toward the place where the light began to thin.
The change was gradual.
The crimson glow stretched across the land, but the farther it reached, the weaker it became, until it broke apart entirely at the edge of the outer regions.
Beyond that, the grey clouds gathered.
They did not move.
They did not shift.
They simply existed, layered upon one another, blocking what little light remained.
And beyond them—
darkness.
Orev stood in silence.
He had come here many times.
Watched the same horizon.
Asked the same questions.
Why did the light fade?
Why did the clouds gather there and nowhere else?
Why did the world feel complete in one direction and unfinished in the other?
The questions remained.
Unanswered.
Unchanged.
Tonight, something felt different.
At first, it was nothing he could name.
The mountains remained still.
The clouds did not move.
The darkness did not change.
And yet—
Orev narrowed his gaze slightly.
There was a subtle shift.
Not in the world.
In the way it felt.
The boundary between light and darkness seemed sharper than before, as if something had drawn a line where none had existed.
He focused on it.
Waited.
The silence deepened.
The air felt heavier.
And then—
a faint sensation.
Not a sound.
Not movement.
Awareness.
Orev's breath slowed.
He did not move.
The feeling grew clearer, settling into the space around him.
He was looking into the darkness.
And something within it—
was looking back.
It was not hostile.
Not welcoming.
It simply was.
Orev felt it rest upon him, light as a shadow, yet impossible to ignore.
His chest tightened slightly.
Not fear.
Something else.
He did not look away.
Above him, the crimson moon remained unchanged, its light stretching as far as it could before fading into nothing.
Its reflection lingered faintly in his eyes.
And still—
he kept looking.