A wind blew over the fields, making its way over the gray plains over which a strange figure was walking.

In the distance, a single tree stood, and around that tree, three children were playing with a small ball that they passed between each other.

Their laughter reached even him, who was far away from them, slowly approaching where they were situated.

A girl came running from the castle, a whole castle, without any signs of it ever being destroyed.

The girl sprinted the distance between the castle and the tree in mere seconds and threw herself over the branch over which the three were passing the ball.

Shockingly, the girl caught the ball and flipped over the branch to land on her feet elegantly.

However, she had not seen another girl standing in her way who she had now accidentally rammed into.

The sound of two people crashing into each other could be heard over the empty plain as the figure kept approaching.

It hadn’t seemed like they had been knocked out, because the girl causing the accident quickly got up after realizing the other girl was okay.

She quickly took the ball and sprinted back to the castle, evading the other two’s tries at taking the ball back.

He had already seen them do this once before, playing with that ball over that tree branch. But last he had seen that tree, or rather, heard it, it had been broken in half.

How come no damage had been dealt to the tree or the castle?

He had seen and heard them both get smashed and he had personally evaded giant fragments of the stone bricks in the walls of the castle while running for his life from the monster that had killed him.

He had been afraid of the children being hurt, but they all seemed to be fine, a little too fine.

As he made his way over the plains, slowly approaching the lonely tree, the children had already run back to try and catch up to the girl that had suddenly stolen their ball.

Sitting on the stairs was another child, a boy in his early teens, who one of the other children yelled at to take the ball from her, got up, but tripped and fell onto the grass pathetically.

Han laughed for himself.

Nothing had changed since the gray rooms, his mind was still in a mess.

But now he knew what he had to do.

He had to free himself, he had to free the children, he had to save them from this world and its monsters.

But now, not a single danger could be seen, and not a single remnant of the other night was in sight, it was almost like it had never happened.

It was strange to him since he had seen it with his own eyes, a castle with its front destroyed.

He had seen it when looking back for only a second.

It had been hard to believe and even harder now considering there was no trace of that anymore.

But he did know why.

His messy mind thought back to after his first death. He remembered that Cloud had said something about this.

“The gray lands reset after one turn of the eyes that circles it.”

The answer had been right in front of him.

The eye that circles it.

He shifted his gaze toward the dark sky behind the castle.

He had not seen the eye in person, but if he had to guess, it must look something like Morris’s eye.

He didn’t know why this was his first thought but so it was.

Morris was an important creature in this world, maybe Morris was the one using the eye to reset the children's memories after his second death.

This could’ve been an intentional thing, or maybe not.

Maybe it was built into gray children’s minds to automatically forget the past every time a day passed and the only reason for this not working on him was that he had been reincarnated into himself at the end of all days.

But if they had forgotten about him yesterday, then…

The children backed away as he came closer.

The younger ones, Finn, Ava, and Hank were taking cover behind the older, Phil and Sayora, all of them with unsure and hostile faces.

But how could this be?

They knew him, right?

“Phil..?”

He reached out his hand towards Phil.

He needed answers.

Once they had tried to ignore him, once they had been surprised by him, now they were unsure and scared of him, how could this be?

“-!”

His hand was slapped away as he tried to grab Phil.

It wasn’t Phil who had slapped it away though, but another child, Sayora, who now held her arms out in front of the other children, seemingly to protect them from something, but what?

“–?”

He didn’t get it. Why was she putting on this hostile act like they hadn’t ended yesterday on okay terms?

“Who the hell are you?!”

“Huh?”

Sayora was yelling at him.

She had never really liked him that much, or, that’s what he felt at least.

But resorting to slapping away his hand when he was just about to greet Phil and tell him that he was okay, was abnormal from her.

He hadn’t said anything, or done anything that could’ve made her react that way, right?

“Who are you?! Answer me!”

“What..?”

What was this?
What did she mean, ‘Who are you?’? He was Han, of course. They had met yesterday, engaged in a friendly fight between two acquaintances involving stacking books in a tower, and now, her eyes, no, eyes, were filled with anger.

Why?

Was that anger directed at him?

What had he done?

No, why did she not remember?

What the hell was going on?

He had experienced this once before.

After his second death, eaten by Morris, they had forgotten about him.

Why?

Hadn’t he told them who he was already?

He was Han, damn it!

“What the hell?” He exclaimed as he fell to his knees once more staring at Sayora.

“-?”

The doubt had been growing in him.

A goal, yes. But he had no determination anymore.

If they didn’t remember him now, what could he do?

He had no one to help him here.

He had trusted them, he had cared about their fate. And yet, they had forgotten. Forgotten about his care, his trust, or whatever.

Why did they not remember him?

“Why do you not remember?!”

He couldn’t cry, he couldn’t cry, not in front of children.

What the hell, they would forget anyway.

“Why do you never remember me?!”

“Wha-”

“After all… after all I’ve experienced!”

“-?!”

“After all of my deaths. I’ve… truly, achieved nothing..!”

He was clinging to her gray shirt, on his knees, his tears flowing out of his eyes like waterfalls.

Why did they not remember him?

Was it okay for him to cry?

Was this the result of his actions?

He had lost, hadn’t he?

Death had defeated him, and now life too?

Where was he going to go if he had neither?

He couldn’t save them if they didn’t trust him, he couldn’t save himself if he didn’t save them.

But what was the reason for this?

Why did he have to care about them?

They would just forget about him either way.

Why was he attached to them then?

Something was so wrong with this.

Why were they all locked inside an empty world, forgetting the past and moving on to never see their future?

Why was this the case?

Was he at fault?

No, how could he be?

He wiped his nose.

The gray children had already fled inside. He couldn’t blame them. They did not know him. He had done nothing to help them. He had done nothing at all but get unnecessarily attached to them when they would just leave him in a past erased from their mind.

But this wasn’t their fault.

But then, how come things were like this?

It was like he was repeating the same they over and over, occasionally interrupted by death.

Could he just give up and leave them, leave himself?

What if he just stayed in the gray rooms to rott and die? Over and over again, but then, he would not have to see in their face, with only the reflection of himself, a person they did not know, staring back at him.

But, he cared about them.

Somehow, he felt responsibility for their fate, but why?

Was this truly his own goal? Or was he doing this for them? Or was there any difference?

He got up.

He could use death as a way to regain his life.

What this meant was that he could never die, right? Then what was he going to do with his life? What could he do?

“Anything…”

I can do anything, he thought.

He believed it because that was what Cloud had told him, and he could trust her, he could trust them.

All of them meant something to him, so why not use his infinite life to try and grant them a better one?

They did not deserve not knowing.

Who knew what they could’ve heard, what they could’ve seen? But they could never have known.

If their memory were reset every day like the past few, wouldn’t they remember anything from their life?

He couldn’t imagine such a fate.

Thinking you are doing something new each day, then realizing you’ve done the same thing all your life.

That must be hell.

He couldn’t watch them relive life over and over. He couldn’t watch them suffer without ever knowing it.

He had to save them, right?

No, there was no right.

If he wanted it, he could. That was what Cloud had said.

“Your purpose, you decide.” She had said just that.

And yet, was Han ready to make this his purpose, the meaning of his life, the meaning.. of his death?

Why was it this hard?

It was only a decision that would change their fate, as well as his own.

If he tried, could he? He had to find out, not because he had to, but because he wanted to. He wanted to save them, save them all.

Slowly taking a step toward the front gate of the castle, he sighed, thinking it would take a while to gain their trust again.

But to his surprise…

“sigh, welcome in, eternal one.”

The door opened, and behind it stood a boy he was very familiar with, Phil.