The forest thickened the farther they traveled, the path vanishing beneath a tangle of vines and ancient roots. Overhead, sunlight filtered through a dense canopy, turning the world to muted shades of green and gold. Shadows shifted across the ground like restless ghosts.

But as they pressed deeper, the air itself seemed to change—growing heavy with a silence that no longer felt peaceful, but haunted.

Arjuna walked ahead without a word. His pace had slowed, not from fatigue, but from the weight settling into his bones with every step. The others followed at a distance, sensing something in him had shifted.

Then the trees parted.

And there it was.

The village—his home—was nothing more than an echo.

Charred posts jutted from the earth like broken ribs. Vines strangled what remained of walls and rooftops. The scent of damp moss had long replaced the smoke, yet the memory of fire lingered in the air like phantom ash.

Nature had reclaimed the land—but not enough to hide what had been done here.

Arjuna stood still. His ears twitched faintly, as though straining to hear voices that no longer existed.

Klara slowed beside Star, her voice barely above a whisper.

“This place… it feels like a grave.”

It was.

Arjuna stepped forward.

His boots brushed against ash and leaf mold as his gaze drifted over the remnants of a life once lived—stones now split by roots, the charred stump of the tree where he and the other children had played, a shattered pot still faintly marked with festival paint.

Everything felt smaller than he remembered.

And everything felt haunted.

Then he saw it.

A hut near the edge of the clearing, half-collapsed and consumed by creeping vines. The roof had caved in. The doorway hung crooked, like a mouth frozen mid-scream.

Arjuna stopped.

For a moment, he couldn’t move.

Then, slowly, he stepped toward it—like a man walking into a memory he had spent years trying to escape.

Fragments flickered behind his eyes: his mother smiling over a simmering pot, his father adjusting the ceremonial spear before the spring rites, firelight dancing across familiar, laughing faces.

Then the memories shattered.

Two skeletons lay beneath the ruins, tangled in moss, roots, and time. One larger. One smaller.

The larger still bore the remains of a dulled pendant—its shape unmistakable, even beneath rust and decay.

Arjuna’s breath caught.

He dropped to his knees.

“…Father,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
“Mother…”

His hands trembled as he brushed away the moss. His claws snagged against damp rot, but he didn’t stop. Didn’t hesitate.

He had imagined this moment too many times.

In the labor camps. In restless sleep. In dreams where they had survived—where they had fled—where he returned to find the house intact, dinner warm, his mother’s voice drifting softly through the night.

But this—

This was the truth.

Bones.

All that remained.

He had watched them die.

Watched his father fall, gripping that same ceremonial spear as though it could still protect them. Heard his mother plead, scream, offer everything she had to save her son.

He remembered the laughter of the Riftwalkers.

Remembered being held down.

Remembered everything.

He had been powerless.

And now—

He was too late.

Arjuna bowed his head, pressing his brow against the ground as something broke loose inside him—a sound torn from deep within, neither scream nor sob, but something older. Rawer.

The sound of a wound that had never healed… splitting open where it first began.

Star moved before she could think.

She knelt beside him, her expression stricken but steady, and opened her arms without a word.

He didn’t resist.

He collapsed into her, burying his face against her shoulder. His body shook with quiet, violent sobs as his hands gripped her cloak—holding on as though it were the only thing anchoring him to the present.

“I should’ve died with them,” he choked. “I should’ve—”

“No,” Star whispered softly. “You survived. You endured. That matters.”

But her words barely reached him. Grief drowned everything. The jungle blurred. Time folded in on itself.

So she said nothing more.

She simply held him.

Firm. Steady. Unwavering.

She rested her cheek against his hair, breathing in the scent of earth and sorrow, and became the stillness he could no longer find.

Around them, the forest seemed to mourn. Leaves rustled like quiet prayers. Branches creaked like distant laments.

There was no undoing this. No justice that could make it whole.

But she stayed.

Through the grief. Through the silence. Through the storm.

And when his sobs finally faded—when the golden light dimmed into shadow—

she was still there.

Holding him.

So he would not break alone.

So he would not be swallowed by the silence again.