I do not know why the realization shocked . Perhaps because I had still clung to the belief that this place operated by different rules.
Nobler ones.
It does not.
Survival is the only scripture beyond the Gate.
"Take what you can," Chronovore advised. "Sentint in the Glass feeds nothing." It hissed.
("Chronovore seems to be quite talkative here. Till now, it has not responded to " Soren thought out loud.)
I hesitated only a mont before reaching for the grass cloak.
The instant it settled over my shoulders, a coolness spread through .
The exhaustion in my limbs softened, as if roots had grown into unseen soil beneath my feet. My breathing steadied.
The ache in my spirit dulled to sothing manageable.
"Good," Chronovore hissed with approval. "It binds to vitality."
I lifted the flowing helt next. It felt weightless in my hands, yet dense with quiet awareness.
"Wear it," Chronovore urged. "It will blur you. Hide you from other souls. Especially those who rember..."
The Water That Rembers.
That bastard that wanted my wife’s na.
Even thinking of it sent a chill through .
I placed the helt over my head. The world shifted subtly, as though viewed through deep water.
My reflection in the cave wall blurred into sothing unrecognizable.
That would help.
After what I had faced, anonymity was a shield worth carrying.
I gathered the gauntlets and the belt as well, fastening them carefully. Each piece settled against with strange familiarity, as if relieved to be worn again.
Perhaps they rembered being whole.
This was my first interaction with the treasures of this world.
Shade Treasures.
At the back of the chamber, beyond a curtain of hanging roots, I found sothing else.
An exit.
A narrow passage sloping upward, its walls scratched by countless small hands.
I followed it.
The tunnel opened abruptly onto a cliffside.
Cold air struck my face.
Far below, nestled against jagged rock and pale plains, stood what could only be described as a town.
Structures clustered together like wary animals seeking warmth. Pale lights flickered faintly between them. Movent—slow, indistinct—shifted through narrow paths.
Civilization.
Or sothing pretending to be.
Behind lay the cave and the mory of what I had done.
To the other side lay the Water That Rembers.
I stood there for a long mont.
Then I chose.
I stepped forward—toward the town.
By the ti I reached the so-called town, my fear had settled into sothing colder.
The town sat beneath the cliff like a wound in the earth, ringed by a jagged wall of fused bone and blackened timber. A gate stood at its mouth—two crooked slabs that leaned toward each other as if whispering secrets no one else was ant to hear.
Before it stretched a single, orderly line.
Souls waited.
They ca in shapes both familiar and wrong.
A stag with twelve branching antlers stood ahead of , its body translucent, ribs visible beneath a hide that shimred like morning frost. It looked gentle, almost reverent, lowering its head whenever the wind passed.
Behind it shuffled sothing squat and furred, like a woolly rhinoceros dredged from an age long buried.
Its breath ca out in slow plus of ash. Its eyes, however, were small and anxious.
Further up the queue, I glimpsed a massive bird with hooked talons and a skull-like face, feathers molting into drifting motes of shadow.
Near it coiled a serpent thick as a tree trunk, scales patterned in extinct constellations. A pack of fox-shaped souls whispered to one another, their tails splitting and rejoining as if indecisive.
Docile. Predatory. Terrified. Resigned.
Yet they all shared one thing: they wore the mory of animals—so I knew, so humanity had only ever guessed at from bone fragnts and dust.
"It is because this place leans toward the human world," Chronovore murmured within my mind. "Nearness demands comprehension. The mind of man insists on shapes it can endure. So souls beco beasts rembered, beasts imagined, beasts that were once hunted."
I swallowed.
"But do not be deceived," it added. "Familiarity does not an harmlessness."
I believed it. After all, I had experienced it first hand.
Fear pulsed beneath my borrowed calm. If not for the grass cloak draped over my shoulders—its woven blades constantly shifting, drinking in the echo of my humanity—I would have fled.
The coat dampened the warmth of my human presence, it pressed it flat.
Less human ant less noticeable.
I stepped into the queue.
My goal was simple. Information.
I needed to know how to find the Eldritch soul that had slaughtered my family.
If this town truly possessed a way to repel such horrors, then sowhere within its walls would be knowledge.
Whispers drifted along the line like wind through reeds.
"This is the remaining town that can stop their attacks..."
"As long as the Eldritch do not cross the boundary, we are safe."
"I heard it costs so much, but being alive is better."
My eyes brightened beneath the moving helt at my side.
So this place was capable of holding back an Eldritch.
I had seen what these creatures could do, destroying human cities luke a child falling dominoes tiles.
If i coujd find how these souls protected themselves, then maybe my chances of killing one would improve.
Even better... perhaps it was the sa one. The sa Eldritch that tore through my ho like a laughing storm.
Perhaps this was not only refuge.
Perhaps it was a hunting ground.
My hunting ground.
Yes. I would kill it here.
My emotions flared, and gazes turned towards .
"Calm yourself. " Chronovore warned.
Apparently, the coat I had on could only protect if I held tight my emotions.
Thankfully, the gazes drifted away. They were more concerned with other things.
Gently and surely, the line crept forward.
At the gate’s far end stood the guard.
It resembled an ostrich, but stretched grotesquely tall—its neck was long and sinewed, feathers slick and dark like oil on water. Its legs were pillars of coiled muscle. Where its beak should have ended cleanly, the edges split slightly, revealing layered teeth beneath.
Its eyes were old.
And calculating.
Cunning.
The queue moved again.
Then—
A scream.
A towel-shaped soul ahead of was struck sideways by a violent burst of condensed soul energy.
It tumbled across the dust, fibers unraveling at the edges. The ostrich had moved so fast I barely saw it.
"I—I don’t have enough!" the towel cried, its voice fraying. "Please! I can still pay so! I only want to enter. I want my family safe!"
It unfolded itself desperately.
Within its layered folds were six smaller towels, each trembling, each with faint stitched eyes.
Children.
The guard tilted its head.
"Gate fee," it rasped. "Required asure of negative yield... Insufficient."
Its gaze slid across the little ones.
It licked the side of its beak.
"Alternative accepted."
The children clung tighter to their parent, tiny fibers knotting in panic.
The ostrich leaned forward, shadow swallowing them.
"What will it be?" it asked calmly. "Remain beyond the boundary until the Eldritch arrive... or surrender one unit."
The queue murmured.
This was not outrage at the demand.
No, it was agreent.
The towel soul trembled violently. I could feel the storm inside it—love colliding with terror. Its fibers tightened, then loosened.
Slowly... it nodded.
One small towel was pulled free.
The child scread, calling for its parent, threads stretching thin as it resisted. But the parent held firm, voice breaking as it whispered sothing too soft for to hear.
The ostrich opened its stomach.
It did not open like flesh.
It unlatched.
A seam split along its torso, revealing a hollow filled with swirling, compressed darkness.
The child was pushed inside.
The seam sealed.
Instantly, the ostrich’s tail flared brighter—a swollen orb of dim crimson light gathering near its base. I realized that was where the toll was stored.
Negative emotion, condensed and hoarded.
Power.
The parent re-ford itself, smaller now.
Broken.
The line moved again.
Around , the murmurs resud.
"That was Necessary."
"One for many."
"Survival is arithtic."
I said nothing.
But sothing inside hardened, as another realization hit .
Maybe I was just too human for this strange world.
After all, none from mine. Even criminals would agree with this.
First the small stone soul in the cave and now here.
More and more, they were proving to that this was how survival worked in this world.
But even more painful was that it was considered as the norm.
Sacrifice was the norm
And I stepped forward with the rest.
(Author’s Note: So its that ti of our lives again, when the Eldritch horror known formally as exams raise its ugly head. Pray for my soul. But don’t worry, I’ll still load more. Also, hou guys stopped comnting. Now, i dont know if I am doing a good job or not. Or if the plot is bland or interesting. Please comnt. I want to know and improve. Thank you)
Reviews
All reviews (0)