I opened my eyes slowly, surfacing from the depths of a slumber far too tranquil for this place. But tranquility was an illusion, and illusions never lasted long—not in my world.
The mont I awoke, mories surged—unwanted, unwelco. They ca not like a gentle tide, but like a storm crashing into fragile walls.
A sharp jolt ran through my body as fragnts of my childhood flooded my mind, vivid and rciless.
’Those mories... I wanted to forget them.’
A soft weight shifted beside . My sudden motion had disturbed the boy who had fallen asleep while curled against . He stirred faintly, his small hand grasping weakly at my tunic as though clinging to a dream.
I caught him before he could tumble over. My arms instinctively wrapped around his frail form, holding him steady, protecting him.
His face was peaceful, innocent—like an angel untouched by the cruelty of the world.
But I knew better.
I knew who he really was.
Malthorn.
The child in my arms—so full of laughter and purity—was destined to beco the Undead Lord. And all because of one death.
One person.
The man in the fur coat.
His ’big brother.’ His guardian. His closest friend. The only person who had shown him unconditional love.
The boy’s world revolved around him, and when that world was destroyed, so too was his soul.
I had watched it unfold, piece by piece. Not directly, but in shadows and nuances. In the way the villagers once looked upon with fondness, only to grow colder with each passing day.
Their gazes, once warm and welcoming, had dimd—beca distant. And eventually... void of warmth altogether.
It wasn’t hard to guess why.
I was replacing him.
I had unknowingly stepped into the role of the fur coat man. And the child... he accepted it. Welcod it.
And just like before, his parents couldn’t stand it.
They resented —him. Resented the bond between the child and the stranger. The affection they could never replicate.
In their eyes, the fur coat wasn’t just a friend. He was a thief. A usurper who stole their son’s love.
And so, they retaliated.
They murdered him.
Their jealousy birthed a monster.
I couldn’t claim to support either side. The pain of the parents, watching their child slip away emotionally, must have been unbearable. But the fault wasn’t the child’s—it was theirs.
They created a ho so cold that he sought warmth elsewhere. Is that not the parents’ failure?
I sighed softly and looked around, the boy still resting soundly beside . My gaze drifted toward the fur coat man who sat a few feet away, as still as ever. A perfect actor cast in an endless, repeating play.
I shifted carefully, lowering the child onto a patch of soft grass. My hand lingered on his hair a mont longer, brushing it aside with a gentle affection I hadn’t expected to feel.
Then I stood.
And realized sothing.
Einar was gone.
I scanned the glade in all directions, but there was no trace of him. The past few days he had been deteriorating.
His steps slowed, his words few and dry. His eyes always on the horizon. He was starving, and there was nothing here to feed on.
A cold pit opened in my stomach.
"Einar..." I whispered.
Without another second of hesitation, I bolted.
The wind roared past as I sprinted across the adow, down the gentle slope that led toward the village. I could already sll it—smoke.
My heart thudded faster.
A thick plu was rising in the distance, darkening the perfect blue sky like ink spreading across a canvas. The sight alone quickened my pace. My feet struck the ground harder, faster, as I raced toward the heart of the mory.
The village ca into view.
And my breath caught in my throat.
It was gone.
Not literally, but spiritually. The charm, the joy, the fabricated peace—it had all been gutted.
Silence greeted , but not the kind that soothed.
This silence was unnatural. Dreadful.
The kind that humd beneath the surface of a massacre.
Houses had been reduced to rubble. Roofs caved in. Structures that once held love and laughter now stood burned and broken.
Charred wood crackled under my boots as I stepped through the remnants. Doors had been torn from hinges, windows shattered, stone scorched.
The few buildings that remained intact were stained with blood.
No bodies.
But signs of struggle were everywhere—scars carved into the earth by chaos and hatred.
The villagers were gone. Fled? Killed? Assimilated? I couldn’t be sure.
But one na surged to the top of my mind.
Einar.
I clenched my fists. My jaw tightened.
’You idiot... What did you do?’
This wasn’t the work of an illusion. This wasn’t a shift in the mory’s tone. This was real—his doing. His hunger had finally broken him.
I ran, faster than I ever had before. The wind howled past my ears as debris crunched and scattered under my boots.
The scent of smoke and ash clung to my clothes, curling into my lungs, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I had to find him.
"Einar..." I whispered breathlessly as I darted past the crumbling remnants of the village, dodging shattered wooden beams and scorched stone.
I didn’t even realize when the ruined village had faded behind . My feet had carried beyond its outer edge, past the twisted fences and into the open, where the illusion of serenity stubbornly persisted.
A gentle breeze whispered through the trees, the sun hanging motionless in the sky—frozen at that eternal hour of calm.
And there he was.
Sitting beneath the wide shadow of an ancient tree, its roots curling into the dirt like a throne carved from the earth itself. Einar leaned against the trunk, his gaze fixed skyward, eyes seemingly lost in the distant endless blue.
He looked... different.
Peaceful. Satiated.
It unsettled .
My eyes narrowed, drifting toward the shifting shimr of the living armor that pulsed and crawled over his form—ever hungry, ever alive. He didn’t look wounded. Didn’t look desperate. He looked content.
How?
How did he find food in this place.
Questions swirled in my mind like a storm, but I shoved them down for now. I stepped closer, my boots crunching against fallen leaves.
He noticed imdiately—of course he did—and exhaled with a long, slow sigh, dragging his eyes down to et mine.
"What?" he said flatly. "Don’t give that look. I haven’t gone feral or anything. I’m not possessed. I was starving, now I’m not. Simple."
My jaw tightened. I didn’t stop walking until I was only a few feet away from him.
"Did you eat them?" I asked, voice barely above a whisper.
He arched a brow, almost amused. "What? Why would I? And also—how, exactly? Aren’t they just fignts of soone’s twisted dream? Fake people in a fake world?"
"They may be fake," I snapped, "but they feel real. They have emotions. They smile. They cry. That little boy—"
He rolled his eyes hard enough I thought they might fall out. "Here we go again. Playing house with the mory kid has clearly rotted your brain."
I glared. "That boy is Malthorn."
He didn’t even blink. "Yeah. I know."
I blinked. "You... knew?"
Einar pushed himself to his feet, brushing flakes of scorched bark from his armor. His movents were slow, deliberate, like soone who had just weathered a storm inside his own body.
"This whole place," he muttered, "isn’t a mory. Not really. It’s more like a thought. A dream. A dying whisper of soone’s mind caught between grief and hatred."
He turned his eyes to . There was no mockery there now—only tired clarity.
"These villagers, they turned on . Out of nowhere. Told I didn’t belong here. Called filth. Like they were made to hate ."
He shrugged, but it was hollow.
"One of them even pulled a knife. Tried to stab . That’s when I realized—this isn’t so happy little world. It’s Malthorn’s fractured perception. A biased, broken view of his past. Twisted by grief. It only looks perfect on the surface."
My voice dropped, low and cold. "So you retaliated... by killing them?"
He t my gaze without hesitation. "Not just that. I escalated it."
I stared, trying to make sense of the emotion—or lack of it—on his face.
"Why?" I asked softly. "Why push it that far?"
He looked past , toward the horizon. The sun hadn’t moved. It never did.
"Because I wanted this illusion to break," he said quietly. "I wanted it to end. And I knew that if I stirred the hornet’s nest hard enough, the cracks would show. Maybe then we could escape."
He paused, his voice growing even lower. "And... I was starving. Seren. You’ve seen . I couldn’t breathe without my ribs aching. I could feel my mind slipping."
The living armour on his body twitched at his words, a silent echo of his suffering.
I didn’t speak.
Because part of understood.
The hunger. The illusion. The desperation.
Einar finally sighed again. "I didn’t enjoy it. I just... endured it."
His words hung between us, carried by the wind, heavier than steel.
I crossed my arms, not out of defiance, but to stop my hands from trembling. "What do we do now?"
He gave a sideways glance. "Now? We get ready. Because if this place is breaking... if Malthorn’s dream is unraveling..."
His expression hardened with a slight amusent.
"Then he’s going to wake up."
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