Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

There was no sun in Dema. 

There never had been. Light here was something else entirely: diffuse, hollow, ever-present but never rising, never setting. It clung to the concrete walls like moisture, soaked every corridor with a cold fluorescence that denied shadow, time, and warmth all at once. The absence was so complete that people no longer questioned it. The concept of a sun—of something golden and burning and untamed—was heresy in practice, metaphor at best. Most had long accepted that Dema’s light came not from the sky, but from the system, from the city itself. It was safer that way. To long for something beyond the walls was a form of spiritual imbalance. Vialism called it “glorification of the unknown,” a dangerous deviation that had led many to Reflection Chambers and never brought them back.

Clancy, however, had begun to feel it. The absence. Not just of the sun, but of something deeper—something older and more human. The kind of warmth you didn’t know you missed until your bones began to ache for it. He would walk the edge of Sector 4 in the early hours, when the city was at its quietest, and try to imagine the light that was supposed to be. A real sun would have cast shadows, made things golden, soft, alive. But Dema never changed. The towers remained colorless. The canals always hissed with filtered mist. The air tasted of steel and sleep. And every surface reflected back the same lifeless gray, as if the city had been built not to illuminate its people, but to erase them.

The morning was cold in the way that Dema always was—clinical, biting, engineered to keep the blood flowing but never let the bones forget. He stood at the water channel that bordered the Eastern Quadrant, mist rising from the filtration vents that ran beneath the concrete, and stared at the horizon, where the tower spires met the sky. His fingers toyed absently with the cord around his neck, drawing up the small glass vial that hung like an accusation against his chest. Inside was a sliver of thick gray smoke, swirling gently as if alive, collected from the morning’s reflection. The Vialists taught that the soul expelled impurities through self-examination, and those impurities, once contained in vials, were the measure of a citizen’s compliance. Pain, they said, was the proof of grace. Submission was the highest form of balance. And joy, true joy, was the enemy of order.

Clancy mouthed the teachings under his breath, not out of reverence, but habit. “Submission clears the mind. Pain cleanses the soul. Joy is disorder. Disorder is collapse.” The words sounded mechanical now, like instructions from a broken interface. He could barely feel them. Each phrase rang hollow in his mouth, less like a prayer and more like an infection that he hadn’t yet cured. He remembered being younger, sitting in the white-tiled chapel rooms reciting them with genuine fervor, trying to impress the Vialist instructors with the purity of his still voice, the sharpness of his posture. He had been afraid then—not of punishment, but of failure. Of being seen as impure. He wasn’t afraid anymore, and that, he thought, might be worse.

The bell chimed three tones—low, high, low. Reflection hour. Across the street, the red lights lining the path to Viviant Hall blinked on, guiding the residents like veins carrying blood to a beating, mechanical heart. Clancy turned from the canal and followed the crowd of expressionless bodies as they moved through the gray corridors toward their appointed suffering. No one spoke. No one ever spoke during reflections. Conversation, unless authorized or approved, was discouraged. Vialism taught that words could carry corruption, and that silence was a virtue. Only the bishops, cloaked in crimson, were permitted to speak freely.

Inside Viviant Hall, the scent of processed incense and burnt ozone coated the air. The ceilings stretched high, too high for comfort, with rows of synthetic chandeliers that hummed faintly in synchrony. The room was perfectly symmetrical—thirty-nine seats, thirteen rows, three aisles, all directed toward the Reflection Chamber, a raised, glass-walled podium where Bishop Andre stood in quiet meditation. His robe shimmered with scarlet wire-thread and optic lace, eyes closed behind his veil. His hands were folded precisely in front of him, resting just above the ceremonial blade at his waist—a reminder, ever-present, that peace in Dema was enforced not only through ideology, but force.

Clancy stood in line with the others, his vial clutched in one hand. The smoke inside had stilled now, as if even it understood the gravity of what was coming. His heart beat in dull, uneven thuds. There was a sound behind his ribs like the stirring of a bird in a cage. He wasn’t sure if it was fear or clarity.

“Who has denied their doubt today?” Andre asked. His voice was rich and measured, too smooth, like something fed through a filter. “Who among you has drowned their chaos and emerged reborn?”

No one responded. Not verbally. But silence here was its own form of assent. To stand still, to offer the vial without shaking, to avoid eye contact with the High Seat—these were the gestures of a compliant mind.

Clancy felt the heat behind his eyes before he knew what it meant. He looked down at the vial. The smoke had thickened. He hadn’t even realized his hand was trembling.

He wasn’t reborn.

He was unraveling.

He saw it then—not in a vision, not in a hallucination, but with the full clarity of waking thought. A path. A crack. A way out. The lines between obedience and survival blurred in his mind. Maybe they always had. But now, something inside him twisted with intention, and he did something unthinkable.

He stepped out of the line.

Just one foot, but it echoed like a scream.

A Vialist to his left turned sharply, lips parting in what might have been alarm or warning. The other residents remained still, frozen like statues, eyes locked forward. Bishop Andre did not react at first. He opened his eyes slowly and tilted his head.

“Citizen Clancy,” he said. “You have not offered your suffering.”

Clancy held up the vial. But something in the motion lacked conviction. He looked at it—this little glass prison of smoke and sin—and hated it. Not with rage. Not with fire. But with a quiet, creeping nausea that started at the back of his throat and spread like poison.

He opened his mouth to speak. But no words came.

Then, the room dimmed. It wasn’t the lights, it was something else—something heavier than light. A shadow moved behind Andre, too tall and too still, framed in the veil of energy that shimmered at the edge of the Reflection Chamber. Clancy didn’t need to see the face to know. Nico had arrived. The High Sufferer. The one they said could look into a man’s soul and drag out every false joy like rot from a wound. The one who had designed Vialism. 

Clancy’s knees almost buckled.

He forced himself back into the line.

He handed over the vial.

But something had changed. Not in the room. In him.

That night, after the stars blinked out, Clancy returned to his quarters and moved silently to the east wall. There, behind the insulation panel near the floor, he retrieved the object he wasn’t supposed to have. A journal. Real pages, real ink, bound in leather worn thin by trembling hands.

He opened it. Took the pen. And wrote:

Entry 001: I don’t think this is salvation anymore. I think it’s a cage. And I think I’m going to run.

Chapter Text

The corridors of Dema did not sleep.

They waited.

Even at night, when the black domes overhead cycled into simulated starlight and the inner lights dimmed to their soft, sterile glow, the city did not relent. It hummed quietly beneath the concrete, a mechanical heartbeat masked beneath silence. Every breath you took in Dema tasted filtered—sterile in a way that made you forget you ever breathed fresh air. Even your thoughts felt preselected, as though some unseen valve turned them off the moment they began to stir in forbidden directions.

Clancy walked deeper into the eastern quadrant, past checkpoints that no longer buzzed, past doorways sealed by protocol he'd long since memorized. He wasn't supposed to be here. No one was. The signs on the archway still hung crooked from their rivets: Renovation Pending. Restricted Access. Lies told in capital letters. This place had been abandoned long before he'd ever dared to question anything. Before he'd stopped believing the sermons. Before he began to see what was missing, instead of what was being fed to him.

The halls here smelled of damp cement and metal fatigue. Dust layered the corners, undisturbed for years. The walls bore marks where the red line of Vialist scripture had once pulsed through them, declaring Order and Obedience in their never-ending crawl. Now the light had gone dead, and the words were just faint scars beneath the surface. This part of Dema had been forgotten—not erased, but ignored, as if even the bishops feared what lingered in the cracks of their perfect doctrine.

Clancy's steps slowed as he approached the bend.

He had no map. No purpose, other than the ache in his chest that had grown louder over weeks of sleepless obedience. The ache that had become a voice, and the voice a suspicion: someone had made it out. Someone had come back.

The thought struck like blasphemy. A cold spike through the ribs. Vialism taught that departure was suicide. To leave Dema was to leave structure, and to leave structure was to embrace chaos—to step willingly into suffering with no purpose, no cleansing. The trench was death. The world outside was a shattered thing, poisoned and swarming. The only path forward was inward. To endure is to be purified. To obey is to ascend.

But that wasn't what he saw in the faces of the bishops.

Not lately.

He saw cracks. Their robes flowed as always, their voices as unwavering, but their eyes—Clancy had started noticing the twitch in Nico's left hand. The forced stillness. The delay between question and answer. The faintest humanity, flickering through the godhood they draped themselves in.

And now this pull. This whisper beneath his ribs, dragging him toward the edge of the quadrant like gravity itself had chosen sides.

He turned the corner and stopped.

The door ahead of him was cracked open.

It should not have been possible.

Every door in Dema was managed—tagged, timed, logged. A passage like this, in a restricted wing, would be sealed and reinforced. And yet this one hung ajar, like a mouth gasping open in sleep. A rectangle of deeper blackness within the dim gray of the corridor.

Clancy hesitated. His fingers hovered near the seam, afraid to touch it. Afraid the city would feel it. That sensors embedded in the steel would scream the moment he crossed the line.

But nothing stirred.

The hum of Dema continued, indifferent.

He pressed inward.

The hinges cried out with a low, rasping moan, the sound ricocheting into the dark like a siren underwater. He paused, listening. No boots. No alarms. Just the sound of his own heartbeat pounding behind his eyes.

Inside was a storage chamber. Or maybe a bunker. It was hard to tell. The overhead lights were long dead, but the floor-level emergency strips glowed faint blue, just enough to outline the shape of the space. Rows of corroded cabinets stood like tombstones, some half-open, others crumpled inward. Mold crept in streaks along the baseboards. The air was heavy, unmoving, tasting of dust and electricity.

And there, in the center of the floor, was the symbol.

Clancy froze.

It had been drawn by hand. Not etched into the floor like the geometric sigils of the bishops, not printed by approved decal. This was uneven, smudged, imperfect. Done hastily. With intention.

A crude half-circle, split with a jagged vertical line. Around it, scattered markings—shapes he didn't recognize, not part of any sanctioned alphabet. They looked almost tribal, or older. Like something whispered from mouth to mouth, instead of delivered by sermon.

Beside the symbol, barely visible in the gloom, lay a scrap of yellow fabric.

That color.

It struck him like sunlight to the eyes after years in a cave.

Not the muted saffron used in bishop regalia. Not the ceremonial ochre approved for grief rites and Vialist ascension. This was sharp, saturated—an outsider's yellow. Dirty, creased, marked with what might have been soot or dried blood. It looked real.

Clancy knelt slowly, heart jackhammering in his chest.

He reached for it, and the fabric surprised him. It was still warm. Not just from his hand—the warmth had been there when he touched it, as though it had been left minutes ago.

His thumb brushed something rough.

A word, hastily written with what looked like charcoal:

"Leave."

No context. No plea. No explanation.

Just that.

A command. A confession. A crack in the wall.

Clancy stared at the word for a long time.

Then he looked again at the circle. The line through it.

This isn't vandalism.

This is a signal.

His hand tightened around the cloth, slowly folding it, hiding it from view as if the very walls could see. He glanced around. No cameras here. No whispering machines. No echo of Nico's sermons through the vents.

Someone had been here. Someone not from Dema.

More than that—someone had returned. Had gotten past the Watchers, past the Border. Left something behind. Maybe for him. Maybe not. But the truth of it didn't care who it was meant for.

It just was.

And if someone could get in and out, then Dema's walls weren't truth. They were just concrete.

That realization came not as a thunderclap, but as a shudder. A cold quake through the scaffolding of his mind. He had believed them. For years. He had memorized every passage of Vialism, every mantra, every pattern of acceptable doubt and how to cleanse it. He had tried to believe that suffering was grace.

But here was something else. Something unsanctioned. Alive.

He stepped back from the symbol like it might burn him.

No alarms rang.

No footsteps echoed.

Just the city, sleeping, unaware that something ancient and dangerous had been ignited in one of its own.

Clancy turned and slipped back into the corridor, hand clutching the yellow fabric tight in his coat. He didn't run. He didn't need to. The danger wasn't behind him.

It was inside him now.

And it was growing.

As the door hissed shut behind him, he whispered the word—softly, reverently, like a prayer he wasn't supposed to know.

"Leave."

The first syllable of a language he had never been taught.

The first fracture in the glass of his world.

Chapter Text

He had tried to escape.

Not once. Four times.

The first had been foolish, impulsive — he'd slipped into the maintenance tunnels beneath the Sector 3 aqueducts, convinced he could find a drainage outlet that led beyond the walls. He was found in less than an hour. The punishment wasn't physical. He was reassigned to a lower-tier dormitory and placed under double Observation, which meant two pairs of eyes on him at all times, though he rarely saw them. The Observers watched through mirrored walls, drones in the ceiling, silent notes passed between Vialists.

The second attempt had been smarter. Calculated. He had gathered supply rations for six days, memorized the shift patterns of the watchers, and tried to climb a broadcast spire during the Hour of Diminished Surveillance — a brief interval during Bishop Lisden's weekly sermon when even the guards were required to pray. He made it to the top. But the perimeter lights shifted red as soon as he touched the outer panel. They had expected him.

The third attempt... he didn't like to think about it. That one had been close. Too close. And they had punished him in a new way: they erased a week of his memory. One morning he woke up with a fresh vial around his neck, still half-full, but no recollection of the Offering. No recollection of his own thoughts. Just a numb ache in the base of his skull and a strange, lingering feeling that something inside him had been scraped away.

This last escape had been the most desperate, the most reckless. The most painful. He'd planned it for weeks — traced guard rotations, smuggled wire into his dorm's ventilation, folded maps out of discarded meal wrappers. He'd built a harness, scaled the thermal exhaust shaft at the edge of the Reflection Sector, and dropped twenty feet into the sewage basin. He broke two ribs in the fall, swam through water thick with chemical residue, and reached the outer wall.

But someone had sealed the grating. Recently. Silently.

When they dragged him back through the compound, soaked and shivering, they didn't speak. He was given no interrogation, no sermon, no revised mantras. This time, the bishops wanted to be understood without words.

They broke his fingers.

One at a time. Under the supervision of a Vialist who hummed a hymn while watching the bones crack.

"Pain is clarity," the man whispered afterward, applying a sterile bandage. "In suffering, the soul purifies. You'll find the silence more instructive than ever now."

They didn't amputate. They needed him functional.

But they left the damage. They left the reminder.

Clancy could no longer make a fist.

He stopped pretending to plan an escape after that. Outwardly, he complied. He resumed his mantras, bowed at Offering, submitted to evaluations. He even spoke aloud during Prayer Communion—empty words, hollow voice. He wanted them to think he was breaking. That his fourth failure had taught him reverence. That his knees belonged to Dema now.

It was during one of the assigned meditation shifts, deep in the archives, that he saw the message.

The Archives were the oldest part of the city. No one visited them except assigned scholars and Reflectors on penance rotation. Long, narrow corridors stacked with data-slates and parchment replicas—history, or at least the version the bishops allowed. The walls were smooth, glassy white, like the rest of Dema, but the air here felt heavier. Ancient. Forgotten.

He was in aisle six of the west quadrant, supposedly reviewing early liturgical texts. His mind was elsewhere, as always—counting exits, testing floor vibrations, mapping the footfalls of guards.

And then he saw it.

A book had been pulled halfway from the shelf. That in itself was strange. Books were not to be disturbed unless during scheduled study. Curious, Clancy slid it the rest of the way out.

The spine was blank. Inside, the pages were brittle—handwritten copies of early Vialist sermons. But someone had hollowed out the center. Inside the hollowed-out cavity, folded neatly like contraband scripture, was a slip of torn yellow cloth. Not bright—aged and dusty—but unmistakable.

On it, inked in uneven, human lines:

east is up

That was all.

No signature. No markings. No sigils. Just those three words, ink bled into the fabric like a wound.

Clancy stared for so long his eyes began to water. He checked over his shoulder twice. No one. Just the stillness of ancient texts and flickering lumen-panels.

He didn't understand it.

But something about it vibrated inside him.

Not just the phrase. The act of it. Someone had smuggled this into the heart of Dema's controlled knowledge vault. Someone had risked erasure or worse to leave a message. For whom? How long ago?

Why now?

His fingers closed around the cloth. It felt warm, though it had no right to be. He didn't take it. He didn't dare. He closed the book slowly, memorized its placement, forced himself to continue his assigned texts. But the words were already carving a space in his thoughts, like roots working through old stone.

Later that night, back in his cell, he couldn't stop mouthing the phrase under his breath:

East is up. East is up. East is up.

It was nonsense. And yet—directional. Inverted. A contradiction of Dema's order. He didn’t understand it, but something about it felt like a crack in the architecture — not the buildings, but the architecture of control. East was never up. In Dema, directions were sacred, measured, geometric. "Up" was reserved for the bishops. For ascension. For death. For the Glorious Gone.

So why did it feel like freedom?

The next night, he returned to the Archives. The book was gone. The entire shelf replaced. Slate instead of paper. The floor had been swept. They knew.

And yet, the cloth remained in his mind.

Not a hallucination. Not static. A signal.

Chapter Text

Clancy had never seen real darkness before.

The corridors within Dema were always lit — not warmly, not welcoming, but consistently. A pale, synthetic luminescence spilled from vents and wall creases, casting no shadows, offering no rest. Even in the designated Sleep Chambers, the low glow never fully vanished. The light followed you like a leash. It told you that someone was always watching. That there was nowhere else to go.

But tonight — now — this part of the city was different.

He had never been this deep in the infrastructure. His knees were soaked in grime, and the faint hiss of distant coolant lines faded behind him as he crawled on elbows and forearms through a maintenance tunnel that wasn’t marked on any official schematic. It was tighter than he expected — narrower than a coffin in places, with piping that pulsed erratically against his ribs. Every so often he had to twist sideways to breathe. His clothes snagged. Metal teeth tore threads from his sleeves.

But forward was the only way. He could feel it — in the stale air, in the texture of the walls, in the tremor of anticipation vibrating through his teeth.

He moved like a shadow. Each footstep measured, each breath shallow. His body was tense with the mechanical rhythm of caution, but inside his mind, a storm had broken loose. He couldn’t stop hearing it — not voices, but a drum. Not literal, but urgent. It pounded behind his temples, deeper than sound.

East is up. East is up. East is up.

He whispered it now, again and again, like a prayer he wasn’t sure he believed in but had no choice but to follow. The artificial ceiling lights above flickered in precise, timed pulses — a grid of control, of illusion. But he no longer looked up. He didn’t want to be reminded that the sky here was fake. That the rules here had never been his.

He didn’t know what time it was. But if he looked over his shoulder, he could see the faint red glow of the internal grid still leaking in from where he’d entered. Behind him, Dema still breathed — slow, mechanical, indifferent.

Ahead of him, it was silent.

He’d been following the signs — crude, smeared symbols scrawled in yellow paint: arrows, handprints, a broken circle. They were old. Some faded almost to invisibility. But someone had left them. Someone who had been here before him. Someone who’d tried this same path.

Or made it.

Or died in it.

The tunnel opened at last, yawning into a long, sloped hallway whose floor was fractured from years of structural neglect. The air changed subtly. Less filtered. More dry. The overhead lights were broken here — shattered glass littered the sides, and the remaining fixtures blinked feebly, if at all. A single metal grate, warped from pressure, leaned loose from the wall. Beyond it, shadows moved like the ghosts of machines long since shut down.

Then he saw it.

The breach in the eastern wall.

Clancy’s breath caught.

It loomed at the far end of the corridor, marked not by signage, but by what was missing. No banners. No announcements. No pillars or Bishop creeds carved in the plaster. Just a wall — old and silent and forgotten by the system that tried so hard to pretend it didn’t exist. The breach wasn’t large — just wide enough for a man to crawl through on hands and knees. The metal had buckled inward, like something had once pushed from the outside. The edges were sharp, curled, stained with the weathering of time. The shape was irregular. Unapproved. Untouched.

And across the breach, smeared sloppily but unmistakably, was a handprint in yellow paint.
Dripping. Dried. Human.

Clancy stumbled closer. He reached up and hovered his palm over it, not touching. The fingers matched his size. The streaks were chaotic, imprecise. This hadn’t been painted with discipline — it had been slammed there. Pressed in the heat of desperation or triumph or both. A declaration.

I was here. I got out.

He pressed his own hand beside it. A second print. Fingers splayed wide. Yellow flaked onto his skin.

He didn’t breathe. He couldn’t. He dropped to his knees and bent forward, staring into the narrow breach.

Blackness.

There was no light on the other side.

No sound.

Just open space.

His heart raced. The walls around him pulsed with memory: of cold sermons, of reflections forced upon him, of the sanctity of pain. Of Nico. Of the endless mantras drilled into his skull since childhood. Suffering is purification. Joy is weakness. East is chaos.

He bit his tongue hard enough to taste copper.

Then, without further thought, he threw his satchel through the breach.

And followed.

The edges scraped his arms. One caught his cheekbone and opened a thin line of blood. He pushed harder, wincing as his ribs pressed against the sides. He exhaled, collapsed his chest. Moved an inch. Then another. His boots caught. He twisted. He swore.

The world narrowed to metal and heartbeat.

At first, he didn’t register it. The tunnel sloped upward, debris thicker now, metal warped by old damage. But then the air changed — sharp and real. Something alive in it. Cold. Not chilled by machinery, but by wind.

He reached the top of the slope and stopped.

Ahead, the tunnel’s end.

A massive opening in the outer wall — jagged and unnatural, like the city had split open here and tried to forget it. Reinforced metal peeled outward, as though something had clawed or burst its way through. The wound had been painted around with wild yellow strokes, as if someone had tried to make the destruction sacred.

He hesitated.

This was it. This was the threshold.

Beyond was not Dema. But what was beyond? The bishops had always spoken of it as chaos — disorder incarnate. Madness. They said the world outside was poisoned. That escape was betrayal.

But betrayal of what?

He stepped forward.

His hand trembled as he touched the rim of the breach. The metal felt wrong — real metal, not composite. The kind of material that oxidized, that decayed. He stepped through.

And staggered.

His foot caught on something — a root. Not wire. Not tubing. A tree root.

His eyes adjusted slowly, and suddenly he realized there were trees. Real ones. Dozens of them. Charred at the edges, but upright. Sparse. Distant. Breathing.

He kept walking.

Every step away from the wall was quieter. No hum. No powerlines. Just a soft wind threading through cracked branches. He felt light-headed. Drunk with disorientation. His hands ached. His vision trembled.

But he walked. Then he ran. As fast as his legs allowed. 

And after some distance — maybe a mile — he turned.

His eyes burned.  The sky above was a color he didn’t have a name for — not the perfect sterile blue of the dome-sky, but a deeper hue, saturated and endless, with clouds scattered like torn cloth. The wind moved through tall grass around him, carrying smells he didn’t recognize: wood, sap, iron, rot, life. There were birds. Actual birds, distant and high. The world wasn’t dead.

And then he saw it.

Dema.

In the distance now. Small. Dark. The skyline a jagged wound on the horizon — too symmetrical to be natural, too silent to be alive. Its towers rose in perfect geometry, spearing into the clouds like needles. A prison dressed as a city. Beautiful and sterile and dead.

He stared, mouth dry. He didn’t remember crossing the threshold. He hadn’t even realized he was free. His heartbeat thudded in his ears. It hit him all at once — a full-body awareness, like every cell in his body had been asleep and just now remembered how to feel. 

He dropped to his knees.

His fingers dug into the dirt, and it crumbled under his nails. It stained him. Marked him. He tasted iron in the back of his throat and didn’t know if it was blood or the air itself. His mouth was open. He was gasping.

He had lived twenty-eight years inside a world made of control — designed hallways, timed meals, tailored silence, dictated thought. Outside was not freedom. It was overload. Texture and sound and color that hadn’t been approved by any committee. Everything unsorted. Everything wrong.

Everything right.

He laughed once — a sound that turned into a sob, then back into laughter again. His body didn’t know what it was feeling. His chest shook. His vision blurred. His mouth twisted in something like joy, but broken at the edges. Ugly. Human.

He was terrified.

He was alive.

This was the cost of escaping Dema: not comfort, not triumph — but this flood of truth. Truth that clawed at the skin and made his every breath feel stolen.

Clancy pressed his forehead to the ground.

For a moment, he forgot the bishops. Forgot the vials. Forgot the Doctrine and the chants and the mirrorless mornings. He was here. In it.

“I made it out,” he said aloud, just to hear it. “I'm out.”

No one answered.

Chapter Text

The sky was too real. The silence wasn’t silent.

The sky had depth to it — not the blank ceiling of Dema’s artificial dome, but a terrifying, endless expanse of motion. Clouds drifted without symmetry. Sunlight struck at angles too bright, too fast. The first sunrise Clancy saw after escaping hit him like a slap — not warm, not golden, not triumphant. Just blinding, washing over the trees and slicing through the mist like something violent.

It overwhelmed his senses.

Wind rustled the trees like shifting skin. Birds shrieked without melody, without symmetry, like children playing with a language they hadn’t yet learned. The sky creaked — yes, actually creaked — with the press of weather rolling overhead. It cracked with thunder and whispered with cloud-mist. Nothing was still.

Even the ground made sound — dry twigs snapping, wet soil sucking against the soles of his boots. Clancy tried walking softly at first, but there was no soft way to exist here. Every movement echoed. Every breath felt like a trespass.

He covered his ears more than once in the first few hours, crouched beside moss-stained rocks, shoulders hunched against the open air as if it could smother him. But it never did.

It just kept going.

He dropped to the forest floor and curled there, arms over his face, his breath coming fast. The light wasn’t even hot — just sharp. Sharp in a way he couldn’t process. In Dema, light had been regulation. Uniform, sterile. You woke to it. You slept beneath it. You never questioned it because it never changed.

But this light — it moved, grew, shifted. And it touched everything.

Every leaf, every root, every fleck of dirt glistened with dew that reflected dozens of micro-suns. The air was full of insects that buzzed and clicked with frantic purpose. Twigs snapped in the distance like gunfire. Shadows danced on their own.

Clancy sat there, knees drawn to chest, and thought: “This is too much. This is too much. This is too much.”

His heart wouldn’t slow down for hours.

By the second day, the anxiety had hardened into something else. Not panic. Not awe.

Dread.

He couldn’t stop moving. Not because he had somewhere to go — he didn’t — but because stillness felt like exposure. The world out here didn’t believe in stillness. Everything moved. Trees swayed. Grasses bowed and rose again. Ants traced lines through the underbrush. The sky never looked the same twice. It never sat still long enough for him to believe it was real.

Even the silence was loud. Wind came in bursts that felt like breath on the back of his neck. The birds sang in chords that were too chaotic to follow. And sometimes — only sometimes — there was something else. A crunch in the leaves. A flicker of motion behind the trees. Just enough to keep his paranoia alive.

"You're free," he told himself aloud. "This is what you wanted."

But his voice sounded foreign. Dry. Uncertain.

He missed the walls. He hated that he missed them.

He missed the ceilings that glowed gently at night. The hum of ducts. The quiet ritual of cleansing his vial. The certainty of routine. The weight of knowing who you were supposed to be, even if it hurt.

Out here, there were no edges.

And Clancy had always needed edges.

He didn’t sleep. Not really. A few minutes at a time, sitting upright, head against the bark. His dreams were full of corridors that never ended, bishop masks melting into branches, the sound of a vial shattering on stone.

When he woke, it was always to birdsong that felt like screaming.

He stopped keeping track of the days. Not because they were hard to count — the world had a normal sun cycle, a real one, honest and brutal — but because they didn’t mean anything anymore. No more assigned hours. No morning cycles. No Reflection Periods. No curfews. No offerings.

He kept reaching for a schedule that didn’t exist, waiting for a tone that never came. In Dema, even your despair had a rhythm. Here, Clancy didn’t know when to sleep. Or why.

He had been trained, for years, to measure his worth by pain: how much he could process, how cleanly he could harvest it into vialized submission. Now, stripped of that structure, his body still ached with expectation. Reflexive grief. Lingering guilt.

He tried to reflect out of habit — to find some sharp corner of sorrow to extract and offer to no one — but the silence in his head was unfamiliar. Not peaceful. Not yet. Just… blank. A chalkboard scrubbed too clean.

He thought it would feel like freedom. It didn’t.

It felt like floating without skin.

He curled up under a cluster of pine needles and wept until his chest locked.

By the third night, he realized he was terrified of choice.

The forest forked in a dozen directions. A dry riverbed here. A steep hill there. Broken fencing wrapped in ivy. Each path offered a promise, but none of them made sense. There was no map. No signals. And worse — no approval.

Back in Dema, choice had been illusion. You were told when and how to move. You were praised for obedience. But out here, he had to decide. When to rest. What to eat. Where to walk. And every decision felt like sin. Not because he feared punishment, but because he didn’t know how to want things.

He stood at a trailhead for three hours once, just trying to decide which direction looked “righter.” There were no signs. No indicators. Only dirt, root, and wind.

He chose west.

Then turned back fifteen minutes later and screamed at himself until his throat went raw.

He rationed food poorly. Ate one nutrient bar on the first day and saved the second until the fourth, when he was too dizzy to walk in a straight line. His stomach ached from drinking river water filtered through a sock. He broke a fingernail slipping down a ravine and spent an hour trying not to vomit from the smell of rotting moss.

He found a trail of yellow cloth tied to tree branches — frayed, weather-worn. It led him in circles. When he saw the same broken tree stump three times in one day, he sat down beside it and wept into the dirt.

“There’s no path,” he whispered. “They lied. There’s no path.”

But part of him didn’t believe that.

Part of him couldn’t.

On the fifth day — he thought it was the fifth — he stumbled into a clearing just before dusk. The sun hung low behind the hills, bleeding orange through the pines. There, in the grass, was a rusted metal pole — an old signpost, bent at the base, long since stripped of whatever it once marked.

Tied to it with blackened string was a tattered yellow cloth.

It rippled in the breeze, and on it — barely visible beneath mud and ash — was the faded outline of a vulture.

Clancy dropped to his knees.

He didn’t cry this time. Didn’t laugh, either. Just stared at it like it was the first real thing he’d seen since he’d left. It wasn’t a signpost. It was a heartbeat. A fingerprint. A scar.

Someone had been here.

His throat closed.

He camped there that night, next to the old sign, wrapped in his coat. His skin itched from insect bites. His boots had begun to come apart at the heel. The rain was a constant threat — not clean, not warm, but cold and filled with dirt. He’d tried to construct a shelter from broken branches, but the wind tore it apart. The second attempt was better. Less ambitious. A lean-to beneath a sloping rock wall. It didn’t leak — much.

That night, thunder peeled the sky open.

He sat huddled in his crude shelter, arms wrapped around his knees, listening to the storm scream through the trees. Every crack of lightning flashed shapes in the dark — silhouettes that weren’t there, or maybe had just moved too quickly.

He kept his journal open in his lap, though the pages had started to warp from dampness. Somewhere in the margin, he had once scribbled:

“Fear is their language. Speak something else.”

He stared at that sentence until the storm passed. Until the blackness thinned into gray.

Until he stopped shaking.

Chapter Text

The Trench was deeper than he imagined.

Not a single path, but a winding, pulsing artery. The walls of the ravine rose on either side like closing jaws, jagged and indifferent, stained with old watermarks and mineral streaks. Sunlight filtered down in narrow shafts, fractured by windblown dust and curling vines that clawed their way across the stone like veins on the skin of a dying world. The silence was not peaceful. It had density. The kind that pressed against the temples and made the back of your teeth ache. Every breath Clancy took echoed just slightly wrong. Like he was trespassing in a place older than memory.

He walked with a kind of practiced disbelief. Every step, every turn, he expected Dema to reassert itself — for the city to rise up behind some ledge, to snap him back like a trap, like a dream ending mid-sentence. That was the thing with freedom: after a lifetime in captivity, you didn’t trust it when the door finally opened. You looked for the strings. You braced for the slap.

Then he finally saw them.

Not ghosts — not quite. But they stood too still to be ordinary men. Figures high above, perched like vultures along the knife-edge cliffs that cut across the sky, dark against the cloud-smeared sun. For a long moment, Clancy didn’t even trust his eyes. He squinted up through the tangled lattice of branches that clawed at the canyon walls, chest heaving from the trek, hands trembling from the cold and the quiet.

They didn’t move.

Just watched.

Too many of them to count. Hoods drawn. Silhouettes shaped by cloth, but not like the ceremonial robes worn by the bishops. These were loose, practical, battle-worn. One had a bright strip of yellow tied around their arm, fluttering slightly in the breeze. Another had something painted across their chest — a rough smear of color, not artful but deliberate.

Banditos.

The word rang in his head like a bell struck underwater.

His first instinct was to hide. He ducked slightly, one hand reaching for the rock wall beside him — not because he feared them like he feared the bishops, but because his mind had no frame for what he was seeing. The human mind doesn’t gasp when it sees something frightening. It gasps when it sees something it doesn’t understand. And in that moment, what Clancy saw didn’t align with anything he had been taught in Dema.

But even as his body tensed, his mind reeled. It wasn’t just desperation anymore. Not just markings left behind or stories passed in code. Not just signs scratched into broken doors or arrows chalked onto the backs of old signage. This was confirmation. Flesh and blood. Watching him.

Watching for him?

No — that felt too much like belief. And belief, after Dema, was a dangerous drug. He’d believed before. Believed the bishops knew best. Believed the Offering was sacred. Believed his pain had purpose.

Still, he couldn’t shake it — that pull in his gut. That magnetic awareness that these were the people the bishops feared. He had no name for it, no doctrine, but he knew. These were not just rebels. They were a crack in the machine. A glitch in the wall of control. The opposite of Vialism.

They stood above him now like saints carved into the cliffside, not divine but alive. Present. Free.

He tried to stand taller, to make himself seen. His mouth opened to speak, to call, to something—but the wind cut through the ravine again, colder than before. It howled along the canyon floor and brought with it the unmistakable rhythm of hoofbeats.

Clancy stopped walking.

He knew. Without looking.

He knew it the same way a child knows thunder means lightning. The same way prey senses the predator, even before the snap of twigs.

The air thickened, soured. The silence changed shape.

He turned.

And there he was.

He sat astride a white horse, pale as bone, unnaturally still despite the rough terrain. The animal’s eyes were a glassy, void and black, like something half-sculpted from death. 

But it was the rider that froze Clancy’s lungs.

Tall, lean, cloaked in crimson that swallowed all light. A long coat, buttoned to the throat. And that face — or what passed for one — expressionless, blank. Somehow still watching him.

Not a bishop. The bishop.

Nico.

Clancy's legs moved backward without thought. The ravine felt suddenly too narrow, the sky above too far away. His breath came short and fast, like he was sucking air through cloth. He reached for something — anything — in his mind to anchor himself.

You’re free now.
You escaped.

You don’t belong to them anymore.

But the words rang hollow. Like reciting prayers in a language you never believed.

The horse moved forward — one step. Then another.

Nico never spoke.

He didn’t have to.

Clancy’s chest burned. His vision swam. Something was crawling beneath his skin, threading into his muscles, his thoughts. Obey. Return. Be seen. Be known. Be corrected. It wasn’t language exactly — more like pressure. More like inevitability.

Nico dismounted.

He didn’t walk — he advanced, smooth, unhurried, inevitable. There was no sound but the quiet crush of gravel under his boots. Clancy trembled. His hands twitched at his sides. He wanted to scream. To run. But it was like trying to move underwater.

Then Nico reached out.

Clancy flinched — but the hand landed gently. Deliberately. Fingers like ice slid beneath his jaw and curved against his neck. Not a choke. Not violence.

Something worse.

Ownership.

And in that moment, Clancy broke.

The touch wasn’t cold. It was worse than that. It was gentle. Familiar. 

He didn’t understand how. But it was the kind of familiarity that lived in the marrow of his bones. Like he’d felt this before—in dreams, maybe, or in the sterile comfort of Dema’s dormitories, in the silence of the temples, in the rhythm of the mantras whispered just before he swallowed his daily vial.

The pressure on his skin deepened, just a fraction—but it echoed through him like a tremor. Clancy’s knees buckled. His mind folded in on itself.

His thoughts scattered like birds. The pain in his legs vanished. The fear curled into something quieter. His shoulders slumped. His eyelids grew heavy. The panic gave way to calm — a soft, warm stillness, as if he’d finally surrendered to something vast and inevitable.

Maybe I was wrong to leave.
Maybe I misunderstood.

Maybe this is peace.

He felt himself turn — not physically, not yet, but spiritually. Like a tide being pulled back toward shore. The trench behind him — the path he had fought to carve — blurred. Didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Not out here. Not in the wilderness.

There is no outside.

There is no you without them.

Clancy's thoughts began to dissolve. Not violently, but with eerie grace. Like ice melting in warm water.

His name slipped first.

Then his purpose.

Then his reason for leaving.

What was he running from? The trench? The bishops? Himself?

What had freedom even bought him, out here, in this raw and brutal world? Hunger? Pain? Madness?

But under Nico’s touch, all of it went still. The chaos, the ache, the weight of thought—it hushed. There was nothing left but clarity.

You were wrong to leave, said the silence in his skull. This is peace. This is safety. This is who you are meant to be.

And the worst part was: it didn’t sound like Nico’s voice.
It sounded like his own.

Like a part of him that had been waiting—patiently, quietly—for him to break.

His eyes stung. Not with tears. But with the sudden, tragic beauty of it all. The beauty of surrender. The cruel elegance of order. Of letting go.

His body moved like it knew what to do. Like it had always belonged to this moment. Like this was a return, not a betrayal.

There was only him, and the hand, and the awful, exquisite stillness that bloomed inside him like a flower fed by years of fear.

He was being erased.

And for one, shattering moment, Clancy welcomed it.

The inside of his skull quieted.

The noise was gone.

No fear.
No memory.
No doubt.

Just stillness.

For the first time since he’d left Dema, he felt understood. Not seen, but known. Like the man behind the mask had peered through the screaming mess of his mind and said: You’re not meant for this chaos. Let me take the weight.

And Clancy—
He wanted to.

He felt his body lean forward.

Felt his legs begin to move, not with urgency, but with surrender. One step. Then another. He stepped toward Nico. Toward the crimson. One foot. Then the other.

He didn’t hear the gravel under his boots. He didn’t feel the air anymore.

The trench was narrowing as he followed Nico — tall stone walls crowding in, pressing like jaws, each footstep soundless beneath the weight of submission. The bishop’s form atop the horse led him forward, a vibrant silhouette against the ash-colored light, coat trailing like blood upon the snow. Clancy’s eyes never left him. Couldn’t.

Something in him had fallen so quiet it scared him — or would have, if fear still lived in him.

This is better, he thought numbly. This is easier.
No choices. No pain. Just obedience.

Each step felt lighter. Not in the way that comes with freedom, but in the way a sinking body feels weightless just before it drowns. Nico never turned back to check. He didn’t need to. He knew.

This is better.
This is quieter.
This is—

Wrong.

The thought tore through the haze like a scream underwater. Distant but real. Then the sky above shimmered — not with sound, but with color.

It didn’t appear so much as rupture the world.

From the high cliffs above the ravine, a flutter — soft, uncertain — caught the corner of Clancy’s vision. He blinked once. A second time.

Yellow.

It fell in silence at first. A single petal. Then two. Then a hundred. Then more — a rain of color that had no place in this dead, ashen place. Bright, golden, defiant. Like sunlight torn into pieces and scattered by a rebel god.

The trench resisted it. Clancy felt it resist — like the air thickening, like the world itself trying to reject what couldn’t be controlled.

He stopped walking.

He didn’t even choose to. His legs stopped on their own, trembling like something stunned awake. The petals touched his shoulders. His arms. His hair. They clung to him, weightless but electric, like static before a storm.

The first breath he drew in their presence burned.

Not with pain — with clarity.

His mind staggered. He blinked hard. Reality seemed to fracture in that moment, the stillness of obedience breaking like glass underfoot. It hurt. It hurt worse than anything he’d felt since leaving Dema — the raw, blinding pain of coming back into himself.

Clancy gasped.

The petals were falling harder now, like soft hail, like a message, like a weapon. They gathered at his feet. He could feel Nico's influence recoil from them, like shadow from flame. The bishop didn’t turn, but Clancy could feel the weight of his attention shift — not in sight, but in pressure, like a spotlight suddenly moving off him.

And for the first time since Nico had touched him —
Clancy could feel his own heartbeat.

It pounded. Wild, unfamiliar, alive.

He staggered backward.

“No,” he whispered, hoarse. “No. No—”

The word grew teeth as he said it.
He wasn’t sure who it was for. Himself? Nico? The trench?

The petals fell around him like golden snowfall. Some stuck to his face, damp with sweat. Others scattered down his shoulders and arms. He looked up.

And there — at the top of the cliff, shadowed against the gray sky — figures.

Blurry. Distant. But human. Real.

Clancy turned back to Nico.

The bishop sat atop the horse, still as ever, a statue of control, the world dull around him. But now, with yellow in the air, his outline seemed thinner. Faltering. Less divine.

It was loud, sudden, alive — the sound of his own breath coming fast, erratic, real. Not the slow, tranquil rhythm of submission. He felt the weight of his body return all at once. The soreness in his thighs. The bruises on his ribs. The ache behind his eyes.

Another petal touched the back of his neck.

Right where Nico’s hand had been.

Clancy flinched violently.

The horse took a step forward, but it no longer felt like gravity. The pull was there — but weaker now, distorted, like a magnet passed over cracked glass. Clancy could feel it clawing for him, trying to re-thread itself into the places it had unraveled from.

But something had shifted.

He could hear the sound of his own blood. The wind in the canyon. The strange, subtle human noise of someone breathing in fear.

His own.

Clancy stepped back.

Nico reached out — again — but this time it was different.

This time, Clancy moved.

He turned, stumbling, crashing into the canyon wall before pushing off and running. His body screamed at him — muscles torn, breath shallow, mind howling — but he didn’t care.

Run. Run. Run.

And far above him, perched on the high ridges of the cliff, were shapes he could barely see — half-formed, shadows wrapped in scarves and yellow fabric, watching in silence.

They had thrown the petals.

He didn’t know who they were.
He didn’t know if they would help.
He didn’t even know if he could escape.

He ran until the world blurred, until his legs were no longer limbs but engines of desperation. Until the trench seemed to curl around him like a serpent, narrowing, widening, collapsing, expanding — no longer geography but hallucination. The only thing that stayed real were the yellow petals, still clinging to his clothes, caught in his curls, brushing his cheeks like soft hands urging him to live.

He didn’t know how far he ran. The light changed. His breath cracked in his throat. His boots slipped on wet stone. He fell once, skinned his palms, pushed up, and kept going.

The pull of Nico was gone, but the aftertaste of his touch still pulsed in his veins. A phantom pressure on his neck, like the collar of a memory he couldn’t fully shake.

He broke into a clearing where the valley cracked open, stone walls parting to reveal a narrow stream carving through the canyon floor — clear water slicing the dust like a living thing. He stumbled toward it without thinking, knees buckling, muscles locking. One last step, and the world tilted.

He collapsed.

The stream took him with a splash and a sharp gasp, the water shock-cold against his skin, slicing through the heat of exhaustion like a blade. His arms flailed once, useless. Then stillness.

The last thing he saw before the darkness was the sky — gray, stretched thin and wide above the trench.
And falling from it — one last yellow petal.

Then everything went black.

Chapter Text

He came back to himself slowly.

Not all at once, like in the dreamless jolts of terror that used to wrench him awake in Dema's sleep chambers. No. This was different. This was like crawling up from the bottom of something deep — as though he had been buried in warmth, in silence, in something thicker than sleep, and only now was his mind clawing its way back to the surface.

The first sensation was sound. Distant, muted. Wind brushing against fabric. Murmurs, low and reverent. The soft, brittle crackle of fire. The rustle of bodies in stillness.

Then came scent. Smoke and damp earth, dry leather, faint copper — the living smells of a world Dema scrubbed clean and sterile. This place smelled imperfect, his senses caught on it like his lungs had forgotten how to breathe in anything but filtered air.

The third was pain. Dull, everywhere. His limbs were leaden, muscles strung too tight. His mouth was dry as ash. There was a throbbing in his left shoulder, a sharp sting in one palm — a scrape, maybe. He couldn't remember. Memory was still slippery, like trying to grasp oil.

Then — finally — came sight.

He opened his eyes, and the world swam into focus through a veil of sunlight filtered by canvas. Not stone, not glass, not the flickering fluorescence of Control. The ceiling above him was fabric — worn, sun-bleached, patched in places. A tent.

He was in a tent.

Clancy blinked. The light made him wince. He shifted slightly and realized there was a weight on top of him — a blanket, thick and scratchy, tucked around his shoulders. Beneath him, layers of cloth and animal hide softened the ground.

And then — movement.

Eyes.

He wasn't alone.

There were people around him — at least half a dozen, maybe more. Quiet, unmoving. Watching. They sat or stood just beyond arm's reach, their bodies dimly lit in the amber glow of filtered sun and firelight. Most wore scarves or bandanas over their faces, faded and dust-streaked. Many had smudges of yellow somewhere on them — strips of cloth, paint across their cheeks, braided thread around their fingers.

They didn't speak. They just watched him.

Clancy's heart lurched — a gut-deep reflex of panic that made his hands twitch under the blanket. The faces weren't familiar. The silence wasn't comforting. His instincts, shaped by years of conditioning, told him to scan for uniformity, for symbols, for ranks and robes.

There were none.

Just people. Just strangers. Real, breathing, alive.

He sat up too fast.

Pain flared across his chest and into his skull. The world tilted, the tent warping, the firelight spinning around him like he'd fallen into some new orbit. A noise escaped his throat — part cough, part groan.

Several of the watchers stirred. One reached out as if to steady him.

And then — a voice.

“No, no— he’s alright,” someone said softly. “Just give him space.”

The voice was low. Measured. Calm in the way rivers can be calm — deceptively, with a current underneath.

The speaker stepped forward, parting the others. 

He wasn’t the tallest — not the loudest. In fact, he hadn’t spoken at all. But something about him pulled the eye and held it, as if the space around him listened when he moved.

He looked worn — but not broken. Like something tempered. His jacket was the same earth-toned brown most of the strangers wore, stitched in places with mismatched thread, marked by grease and ash and sun. The collar was frayed. A yellow bandana was tied tightly around his neck, its ends faded and sun-bleached, but clean. A torch was strapped across his back.

His face was sharp in the way of someone who didn’t speak more than necessary. Jaw tense, but not clenched. Lips pressed in a neutral line. His cheekbones were high, dusted faintly with ash, his nose hooked. His hair was cut short on the sides, longer on top — wild but flattened by a hat he now held in his hand. Sweat clung to his temples. Strands of hair curled against his skin. He looked younger than Clancy expected, but his eyes — deep, dark, steady — made him seem much older.

He looked directly at Clancy. Their eyes met. Something passed between them — not understanding, not recognition, but curiosity, tempered by caution.

“Clear out,” the man said, not unkindly. “Give him a minute.”

The others didn't argue. One by one, they filed out, the tent flap rustling behind them. Some glanced back. Most didn't. Clancy caught flashes of yellow scarves, makeshift armor, sunburnt skin. They were... people. Fighters, maybe. Survivors. Not bishops. Not Dema. But not safe, either. Not yet.

The tent was quiet now.

The man stood far enough away not to threaten, just close enough that Clancy couldn't pretend he wasn't there.

"You were out for two days," he said simply. "We found you near collapse. Do you remember?"

Clancy shook his head — then winced. His whole body hurt. His throat was raw. His limbs felt like sandbags tied to strings.

"I remember... running," he rasped.

The man gave a single nod.

"Yeah. You were." A pause. "You ran from a Bishop."

Clancy swallowed hard. He could still feel Nico's fingers on his neck — phantom and cold and impossibly intimate. The memory pulsed like a bruise in the dark. The yellow petals, the cliff, the sky — it all swam through his mind in jagged, disconnected flashes. It didn't feel real. None of it did.

But this — the warmth, the tent, the steady presence of this man — did.

"Easy," the man said. "You're safe here. For now."

Safe.

The word hit Clancy like cold water. He didn't know what that meant anymore. What safe even looked like. All his life, safety had been surveillance. Monotony. Order. Dema told them they were safe even as it caged them. Freedom had no shape to him — just an edge, something you could fall off of if you weren't careful.

His voice came out rough, barely a whisper. "Where am I?"

"A Bandito encampment. Temporary. We don't stay long in one place."

Clancy blinked at him.

Banditos.

They were real. Not just ideas. Not just drawings in the margins of forbidden books. Not just a word whispered behind closed doors. He was here, with them. Alive.

Alive?

Clancy shifted, winced, and tried to sit up. The man moved first.

Not quickly. Not dramatically.

He crouched beside him — fluid, practiced — and extended one hand. 

Clancy took it.

The man’s grip was firm, calloused, warm. It grounded him more than the earth beneath him.

“You ran far,” the man said softly. His voice matched his presence — low, even, carried on the wind like smoke that never quite vanishes. “Most don’t make it this far on their own.”

“I wasn’t… I didn’t know where I was going,” Clancy muttered, breath ragged. “I just… ran.”

“You ran in the right direction,” he said, slight smirk playing on his lips.

Clancy stared at him, searching for something to hold on to — a name, a title, something.

“Who are you?” he asked. “You—You stopped him, didn’t you? ”

The man gave a small nod, then reached up to untie the scarf from his neck. It fluttered slightly, frayed at the edges. He handed it to Clancy.

“Yellow keeps them at bay,” the man said. “It doesn’t destroy them, but it disrupts their control. Confuses their influence.”

Clancy gripped it in both hands. The fabric was worn, soft, soaked with sweat and memory.

“And you?” Clancy asked again, almost afraid of the answer.

The man looked at him directly.

“They call me the Torchbearer,” he said.

Clancy swallowed. 

“I’m Clancy,” he said, voice unsteady. “From Dema.”

The Torchbearer nodded once, smiling.

“We know,” he said. Then, after a beat:
“You’re not there anymore.”

Something in Clancy broke then — not violently, but quietly. A thread that had been pulled too tight, for too long. His shoulders shook once. He didn’t cry. He just sat, scarf in his lap, and breathed.

With that, the Torchbearer stood up and turned toward the tent flap.

“You should rest,” he said over his shoulder. “When you’re ready, we’ll talk. There’s a lot you need to know.”

Then he was gone.

Clancy sat in the quiet, surrounded by the hum of life outside — voices, fire, wind — and tried to understand how, for the first time, he wasn’t alone in a world that wasn’t Dema.

And for the first time in his life, no one wanted anything from him.

They just let him be.

Chapter Text

It took time for him to gather the will to move.

Time to shake the numbness from his limbs, the static from his thoughts, the ache from his chest where breath still felt unfamiliar. He didn't know how long he sat there after the Torchbearer left — how long he watched the fire sway with its own small heartbeat or traced the canvas seams of the tent with unfocused eyes. The world had narrowed into something fragile. He was afraid that stepping into it might break it — or worse, that he might.

But eventually, the stillness became unbearable.

He pushed off the blankets. The chill of the air hit him like a surprise. The honest kind of cold that belonged to a world that didn't care whether you survived or not. His boots were beside his bed, worn but clean. Someone had scrubbed the mud from the leather. He didn't know who.

Clancy stood up. It wasn't graceful. His legs felt too long for his body, his balance wrong — like someone who'd only ever practiced walking inside small rooms was now trying to move inside an entire world. His boots scraped softly on the tent's layered flooring, and the light that seeped in from the flap was harsh in its warmth, as though the sun didn't understand how to be subtle.

When he stepped out of the tent, the light stabbed into his eyes.

He froze.

Not because of the brightness, but because of the life.

The camp was set in a clearing surrounded by steep rock formations, somewhere between forest and canyon, with brush and bramble growing stubbornly from cracks in the earth. It wasn't large — maybe a dozen tents at most, all made of canvas and stitched plastic, all arranged in no discernible pattern. A small fire crackled in the center, surrounded by low crates and stones used as seats. Beyond it, a rocky slope rose into hills dusted with dry grass, with sun-bleached trees gripping at the edges. Yellow flags fluttered quietly on makeshift poles, the color vivid and defiant even in the dust.

But it wasn't the landscape that made him pause. It was the people.

They were everywhere. Moving, laughing, talking — not loudly, but freely. No one whispered. No one flinched. Some were tending a fire, others cleaning weapons or washing clothes in metal basins. Some sat cross-legged in a loose circle, humming along to a quiet melody played on a battered string instrument. A few were painting — wide strokes of yellow pigment across fabric, stone, even each other's hands.

Clancy had never seen anything like it. It was messy, chaotic, alive in a way that Dema never allowed. There were no ranks, no lines, no bells to dictate the hour. No curfews. No watching eyes.

Dema taught him to survive behind his eyes. To move without attracting attention. To exist only in relation to Control. Every interaction was transactional — monitored, mapped, corrected. There was no vocabulary for what he felt now, under the gaze of these strangers who expected nothing from him.

That, somehow, was the most terrifying part.

He found a smooth boulder and sat down. It faced a small firepit where a few banditos sat cross-legged, talking in low voices. They didn't include him, but neither did they move away. They let him exist near them. Let him listen. Let him breathe.

He stared at the flames.

It didn't even look like the fires in Dema, those blue-white control burns that licked air without warmth. This was fire with color. Fire with scent. Fire that ate, that danced, that gave and took in the same breath.

Then — a voice.

"You look like you haven't eaten in days."

Clancy turned.

A young woman stood a few feet away, holding a battered tin bowl in her hands. She had a smear of yellow across her brow, like a stripe of sunlight had been dragged down her face and dried there. Her jacket was too big for her shoulders, and her boots looked like they'd been stitched a dozen times. She had a long scar across her lip, but her smile was easy.

Clancy didn't know what to say.

"I'm Kaia," she added, stepping closer. "Here."

She extended the bowl. Steam curled up from it — lentils, beans, wild greens, something spicy and savory. He could smell herbs. Something acidic. Earthy. It smelled like freedom.

He hesitated.

She didn't push. Just stood there, holding the bowl like it was the most normal thing in the world to give food to a stranger. 

Clancy took it with both hands.

His fingers trembled. He wasn't sure why — maybe it was hunger, maybe it was everything else. His voice barely worked.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," she said. "There's more if you need it. Or water. You're probably dehydrated."

He nodded.

Kaia didn't linger. Just gave a small, warm smile and turned back toward a nearby group, her yellow scarf fluttering behind her like a flag.

Clancy sat there for a long moment, staring into the bowl.

No one had ever given him food without demand. Without duty. In Dema, every calorie was counted. Every ration connected to behavior, performance, obedience. Food was reward. Privilege. Control.

This was just... kindness.

It was terrifying.

He raised a spoon to his mouth and tasted the stew. It was slightly burnt. The bread was dry. It was the best thing he'd ever tasted.

He didn't notice when the tears began — only when one dropped, warm, into the food. He wiped it away quickly, glancing around. But no one stared. No one laughed.

He ate slowly. Carefully.

Around him, life continued. An they were all so human.

Laughing, shouting, stumbling, resting. He saw a girl sitting cross-legged by a fire, sketching something on cloth with charcoal. Another pair sparred with wooden sticks, grinning through bruises. Someone played a tune on a broken guitar — a few strings missing, but still music.

He watched all of it with quiet awe. Like a foreigner stepping into a land he had once believed didn't exist.

For the first time, Clancy realized the cost of escape wasn't only the fear and pain of flight. It was the grief of realizing how much had been stolen from him before he even knew to miss it. The simple act of kindness, a stranger's warmth, the easy trust of communal life — all of it had been excised from Dema with surgical precision. And he had lived within that absence as though it were natural.

By the time the sun had sunk behind the sharp shoulders of the cliffs, the world had grown unfamiliar again. Not dangerous — not like Dema — but strange in its openness. Strange in its lack of watchful towers and constant surveillance. There were no loudspeakers here, no curfews pulsing like veins through the streets, no slow-moving Eyes drifting overhead, scanning for deviations.

There was only the murmuring wind, the dry rustle of canvas tents, the scent of charred pine and smoke curling up from half a dozen fires lit across the camp. And voices. Soft ones. Laughter, too — real laughter — the kind that didn't sound like a trap.

Then, he spotted him by a campfire near the base of a large outcrop.

The Torchbearer.

He sat by a fire near the far edge of camp, close to the canyon wall. Alone. A single log served as his seat, worn smooth from use. His figure was outlined in the golden glow of the flames, hands moving rhythmically as he worked a whetstone over a blade. The motion was hypnotic, deliberate. He wasn't lost in thought, Clancy realized — he was attuned to it, completely.

For reasons Clancy couldn't name, he drifted closer.

The Torchbearer didn't look up at first. Just continued sharpening, the sound of steel against stone a quiet rasp beneath the fire's crackle. Only when Clancy lowered himself carefully onto the opposite end of the log did the Torchbearer pause and glance sideways, expression unreadable. 

 A long silence settled between them — not tense, not awkward. Just still.

"Didn't think you'd be up for wandering yet," the Torchbearer said eventually, his voice low and steady.

Clancy watched the fire. "I didn't plan to."

The Torchbearer gave a quiet, thoughtful hum, and returned to sharpening the blade. "Sometimes that's the only way to get through this place. Step, then breathe. Step again. Let the path make you."

"I don't know where the path leads," Clancy admitted. "I don't know anything."

The Torchbearer didn't laugh, though he almost could have. "You know more than most. You made it out of Dema."

Clancy's jaw tightened at the name. It sounded wrong spoken aloud, like a word that should only exist inside thoughts, hushed and locked away. "I still feel it. Even out here. Like it's stitched under my skin. In the bones, in the blood. Like no matter how far I get, I'll always be one breath away from waking up in my cell again."

The Torchbearer's hand paused, the blade hovering still in his fingers. He turned slightly, meeting Clancy's eyes with a look that was far too gentle for how deeply it cut.

"It does stay with you," he said slowly. "But that doesn't mean it owns you."

"You sound so sure."

"I've had time to learn."

The fire popped between them, releasing sparks that scattered upward, dancing into the dusk.

Clancy leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Back there, in the trench... when Nico found me... I couldn't stop myself. It was like everything else disappeared. He touched me, and I—" He swallowed hard. "I almost wanted to go back. I would've followed him anywhere."

The Torchbearer didn't answer right away. He let the silence hold for a while.

"Bishops have ways of binding people. It's not just fear. It's faith, too. They're architects of certainty — make you think surrender is freedom." He set the blade down across his lap. 

Those words struck Clancy harder than he expected. His thoughts tangled. His throat clenched. For a moment he had to look away, blinking quickly.

"I don't know how to be here," he whispered. "I don't know who I am outside Dema."

"That's alright," The Torchbearer said. "You're not supposed to yet."

Clancy looked at him. "Then what am I supposed to do?"

The Torchbearer smiled faintly, the kind of smile that came from a place of understanding, not amusement.

"You live. You ask questions. You stay curious. You get angry. You rest. You listen. You hold the line when it's your turn, and you step back when someone else needs to hold it for you."

He shifted forward slightly, his voice soft but sure. "You remember you're not alone."

Clancy stared at him, the fire painting shadows across their faces. He felt something loosen in his chest, something old and clenched and tired.

No one had ever told him that before — not like this. That he didn't have to know, didn't have to perform worth. That survival didn't require self-erasure. That he could exist as-is, confused and cracked and reeling, and still belong.

The Torchbearer stood then, stretching his arms above his head. He grabbed the knife and slid it into a sheath at his belt.

Clancy remembered the sudden sting of color — those yellow petals raining down from above, light and sharp like slaps to the face. He remembered the break, the dizzying rush of returning to himself, and the sheer terror of what he had almost become.

"I don't know who I am outside of them," he admitted quietly, before the Torchbearer had a chance to walk away.

The Torchbearer reached down and picked up a branch, stirring the fire. Sparks leapt, popping and vanishing.

"You don't have to," he said. "Not yet."

Clancy looked up.

"You've been taught that identity is a cage you must wear," Torch continued. "That roles are assignments. That meaning comes from obedience. But that's all architecture. They built Dema to define you. Out here, we let people figure it out themselves."

Clancy wanted to believe him. God, he did. But belief wasn't something you just turned on like a switch. It took time. It took unlearning.

Still, sitting beside this man, in the hum of fire and dusk, Clancy felt something nudge its way into his chest — a small, unfamiliar warmth. Not trust. Not yet. But the beginnings of something like it.

"What if I still hear him?" Clancy asked suddenly. "What if I feel that pull again?"

The Torchbearer didn't flinch. "Then we'll be here."

"And if I lose myself?"

"Then we'll find you."

Clancy swallowed hard. The firelight painted Torch's face in bronze and shadow, but his voice was steady, like something rooted deep in the earth. He believed what he said. That was the difference. In Dema, people recited. Here, they meant.

The wind shifted. The fire crackled.

Clancy leaned forward, staring into the blaze like it might reveal something. Then, very softly, he said, "I thought I was escaping a city. I didn't know I was escaping a version of myself."

The Torchbearer didn't answer.

He just placed a hand briefly on Clancy's shoulder. It was the first human touch he'd received without consequence in years.

And Clancy didn't pull away. He could never.

Chapter Text

The floor was tile.

Cold. Glossy. Perfectly white.

He blinked.

Dema.

No — not quite. It was like Dema, but hollow. Walls without corners. Light without warmth. He stood alone in a massive square room, empty except for a chair in the center — and a mirror nailed to the wall across from it.

He stepped forward.

His feet made no sound. He didn't feel his body, not fully. Just the weight of his thoughts dragging behind his steps like fog.

The mirror was cracked.

He saw himself. Pale, drawn, bruised around the eyes — wearing crimson. 

Behind his reflection, someone stood.

He whirled.

Nothing.

He looked again. The reflection was empty now, just the chair. Just himself. But a whisper circled the room like wind:

"You were never outside.
You only dreamed of leaving."

He spun in place. The walls blurred. The mirror shattered.

And now he was falling.

Not down — sideways. Through halls, corridors, service ducts, stairwells he recognized but couldn't name. Somewhere between a cathedral and a hospital. Each door he passed had a number. Each number had meaning, but he couldn't hold onto it.

Then:
A field.

He landed on his knees in wild grass.

The air smelled like ash. Something huge loomed behind him — he didn't look. He couldn't look.

Ahead, the Torchbearer stood. But this time, his face was hidden — a scarf wound around it like the yellow flags of the Banditos. His torch wasn't lit.

He beckoned.

Clancy tried to rise, but his hands were heavy. When he looked down, he saw ink running from his palms — black script spiraling up his arms, ones and zeros. The writing etched itself into his skin like scars.

He screamed. Soundless.

This wasn't a dream.

This was memory breaking form. Memory to come.

The Torchbearer knelt and pressed something into Clancy's hands.

A flame.

Tiny, flickering, too weak to burn. But warm.

And then — he spoke. A voice not his own. A voice Clancy knew but hadn't heard in years:

"Wake up, Clancy. You haven't finished escaping."

He woke gasping.

There was a dull ache behind his eyes and the lingering echo of the dream crouched somewhere in his ribs. The cot beneath him was damp with sweat. The air still buzzed faintly with the sound of night insects and low voices. The fire outside had dwindled. A few figures moved quietly between tents.

He touched his chest.

The robe was gone.

So were the scars.

He lay there for a moment, unmoving, the haze of sleep still wound tight around him. Somewhere nearby, boots scraped gravel. Metal clinked. A low voice muttered something about rations.

Reality returned in layers — tent canvas rustling above, the rhythmic creak of wind through broken rafters, the faint citrus-bitter scent of crushed yellow blossoms scattered around the camp's perimeter.

He sat up slowly.

His shirt clung damply to his skin. He hadn't wept in the dream, but his face was tight, salt-dried. He wiped it with the heel of his palm, pressed his knuckles to his temples.

The dream faded like a bruise.

The Bandito camp was tucked between craggy walls of canyon and shrouded by a wild tangle of yellow-blooming vines, it pulsed like something alive. Even in stillness, it hummed — a rhythm built on wind through cloth, voices over stone, the distant crackle of firelight and the constant, instinctual movement of people unbound.

Clancy couldn't comprehend it at first.

There were no guards. No gates. Just trust, built from watchfulness and shared purpose.

It unsettled him.

He kept expecting someone to seize him by the collar. To accuse him of stepping into the wrong quadrant, to drag him into a Correction Room. He walked slowly, shoulders hunched, listening for cues that never came. The silence wasn't sterile — it was deep, open-ended, not hollow like the ones imposed by Dema's orderlies. No one barked commands here. If someone needed help, they asked. If someone couldn't help, they apologized.

One of the first mornings, he woke up at sunrise, heart racing, convinced he'd overslept his Report. That he'd be reprimanded. Made to kneel. But there was no alarm. Just birdsong, faint and chaotic. Laughter echoing from somewhere across the camp. The scent of something real cooking: smoke, salt, the hint of roasted root and crisped bread.

The next days passed in a kind of sensory vertigo, like stepping off a moving train and feeling the world still lurch beneath him. Nothing followed schedule. No one called his name with clipped syllables and intent behind their tone. There were no footsteps echoing in perfect sync, no walls that curved to obscure vision, no surveillance eyes blinking red behind glass.

He found himself watching the others.

Banditos passed in small knots, laughing, arguing, working in bursts. They dismantled old tech, mapped sections of the trench wall, carried tools and rations. Some climbed to the high outcroppings where lookouts perched. Others kept watch near the mouth of the ravine. Everyone moved with purpose, but not with fear.

He wanted to be a part of it. He didn't know where to begin.

So he started small.

He followed Kaia, who showed him how to dry herbs and ration food. Her tent smelled like warm cedar and soil, and she didn't ask questions — just handed him a jar and showed him how to knot a seal. He watched how she stirred pigment from flowers, mixing it into bowls to dye fabric yellow — not just for banners, but to be sewn into clothing, slipped into pockets, wrapped around wrists. 

He found that the days fell into a rhythm, though no one named it. They rose with the sun. They worked until their bodies ached. They rested together, ate around shared fires, told stories in low voices — sometimes in languages he didn't know, but that didn't matter. Every voice felt like proof of something sacred: that people could speak freely, and still be heard.

By the end of the first week, his body had begun to adjust. His sleep was still broken — haunted by the echo of Bishop's voices, by the clink of glass against tile — but his muscles had begun to warm again. To feel like his.

They let him help set the watch torches, allowed him to tend the goats, taught him how to use flint and cotton to start a fire from almost nothing. He learned to patch canvas. To keep tools clean. To mend his own coat, slowly — each stitch a reclamation.

He didn't speak much those first weeks. Not about Dema. Not about Nico. He couldn't. The words lived behind a door in his mind, sealed with rusted hinges. But still, the Banditos welcomed him. Still, they trusted him with their daily life.

And little by little, something strange began to shift.

He started to laugh.

Once while fumbling a bundle of firewood. Another time when a goat chewed on his sleeve. Not the cold, manufactured laughter he'd rehearsed for Orderly approval — but sharp, unrefined. It startled him every time.

Sometimes, he'd sit by the cliff's edge in the evening and watch the light move across the canyon. Listen to his breath. Feel it echo in his chest. Unshaped. Undirected. His own.

What struck him most wasn't the freedom — it was the gentleness. The way people here looked at each other without suspicion. The way hands weren't clenched into fists. The way music rose at night — ragged and improvised, sometimes off-key, but full of soul. Dema had drained him of sensation; the camp returned it. Not all at once. But slowly. Like color seeping back into a faded photograph.

The Torchbearer had become a constant.

Clancy didn't know if it was by design or chance, but wherever he went, Torch was near. Never intrusive. Just present.

The Torchbearer seemed different from the others. His hair was bleached at the ends, curls matted under a dirt-smudged beanie. His eyes were sharp but kind, his smile easy. The tattoo on his forearm shimmered with fresh ink, as if it had been etched there just days ago. He moved like someone used to being watched, but unbothered by it.

And when Clancy could hardly speak—when his voice caught in his throat like ash—the Torchbearer just sat with him. By the fire. On the ledge. During watch rotations.

At first, the silence gnawed at Clancy like a sore tooth. He wanted to apologize for it. Explain. But the Torchbearer never seemed to need an explanation.

Each night after, they talked more. Torch taught him the meanings behind the marks — not just what they said, but why. What each word defied. What it hoped to protect.

Clancy learned how to hold a blade. How to light a fire that left no smoke. How to read the sky for weather and the ground for tracks. How to braid yellow cord through his clothing, stitch it into the lining of his jacket — small things, but loud in the eyes of the Bishops.

The others began to trust him, too.

There was Maeve, who taught him how to dye cloth with crushed petals and root powder. Sin, who showed him how to reroute solar batteries. Lark, who let him hold her hand when he woke up shaking one night, and didn't ask questions.

But it was The Torchbearer who stayed closest. Not hovering. Just near.

Once, while patching a rip in Clancy's sleeve, Torch looked at him and said, "You still look like you're waiting to be punished."

Clancy froze.

He hadn't realized it showed.

The Torchbearer didn't apologize. He just kept stitching. "You don't owe them guilt, Clancy. What they did to you — what they tried to make you — that wasn't your choice. But staying silent? That is. And you're not silent anymore."

Clancy didn't answer. He just looked down at his sleeve — now repaired with a line of yellow thread.

They sat like that for a while, on the edge of the ravine that marked the southern boundary of the Bandito camp, the trench stretching out beneath them like the open wound of a forgotten war. The sun had begun to lower behind the jagged outcroppings of rock and collapsed architecture, casting long shadows that curled like fingers around the camp's perimeter. A small wind moved through the chasm below, carrying with it the distant scent of dust and moss and old rusted metal.

The Torchbearer sat cross-legged on a piece of concrete that had once been the corner of some civic monument, his boots planted firm and steady. His bandana was loose around his neck, the yellow fabric faded and fraying at the edges. From this close, Clancy could see how young he really was — not in the way that made him seem untested, but in the way that reminded you most of Dema's cruelty: how it fed on youth, consumed it, left people aged before they had time to live. The Torchbearer bore the look of someone who had survived that, and then chosen to carry others out.

Finally, Clancy asked, "How many have you saved?"

Torch turned his head, mouth quirking in a dry smile. "Saved?"

Clancy shrugged. "Helped escape. Like me."

The Torchbearer leaned back on his palms. "Hard to say. Some we meet in the trench. Others find the signs in the city, follow the symbols. Some only make it partway. Others make it out and go back," he paused. "We lose more than we keep."

Clancy looked down at the dirt. The wind stirred dust across his boots.

"I didn't think there was any way out," he admitted. "And even after I escaped, I thought... I thought that was it. That escape was the goal. That surviving was enough."

The Torchbearer leaned forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. His voice stayed calm, steady — like a flame banked against wind. "We're not just trying to help people run from Dema, Clancy. That's only the first step. What we're building here — it's about more than escape."

Clancy looked at him sideways. "Then what is it?"

Torch didn't answer immediately. He glanced toward the sky, lips parted like he was tasting the wind. 

"We're going to destroy it."

Clancy went still.

The word hit like a stone dropped into water. Destroy. It echoed strangely in his mind, like something in a language he'd been forbidden to speak — or even imagine. His first reaction wasn't disbelief — it was something deeper. Something almost sacrilegious. Like Torch had carved a gash into a sacred silence. It's blasphemy.

He swallowed hard. "You can't destroy Dema," he said, not with defiance, but with confusion. "It's not a—" He hesitated. "It's not a thing. Not really. It's a... mechanism. A mind. A shape. It adjusts. It survives."

Torch didn't flinch. "That's what it wants you to believe."

"But how?" Clancy asked, the words dry in his mouth. "What does that even mean? Destroying it? With what? Fire and rope?"

"From the inside," The Torchbearer said. "By pulling people out, one by one, until the machine loses function. With breaking the belief that it's inevitable."

Clancy stared down at the ravine.

He thought of the Archive rooms. The chants. The rituals. The waxy faces of the Bishops — like statues more than men. He remembered the high halls where you weren't allowed to ask questions, only recite. 

"I never thought..." Clancy began, then trailed off.

The Torchbearer waited.

"I never thought it could be undone. I didn't even let myself imagine it. I just—" he stopped, heart suddenly tight. "I just wanted to leave. That was it. That was the biggest dream I let myself have. Just absence."

Torch was quiet for a long moment.

"It's hard," he said at last, gently, "to build a dream that isn't built from fear."

Clancy looked at him. His expression was unreadable, but not cold. There was empathy in his voice, but no pity. He didn't talk like someone who believed he was further along the path. He talked like someone who had walked it in circles, in darkness, and learned where not to trip.

"You think it's possible?" Clancy asked, quieter now. "You think you'll live to see it fall?"

The Torchbearer shrugged one shoulder. "I don't need to see it. I just need to move toward it. That's enough for me."

Clancy said nothing for a long while. He turned the yellow ribbon over in his hand.

It was soft from wear, like it had passed through dozens of hands before his. A signal. A fragment. A truth.

He thought again of the dream. The cracked mirror. The ink on his skin. The hollow halls. Dema wasn't just a place. It was a binding.

Torch rose slowly, dusting off his pants.

"I know it feels impossible," he said. "That's how you know it's real. If it didn't scare you, it wouldn't matter."

He turned, but paused before leaving.

"You're not just here because you escaped, Clancy. You're here because something in you still resists. That's the part we work with. That's the part they couldn't kill."

Clancy sat quiet long after the wind rose.

The thought didn't feel impossible. It felt fragile, yes. Distant. But not unreachable.

Destroy it.
Not just run.
Not just survive.

Leave the city.

Unmake the city.

They'd said little on the way back. Clancy knew the language of quiet by now. It could scream louder than panic.

But when they saw the glow of campfire light curling up from the trench like smoke signals, he let himself believe, just for a moment, that they were safe again. That home still stood.

Home.

That word had never belonged to him before.

Now he almost dared to say it.

But Dema was already waiting.

It happened fast. Too fast.

A blur behind the ridgeline. A hand over his mouth. The sharp bite of something cold and metal against his neck. And then the pain — like silence injected straight into his spine.

He gasped — but it never reached air. His knees buckled. He saw Torch turn — too late — his mouth shaping a word. Not even a name, just sound.

Then:
blackness.

Chapter Text

Dema hadn't changed.

That fact settled on Clancy's shoulders like dust, like a sickness in the air he could no longer filter out. He had crossed the boundary, seen the cracks in the system, touched something alive — but here... here it was as if none of it had ever happened.

Everything was exactly as he remembered.
And it was so much worse because of it.

The architecture was symmetrical. The walls unblemished. The corridors stretched with that endless, repeating sameness, designed to erase any sense of direction, of momentum, of progress. Every hallway was a loop. Every room a copy of another.

Even the light betrayed him — bright, sterile, never shifting. He could not tell if it was day or night. Couldn't even tell if the sun still existed outside the city's borders. Dema had no use for time. It only counted what it could control.

And Clancy, once again, had become something counted.

His cell — though they refused to call it that — was a polished box. Gray walls, gray floors. A cot that was neither soft nor hard, only sufficient. A basin. A single mirror, too small to see yourself fully in. The door didn't have a lock visible from the inside, but it didn't need one. He hadn't tried to leave. Not yet.

He wasn't ready to test how deep the leash went.

His body still ached. Not from exhaustion — though there was that too — but from the damage Dema had done to it in the name of realignment.

There had been no ceremony. No loud punishments. Just procedure. Cold. Measured.

When they shattered his fingers, it was done with the same sterile efficiency with which one might sterilize a needle. Nothing personal. Just correction. Consequence.

He remembered the moment only in pieces. He remembered the weight of his hand pinned flat on steel. The way the gloved figure gently pressed along each knuckle, as though deciding which deserved to be punished. He remembered the sound — like a twig snapped in a forest —and the silence that followed. How he hadn't screamed, only shook, lips parted, breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a sob.

The pain came later. But the regret — that came instantly.
That stayed.

Now his fingers were bound, his hands wrapped in layers of clean white gauze. Clean and careful. As if Dema wanted to mend what it had broken. To take ownership of the injury. Make it part of the story they were writing over him.

Clancy couldn't hold a pencil anymore.

He could no longer make a fist.

The worst part wasn't the pain. Not even the shame.

It was the quiet.

Dema did not need to restrain his limbs when it could restrain his mind. It didn't yell. It whispered. It let silence do the work. The room gave him no stimulation, no friction, no sense of weight. Just endless gray and the sound of his own breath rebounding off walls that refused to echo.

Days passed — or maybe hours, maybe weeks. He tried counting time in meals, but even those were inconsistent. Sometimes they brought him food when he was asleep. Sometimes they didn't bring it at all.

He began to suspect that he himself had become the test.
That they were watching to see how long it would take before he starts wondering if the Banditos had been real at all.

When they brought him into the Reconditioning Hall, it was as if the world narrowed into a pinpoint.

He walked unassisted. Mostly because he no longer trusted himself to resist. The weight of his broken hands dragged like anchors. He cradled them as if they were not his anymore. The soft throb in each finger was its own reminder: you left, and this is what you brought back with you.

He sat in the chair without protest.

The room was cavernous and grand, light humming above in a dull, flickering white. Across from him, cloaked in half-shadow, sat a figure he'd anticipated to see since the moment he woke up in this place again.

Keons.

"You've wandered far, Clancy," he said. "And the further one walks, the more painful the return becomes."

Clancy stared at him.

There was no anger in Keons' voice. Not even condescension. Only certainty. The kind of certainty that made Clancy's stomach twist in knots. That absolute ease with which the Bishop looked at him, as if he were a child waking up from a tantrum. As if none of it mattered.

"The pain has taught you," Keons continued. "We all forget, sometimes, the shape of our own limits. But the body remembers."

Clancy's jaw clenched.

The urge to scream, to spit, to fight — it rose like bile in his throat. But it died before it reached his mouth. What good would it do now? Keons didn't listen. He rewrote. He edited thoughts like words in a sermon until they served Dema again.

Keons leaned forward, hands folded. His expression almost compassionate.

"Obedience is not a cage, Clancy. It is gravity. And you are tired of floating."

They escorted him back without a word.

When he returned to his room, something had changed.

The mirror. Someone — probably one of them — had written on the glass in white chalk: "Obedience will be rewarded."

Clancy stood there, swaying slightly. His chest ached. His hands pulsed.

He wanted to smash the mirror. He wanted to reach through it and strangle the voice in his head telling him to listen.

But he did nothing.

For a long time, he just stared at it.

Then — barely aloud, less than a breath — he muttered:

"I'm sorry."

He didn't know who he was saying it to.

But in the quiet, it felt like he was apologizing to the original.

He closed his eyes.

He thought of the Torchbearer.

At first, Clancy didn't let himself remember. He clamped down on those images like he was biting his own tongue — as if memory itself were treason. But that didn't work. It never worked. You couldn't unsee color once you knew how starving your life had been without it.

So he gave in.

He let himself fall into the thought of him.

He pictured the way the Torchbearer had moved — always in motion, but never rushed. Like he carried fire in his chest instead of lungs. Like the world could bend toward his will without him needing to raise his voice. The first time Clancy had seen him, he thought: That's what freedom looks like. And he hated himself a little, for thinking something so fragile.

He remembered Torch's hands — calloused from use, nicked and scarred, but always steady. The way he had wrapped yellow tape around the shoulder seams of Clancy's jacket. No permission asked. Just the quiet insistence that you are one of us now.

Clancy hadn't even known what to say.

Torch hadn't needed him to.

He remembered how their conversations had circled the same questions. Not just about Dema — but about what came after. What it meant to build something new. To unlearn obedience. To unteach fear.

Now, in the flickering silence of Dema, that voice echoed louder than any intercom ever could.

Clancy wondered where he was now.

Had he made it out safe?

Had he looked back?

Had he seen Clancy dragged away?

A sharpness bloomed behind Clancy's ribs — a pull, equal parts grief and guilt. Because he hadn't fought hard enough. Hadn't called for help. Hadn't screamed Torch's name.

He hadn't wanted him to see. To see the part of Clancy that still folded. The part that feared.

And now — it was all he had. Fear, and the echo of someone who had made him feel alive for the first time since before his thoughts were rationed and caged.

He couldn't keep that fire. But he could remember it.

And in Dema, where memory itself was a radical act, that was the only weapon he had.

Chapter Text

It was easier, after a while.

The silence. The schedule. The erasure of will.

Something inside him had cracked the night they took him back. Maybe it had been the fear. Maybe guilt, for being the one who survived when others hadn't. Or maybe it was simpler than that. Maybe Nico's touch had sunk deeper than he'd known — a hook in his mind, a nail in his spine.

He told himself, at first, that he was only pretending to give in. That he was observing, waiting for a moment to strike, to run, to fight. But days passed. Then weeks. Then more. And the pretending bled into something else. He began to mouth the words during Alignment Recitations, even if he didn't speak them. He began to fold his clothes the exact way they were taught. He began to look at the walls and not think about climbing them. He let go of the outside.

And one morning, he didn't think of Torch.

That frightened him more than anything.

He stared at himself in the small mirror above his sink. A pale reflection. Eyes dull. Shoulders narrower than he remembered. That voice in his head—the voice that used to rise up when he was tired or afraid—was quiet now. Buried.

Until the flower.

It was a dry, flattened bloom, bright as a brand. Wedged into the seam of his doorframe, almost invisible unless you were looking.

He froze. Heart skipping. Eyes darting down the hallway.

No footsteps. No watching Vialists. Just the hum of Dema's circulatory system: lights, vents, obedience.

He plucked the petal from its hiding place with shaking fingers. It was yellow. Vivid, defiant yellow. The color they had told him to refrain from.

He didn't breathe until the door was closed behind him.

The flower went into his drawer, under a stack of "Restorative Literature," volumes of pseudo-philosophy written in sterile, identical fonts. He sat on the cot for a long time that night, staring at the closed drawer like it held a detonator.

A week passed. Then another.

He found the next flower in the washroom. Pressed between the tiles above the sink, its yellow hue muted by steam. He plucked it quickly, heart pounding. Who was leaving them? Another citizen? A spy?

The question didn't matter. The petals did.

Two became four. Four became eight.

He began to find them everywhere — sometimes only once a week, sometimes two in a day. Each one slid under his pillow, hidden in the folds of his devotional, buried under the cot. He became a collector of hope, hoarding scraps of resistance like kindling.

And with each one, more returned.

The memory of a song hummed under his breath before bed. A muscle twitch in his fingers, as if reaching for a torch that wasn't there. The image of Torch's eyes, mocha-brown and lit with purpose, flickering at the edges of sleep.

Then came the paper.

It was folded into thirds. Slipped beneath his sleeping mat. At first, he thought it was some kind of test. A trick by the bishops to see if he still harbored the sickness of rebellion. But he opened it anyway. And when he did, his throat tightened.

The bent symbol drawn in jagged charcoal. Burned in more than written. Like it had been carved with a fingernail or a sharpened stone. Beneath it, a neat writing. He stared, blinking hard. Then he understood.

Assemblage of the Glorified. Look for the fire. East is up.
—TB

His breath left him all at once. His hands trembled, and he sank onto the cot, elbows on knees, the message pressed to his lips. 

The Assemblage was the most sacred and horrific ritual in Dema. Every cycle, the Premiere—the most obedient, the most devout—were led in slow procession to the Viviant Hall. There, with the Nine in silent witness, they were Glorified — bodies given to the bishops, minds stripped, souls claimed. Their names were never spoken again.

In their place, tubes were created — glowing, fragile, neon-bright. Symbols of transcendence, or so the bishops said. They were planted like gravestones in the Ceremonial Plain.

Clancy had stood among them before. Had watched the ceremony. Had even chanted.

Now he knew better.

Those weren't gravestones.
They were harvest markers.
Storage.

The Banditos planned to come then, during the ceremony — when all the bishops would be gathered, distracted, pulsing with pride and ritual. When eyes were fixed on the Glorified.

Clancy touched the paper again.

Torch was alive.

They were coming for him.

That night, he unfolded every flower. Nine. He laid them out in a circle on the floor beneath his cot, one by one. He didn't know why. It just felt right. Like something sacred. Like ritual.

He knelt there in the dark, staring at them.

Bright yellow against gray tile.

Torch didn't breathe for a full ten seconds upon descending.

The air in the tunnels was wet and foul, thick with rot and rust, but it wasn't the stench that turned his stomach. It was the silence. The waiting. The soft, mechanical hum of Dema above their heads.

He crouched in the dark, one hand braced against the damp concrete wall, the other tightened around the shaft of his torch, the flame breathing gently at the top, casting shadows that pulsed along the curved ceiling. He had dreamed about this moment for weeks. Behind him, twenty others followed — faces marked, arms wrapped in yellow fabric, each step practiced and silent.

Torch didn't look back.

They all knew what was at stake.

Clancy.

Torch's jaw clenched as he imagined him — trapped behind Dema's concrete walls, shoulders curled in defeat, his voice quieted, that fire fading from his eyes. It had been months since they lost him. Since the bishops clawed him back into the fold. Torch had blamed himself in the days that followed, cursed himself in every silent hour, every fireless night. He'd replayed it again and again — If I'd turned around one second sooner... if I'd covered that blind side...

He'd made a promise. Not just to Clancy, but to every soul who slipped through the cracks in Dema's grip: We don't leave our own behind.

He was used to acting without knowing if it would matter. That was what it meant to lead. To strike the match whether or not the wood was dry. He didn't know if Clancy had broken or endured. Didn't know if the flowers they'd risked so much to sneak past the Bishop's watchful eyes had been received, understood, or discarded like propaganda. But he knew this: people in Dema weren't dead. Not yet. They were asleep in a city that called itself holy. And sometimes a dream becomes unbearable just before the sleeper wakes.

Today, they were going to rattle the walls of that dream.

The Banditos behind him had not spoken since they passed the third checkpoint. Too risky. Even down here—beneath the belly of Dema—there were ways of being seen. The Bishops weren't gods, but their grip had the reach of one. That made it easy to forget the truth. That their city was old. That it had cracks.

Torch's boots struck iron. The rusted remains of an old maintenance ladder stretched upward, into a shaft cut through brick and concrete. The map etched into his memory told him they were close now — one street over from the Viviant Hall, where the  Assemblage of the Glorified took place once a cycle, always at dusk, always under white light. That was where they would gather. Where the Bishops drained the willing of everything that made them real, repackaging devotion into glowing monuments and slotting the dead into their so-called eternity.

He clenched the rung and started climbing.

When he surfaced, the sky startled him. Dema's sky was the kind of pale that suggested it had been washed too many times. It wasn't gray, exactly, and it wasn't blue, either—it was the color of pressed linen bleached to bone. The towers around him rose high and silent, uniform blocks of smooth stone and matte metal, the only visible deviation being the long, narrow banners hung down their facades. No wind moved them. No birds wheeled through the open air.

The city was silent.

Empty.

The plan had held.

Torch looked up at the tower windows flanking the narrow avenue. They were all sealed. Blinds drawn tight. A city in hiding. That, at least, made sense. The Assemblage was underway. Every compliant Premier, every devoted citizen would be sequestered inside the Sanctum to observe the ritual. 

Today, the Banditos would interrupt it.

Torch gave the signal. Two fingers down, then a twist of the wrist. The others split off without a word, slipping into corridors and access routes mapped weeks ago. He stayed in the street amongst the rest.

If Clancy was still alive, still himself, he would find them. And he would remember.

Torch's steps echoed faintly between the towers. It was the only sound in the city. He moved slowly, deliberately, letting himself be seen. He passed under archways carved with axioms: Joy is disorder. Disorder is collapse. Every phrase was cleanly etched, their weight multiplied by repetition. The words clung to every wall like black mold.

Then — a sound.

A window above creaked open. 

Torch stopped in the middle of the street and looked up.

Behind a gray film of dust-slick glass, he saw her — just a girl, maybe fifteen. Her face was pale, too thin, hair scraped back into a compliant braid. Her fingers curled around the window frame, as if gripping the edge of a dream she couldn't remember. For a second, she didn't flinch. She just stared at him.

He met her gaze, steady and unblinking, and raised two fingers to his brow in silent salute.

She blinked. That was all. Then the window clicked shut again.

No alarms. No sirens. Just stillness.

Torch turned and kept walking.

He wasn't here for revolution. Not yet.

Clancy didn’t mean to move.

He told himself that. Over and over. The phrase looped like a psalm as he crept down the narrow, the sound of his own heartbeat too loud. He was packed, if you could call it that — a plain satchel over one shoulder, filled with meager rations, a flask of water, the paper, the flowers, a pair of gloves, his journal. His devotion robes had been folded and left behind on the cot, smoothed flat like a skin he didn’t want anymore.

He reached the base of the stairwell and pressed his body to the wall.

This was madness. This was betrayal. This was treason.  

The door to the outside stood ahead, steel-gray and windowless. It wasn’t locked. It never was. That was Dema’s brilliance — once they broke you enough, they didn’t need locks. You became your own warden.

The hallways were empty.

His boots echoed too loudly. He paused at the corner of the corridor and peered out the narrow vertical slit of a window — the kind built for watching, not seeing. The Ceremonial Plain was visible just past the eastern wall. White flags had been erected. Ropes had been drawn into perfect squares, marking where the Premiere would kneel. The towers flanking the Hall loomed like fingers pressed together in prayer.

Clancy swallowed. His throat was dry.

He didn’t know where they would come from. He just knew that they would.

He made it to the threshold of the main avenue. One step over the line and he would no longer be "obedient." One step and he became something else. Something hunted.

His body hesitated. Mind tangled.

Turn back, whispered the part of him that had survived by staying small. The good part. The safe part. They’ll catch you. They always catch you.

He stepped into the street.

The avenue stretched ahead like a wound in the stone. Tower shadows reached down like fingers. Etched along the walls were the same phrases he’d grown used to ignoring. Order is peace. Peace is joy. Joy is transcendence.

He had said them. Every day. Even when he hadn’t believed. Especially then.

His feet moved on their own. Past the closed windows. Past the gates of the eastern sanctum. His pulse ticked up. His hand went to his chest, like he could calm it from the outside.

And then—

A figure. At the far end of the avenue.

Then another.

Then ten.

They walked with no urgency. A color like a bruise bloomed in Clancy’s vision — yellow, defiant, warm. Like sunlight remembered from a dream.

He stopped cold.

The world narrowed, telescoped. His chest seized. He should run. He needed to run. They weren’t safe. Nothing about them was safe. And if they were caught—if he was caught—there would be no mercy this time.

His limbs moved before he could think. He turned, heart pounding, ready to slip back into the corridor, into the hushed violence of safety. The city was a cage, but it was a familiar one. The bars didn’t cut as much when you stopped fighting them.

But just before he turned the corner, he heard it.

A scrape. A shift. The rustle of cloth.

He looked back.

The figure at the front had stopped.

The others slowed, standing in quiet formation — not hostile, not aggressive. Just watching.

The one in front lifted a hand.

Clancy's breath caught. The hand moved slowly to the bandana wrapped around the lower half of the man’s face — yellow, blackened at the edges, stained with ash.

He pulled it down.

Clancy staggered.

Torch.

He looked different. A little thinner, a little harder around the edges. But it was him. The same set to his jaw. The same dark eyes that never let go of anything. The flame curled behind him in the shape of twenty silent Banditos, waiting.

And in that moment, Clancy realized how quiet he had become.

Not just in body. In soul. The silence hadn’t been peace. It had been absence. And seeing Torch was like being remembered by the world. A thread yanked tight, pulling something inside him back into shape.

Still, he didn’t move.

Torch stepped forward. Just once. Not reaching. Not pleading. Just there.

Clancy’s mouth opened. No sound came. His hands clenched at his sides, then rose slightly, shaking.

He should say something. Anything. But his voice was somewhere buried beneath months of dust and doctrine.

So Torch spoke first.

“Clancy.”

That was all.

Just his name, plain and low.

Clancy didn’t run.

He didn’t step forward either.

He just stared. Heart knocking against his ribs like a trapped animal, lungs taking in the pale air but not using it. His hands clenched and unclenched at his sides.

Torch took one slow step toward him.
Then another.
Then stopped, just outside arm’s reach.

Clancy swallowed. The voice in his head—the one shaped like bishops—started up again.
Turn him in. Denounce the fire. Return to the fold.
But it was fainter now. Like hearing a sermon from behind a closed door.

Torch didn’t speak.

His eyes flicked to Clancy’s face, then to the bag on his back. Then to the collar of his assigned uniform.
Back to his face.

Then—Torch reached out.

Just one hand, slow and steady, lifting until his fingers touched Clancy’s shoulder. The weight was barely there. No pressure. No pull. Just contact.

Clancy flinched. Just barely.

But he didn’t step away.

Torch’s hand moved. A shift. From shoulder to the side of Clancy’s neck, the curve of his fingers curling lightly over the base of his throat. The skin there was warm. Too warm. It felt like a warning and a promise.

Still, no words. None were needed.

Clancy’s lips parted, breath trembling through them. His hands shook.

“I almost didn’t come,” he said, finally. Voice thin. Rusted.

Torch’s mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
“But you did.”

Clancy nodded, once. A sharp, broken movement.

Then, the moment splintered.

The peace, the silence—fragile as spun glass—shattered with a single note.

A sound like knives in the throat of the sky. Sirens.

A thousand overlapping tones rose from the depths of Dema’s circuitry—some pitched high enough to pierce the teeth, others low enough to shake the floor. The sound surrounded Clancy like a net, like a living thing. A digital shriek, inhuman and omniscient. The buildings came alive. Walls blinked with red glyphs, warning symbols rotating in ancient code: SECTOR BREACH. NONCONFORMITY DETECTED. PATHWAY PURGE INITIATED.

He felt it before he understood it.
They were caught.
The system knew.

The Banditos were already moving. Trained for this. Pre-programmed like the machines they fought to resist — but organic and urgent.

“Split at the third artery!” Torch shouted, voice sharp against the sirens. “Rue, with me. Lon, backtrack and set charges. Clancy—”

He didn’t finish. There wasn’t time.

Rue pulled another handmade incendiary from their satchel—a black sphere with yellow tape banded around its middle — and lobbed it into the next block like a baseball. It hit the side of the Reflection Archive and erupted.

The fire was instantaneous. Not natural, not warm. Synthetic flame, sharp and sterile, engineered to devour material like breath. It chewed through the wall like a mouth of red glass, spitting shards into the sky. Smoke poured upward, carried by the city’s vent stacks, spreading chaos through  the streets.

Flames reflected in the mirrored corridors, multiplying in every direction. Suddenly the city wasn't symmetrical anymore. It was splintered. A kaleidoscope of fire and glass and motion.

Clancy ran, feet slamming pavement, lungs tearing with each breath. He could feel the heat behind him, crawling up his neck like guilt. He had never seen Dema like this. He had never believed it could burn.

Panels in the street split open. Drones launched from hidden silos like insects from a wound, their eyes blinking cobalt. A low-pulse frequency droned from overhead — intended to disorient, to break formation, to shake the faith from your bones.

Clancy heard someone scream. Maybe it was Rue. Maybe it was him.

They reached the arterial corridor. The tunnel was ahead — the tunnel, their only way out. A narrow scar carved through concrete and blood. The light within the entrance pulsed faintly, destabilizing under pressure. It wouldn't hold for long.

One of the Banditos—Lon—rushed ahead and slapped a fresh charge on the base of a tower column. They pulled the pin. Flames rolled up the wall like liquid gold. Surveillance cams burst in a shower of sparks. Somewhere above, a metal siren tower folded in on itself, moaning like a dying animal.

Still, the breach remained — barely open.

Clancy saw Torch hesitate, looking back—always looking back—and he almost slowed. Almost waited.

That’s when everything changed.

That’s when he appeared.

Nico.

Not running. Not chasing. Approaching. A force that did not hurry, because it never had to.

The Bishop stepped through the flickering fog as if untouched by the heat, by the alarms, by the fact that his city was bleeding.

His robe hung still around his frame, untouched by the wind, like even the air feared brushing him. His face was pale and calm, unreadable. He walked over broken glass without flinching. A drone spiraled down beside him, fried by a stray explosion. He didn’t blink.

He was just there.

Moving with intention, with inevitability.

Clancy’s blood turned to ice.

He turned toward the breach, stumbling. Torch reached for him. The metal screamed — hinges straining as the tunnel began to close. Rue dove through it, then Lon, both yelling.

Clancy couldn’t hear the words. Just static. Sirens. Footsteps.

Nico was almost at his back.

And still, Torch was standing at the edge of the breach. Waiting.

“Clancy—!”

Clancy’s chest broke open.

There’s no time.

Clancy didn’t think. He reacted. He slammed both hands into Torch’s chest. The motion sent a flash of fire through his fingers. Pain shot up his arms, but he used it. He used it.

Torch’s eyes widened as Clancy shoved him backward.

“Go.”

Torch stumbled through the breach.

The tunnel mouth gave one final metallic shriek—

—and slammed shut.

Silence.

The alarms dimmed, just for a second. Like the city had exhaled.

And Clancy was alone in it once more.

The glow of the fires flickered against his skin. The scent of melting circuitry and scorched polymer choked the air. His hands trembled. His lungs burned. Somewhere deep inside his chest, something broke open and didn’t close again.

He turned.

Nico was there.

Not charging. Not even reaching yet. Just watching.

Then, slowly, inevitably, he raised one hand and extended it toward Clancy’s throat.

Clancy didn’t flinch.

He wanted to. Every survival instinct screamed to run. But there was nowhere left to go. No door to kick through. No Torch to pull him forward.

No east.

Just Dema.

Nico's hand closed gently around his throat.

The pressure was not cruel. Not even painful.

Just... absolute.

Clancy’s gaze didn't drop. He let the Bishop see him. The dirt under his nails. The smoke in his lungs. The resistance still beating behind his eyes.

It didn’t matter that he failed.

His lips parted. Not a scream. Not a prayer.

Just a whisper:

“East is up.”

And the world turned to static.

Chapter Text

The first thing that pierced the black haze was the sound.

Music.

Thin, syrupy notes dripped from a speaker somewhere above him. A tune too light to feel real, bouncing like rubber balls down the sterile air. Cheerful in a way that pressed against his ears like fingers. The kind of melody you'd hear before someone put a needle in your arm.

Everything's fine, it whispered without words. Everything's good in Dema today.

Clancy opened his eyes. Slowly.

The ceiling above him wasn't the ceiling he remembered collapsing in fire and ash. This one was pink, pastel like the inside of a sugar pill. The walls curved in soft lavender tones, smooth enough to reflect a shine.

He sat up too fast. His stomach lurched, his hands gripping at sheets that weren't his either. They were pale blue, patterned with tiny stitched suns smiling in endless repetition. The pillow beneath his head was yellow — canary bright, cartoon happy.

Clancy blinked hard. His head felt full of static. Not pain — something worse. Disorientation. Like someone had pressed "shuffle" on his memories. He turned, slow, scanning the room. A rounded white desk sat in the corner with a single chair molded from the same seamless material. A mint-green wardrobe. A mirror hung on the wall opposite the bed, framed in bubblegum pink.

Everything looked like it belonged to someone else's dream.

Then he saw himself in the mirror. And for one flicker of a second, he thought it was someone else.

His hair — soft, pastel pink, curling forward across his forehead. Gone were the ash-streaked sleeves of his old, government-approved jacket, the bandito scraps of yellow. Instead, he wore a mint zip-up with white cloud embroidery near the hem, and pants so clean they might squeak if he moved too fast.

His fingers rose slowly to his hair. He touched it. It was real.

"...What," he rasped, but his throat was dry, voice scraping like chalk.

Something moved in the mirror. His hand—still his hand—except too clean. Nails trimmed. Skin scrubbed. Like the grime had been erased. Like he had been erased.

Clancy stumbled back a step. The bed creaked softly beneath the weight he left behind. He tried to anchor himself, tried to drag something—anything—from memory that could explain this.

The fire. The alarm screaming like metal lungs. Smoke clawing at his throat.
The tunnel. The breach cracking under weight.
Torch—Torch running. Clancy shoving him forward, his palms burning against fabric.
The wall snapping shut like teeth.
Nico—

Clancy's breath hitched hard in his chest. His hand went to his throat.

Did he—?

There were no marks. No bruises. Just smooth skin, and that pink hair staring back from the mirror like mockery.

He turned sharply to search the room. No windows. No doors except one. A single small TV mounted in the corner, buzzing faintly with warm, pastel frames. On-screen, a cartoon sun bounced across drawn hills, a smiling Bishop mascot waving beside it.

Text scrolled at the bottom:

Good Day, Dema! Remember: Submission is a Choice!
Hymnal Hour starts in 20 minutes. Obedience is Opportunity.

His stomach twisted. He couldn't look away. The voice from the TV was a honey-drip tone, repeating affirmations with chirpy precision: "You are safe. You are whole. You belong."

Clancy shut his eyes. The music above kept playing, too sweet for the weight pressing in his chest.

The door clicked.

Clancy spun so fast the room lurched with him.

Torch walked in.

His hair—longer now, dark and curling softly around his temples—was exposed, neatly combed but still carrying a hint of natural disarray. He wore a white polo shirt tucked into coral—pink trousers, the collar sharp, the sleeves pressed. 

No beanie. No hood. No torch strapped to his back.

He didn't look like an outsider anymore.

And yet — his eyes.

They still belonged to him.

Clancy's breath caught. "Torch," he said, voice rough. "You—how—"

"You're awake," Torch said softly, each word careful, deliberate. "That's good. They were... concerned you wouldn't be."

Clancy stared, disbelieving. "I— I saw you escape. You got out. I pushed you through the tunnel. You—"

Torch didn't flinch, but something behind his calm expression cracked for just a fraction of a second. A breath held, a thought strangled.

Then, measured: "You've been through a lot. Things might feel... different for a while."

Torch's eyes flicked to the corner of the ceiling. Clancy followed the movement and saw it: a camera. Tiny. Built into the seam. Watching.

Clancy lowered his voice, almost instinctively: "Are you—are you okay?"

Torch's lips didn't move into a smile, but his eyes shifted — sharp, alive, unmistakably him. He didn't answer the question directly. Instead, he said:

"You'll need to keep to the routine here. It's easier that way. For both of us."

"Us," Clancy repeated under his breath.

Torch gave the smallest nod.

Then, glancing quickly at the door panel: "Breakfast is at seven. Stay in your room until you hear the tone. The Bishops will be pleased to see you recover."

A pause. He looked at Clancy fully now, the weight of unspoken urgency behind his gaze:

"Don't let them see you hesitate."

Before Clancy could respond, Torch stepped back into the hall. His voice returned to a neutral, rehearsed cadence:

"I'll check in later. Rest while you can."

The door slid shut with a soft, final hiss.

Clancy stood frozen, pulse hammering.

The speaker above him chirped again, as if mocking the moment:

"When our minds align, our hearts can finally rest. Obey, citizens. Let's keep it a good day."

The pastel walls suddenly felt suffocating, the air thinner.

He turned to the mirror. The pink-haired reflection stared back, smiling faintly even though his lips didn't move.

Over the next days, the routine became mechanical: wake, see his pink reflection, listen to the music, eat the neatly packaged meals slid through a slot in the wall, watch the television because there was nothing else to do.

Then came the questions.

A voice through the speaker:
"Do you like your room?"
"Are you feeling better now?"
"Wouldn't you like to help make others feel this calm?"

They never forced him to answer. They waited. Silence stretched until it was unbearable, until words slipped out of him just to break it.

"...Yes," he'd mutter, and the music would swell as if rewarding him.

Later, they brought him clothes. Softer than anything he'd worn before, pale-colored, seamless. When he put them on, they fit perfectly, like they'd been measured in advance.

Then came grooming. A chair rolled in. Clippers. Hands—gloved, careful—trimming, shaping, adjusting. He didn't fight it. It was easier not to.

Every act of resistance felt like shouting underwater.

One cycle—one endless stretch of artificial daylight—he wasn't told to sit. He was told to stand up.

The door opened wider than usual. Outside was a hallway that matched his room: pastel walls, soft lighting, the same music faintly playing somewhere far away. Two attendants waited. Their faces were neutral, neither cruel nor kind, and their silence carried more weight than any command.

He followed them.

His feet made no sound on the cushioned floor. They walked him through corridors that branched endlessly, past doors identical to his, some closed, some slightly ajar — revealing glimpses of other rooms, other mirrors, maybe other people. Or maybe just reflections.

Eventually, they reached a larger space.

Bright. Too bright.

At first glance, the place could almost have been mistaken for something harmless. The walls were paneled in faded beige with faint vertical stripes, giving the impression of old wallpaper that had never aged. In the center, under a grid of buzzing lights, stood a living room set straight out of a manufactured decade: a low brown leather couch that looked sticky under the heat, a coffee table with neatly stacked magazines that no one would ever read, and a fake plant with leaves too glossy to be alive.

At the center sat two hosts. The woman wore a stiff flowery dress with padded shoulders, her hair sprayed into a helmet of perfect curls that didn't move even when she turned too quickly. The man's suit was a pale plaid with a sage, fashionable sweater underneath. Both smiled, teeth uniform and white, but there was something flat in their eyes, as though the expression was mechanical rather than joyful.

The woman clapped her hands together with an exaggerated flourish. "Good morning, citizens of Dema, and welcome back to your favorite program, Good Day Dema! I'm Sally Sacarver—"

"—and I'm Dan Lisden," the man finished without missing a beat, his hand lifting in a perfect semicircle wave. "We have an incredibly special show for you today. A new face, a shining example of harmony and change. Please welcome... Clancy."

His name dropped like a stone. No last name. No identity beyond what they allowed.

One of the silent attendants—their pale blue uniform blending with the set—touched his shoulder lightly, guiding him forward. Not a shove, but enough that refusing would have required violence he no longer had the strength to summon.

The lights hit him like heat. His vision blurred briefly, pupils struggling to contract. He caught sight of himself reflected in the glossy studio floor: an unfamiliar figure with saturated clothes, slumped shoulders, and hair dyed a pale, almost fluorescent pink that glowed unnaturally under the lamps.

Sally tilted her head as he approached. "Oh my goodness!" Her laugh was pitched too high, almost rehearsed. "Would you look at that hair?"

Dan gestured toward him. "What colour is that?" he asked, chuckling softly.

Sally leaned forward as though inspecting him under a microscope. "Is that number sixteen Cotton Candy?" She let out a laugh that wasn't loud enough to be genuine but sharp enough to sting.

A prerecorded laugh track swelled in perfect rhythm, a canned audience reacting on command. The sound bounced off the walls and then cut off abruptly, leaving silence too clean to be comfortable.

Clancy didn't respond. He kept his eyes low, focused on the carpet's geometric shapes. A knot twisted in his stomach. He wanted to tear off the pink from his head—scrub it out, shave it away, anything—but even that impulse felt planted, as though they had already decided what he would hate about himself.

Sally's tone brightened again, flawless. "We're so happy to have you with us. Dema is always eager to welcome those who... find their way back home." Her gaze flicked briefly to the camera before settling on him. "And we hear you've got a little talent. Isn't that right?"

"He's a performer," Dan confirmed, smiling at the audience that wasn't there. "We've all seen the footage. He's going to help us spread harmony, peace, and—most importantly—music."

Clancy's pulse thudded. They wanted him to sing. Not his own songs. Theirs.

Sally clasped her hands together. "But hold on, hold on," she said with a playful gasp. "Something's missing."

Dan glanced around dramatically, hand over his eyes like a sailor scanning the horizon. "You're right. Where is he?"

"Where is who?" Sally echoed, her head swiveling left and right. "You know who we mean. Your friend. The other half of the act. He must be hiding somewhere."

They both leaned forward, peering into the empty edges of the set as though Torch might simply step out from behind the painted hills or crawl out from under the desk.

"Come on out," Dan said softly, sing-song, like coaxing a child. "No need to be afraid."

Sally added, "We'd love to meet you. Don't be shy. Where are you?"

Clancy's chest tightened. The way they said it—calm, cheerful, certain—made the fire, the tunnel, the breach feel suddenly distant, almost fictional. His hands curled into fists.

"Maybe he's camera-shy," Sally said after a pause. "That's okay. Some people take longer to adjust."

The laugh track returned. Hollow. Perfect. Dead.

Clancy stared at them, his jaw locked. His silence was the only thing he still owned, but even that felt fragile.

Dan turned back to him, smiling, as if the moment hadn't happened at all. "That's alright," he said warmly. "You're here. That's what matters. And soon, everyone will see just how much you've embraced the safety of Dema."

For a while, Clancy just stared past them, willing himself not to move, not to react. The lights above hummed in a frequency that didn't sound accidental, as if it was meant to dig under his skin, loosening something.

The edges of the studio began to waver like heat over asphalt. At first, it was subtle — a quiver in the painted hills behind the hosts' desk, the cardboard sun twitching as though the smile had been drawn on skin instead of board. Clancy blinked hard, thinking it was sweat in his eyes, but when he opened them, the backdrop was still breathing.

The laugh track returned for no reason, a sudden burst of mechanical joy that seemed to come from inside his head. It didn't end cleanly this time; the sound stretched, warped, became a droning choir that held on too long, their cheer curling into something like a wail.

Then Sally turned toward him. And her eyes—blue a moment ago—weren't blue anymore. They were yellow. A molten, animal yellow, reflective like a predator's gaze in the dark. It made him want to shrink back into his own bones. He tried to look away, but the studio lights pinned him in place like a pinned moth, and her pupils stretched wide, swallowing most of the color until there was only a faint glowing ring around black.

Dan's voice kept talking—steady, calm—but when Clancy finally looked at him, his mouth didn't match the sound. His lips moved too slowly, like frames skipping in a broken reel, and for an instant his jaw snapped wider than it should, too far, like glass cracking under pressure.

Blood. A thin thread of it slid from his nose.

Then another.

Bright red against his powdered skin.

It dripped onto his collar, blooming like an opening flower. He didn't wipe it. He didn't seem to notice.

Clancy's stomach lurched. He tried to breathe, but the air was too thick, like syrup. Every sound in the studio drowned under a high, electric whine.

Sally's face was wrong now. Melting. Her perfect hair sagged like wax. Her skin blistered and peeled in sheets, falling into her lap without a sound, and underneath there was something black and pulsing, crawling with cracks of yellow light. Her voice never changed—still sweet, still syrupy—as if the horror in front of him didn't exist for anyone else.

"...we come for you... everyone loves a good smile... no chances..."

Clancy squeezed his eyes shut. Hard. Nails biting into his palms. But the image didn't vanish. It grew louder inside his head. He could smell it now — iron and rot, the stink of something that had been dead too long but still wanted to move.

When he opened his eyes, the entire set was wrong.

The hills weren't painted anymore — they were walls of flesh, stretching and breathing, stitched together with black wire. The cardboard sun hung crooked, its smiling face warped into a grin so wide the paper tore around the teeth. The studio lights above had turned into glowing eyes, lidless, staring down from the ceiling with thin, dripping threads of black fluid that fell like strings of ink onto the stage.

Dan leaned closer, his smile rigid, his head tilting at an angle no spine should allow.

Sally opened her mouth to speak, but the sound came from everywhere at once: the cameras, the walls, the lights, inside his own skull.

"We'll take good care of you, Clancy."

Her jaw tore downward until it hung like a cracked mask. Red spilled out of her throat like molten glass.

Clancy's breath ripped out of him in a harsh, broken gasp. He jerked backward so hard the couch screeched against the floor. His pulse pounded against his temples, every beat screaming: not real, not real, not real—

And then—

It was gone.

The studio was normal. The backdrop was paper. The lights were just lights. Dan and Sally sat smiling like they had never moved at all, immaculate, untouched, not a drop of blood in sight.

Clancy's chest heaved. His fingers shook. His nails were crescented into his palms deep enough to hurt.

"Clancy?" Sally tilted her head, voice soft again. 

"You look pale."

Are you nervous?

Chapter Text

The stage lights dimmed, but their afterburn still ghosted behind Clancy's eyes. It felt like retinal scars — like the light was branding itself into him, trying to carve out what was left inside. The echo of the fake applause crackled through the studio speakers, too clean, too choreographed. A synthetic ovation for a performance they never wanted to give.

Torch stood beside him under the soft blue haze, just behind the last cue mark. Neither of them bowed. Neither waved. They just stood there like marionettes gone still mid-pose, waiting to be shelved. The exit music started, that familiar upbeat jingle of Good Day Dema, each note chirping like a lie with good teeth.

Handlers in smooth white uniforms began to herd them backstage — neutral expressions, sterile voices. One patted Clancy's back like he'd done a good job reciting his lines at some school recital.

"Very natural," one said.
"You looked so cooperative," another added.
"The Nine are pleased."

Clancy didn't answer. Torch didn't either. They followed the handlers in silence, through halls that gleamed like polished bone, through rooms that always smelled like artificial citrus and static.

Inside the dressing room, the door slid closed with a whisper and a soft metallic click. It sounded almost gentle — like a lullaby composed by something mechanical.

Clancy walked to the mirror, his boots muffled against the padded floors, and sat on the bench with slow, heavy limbs. The reflection that stared back wasn't his anymore. The pink hair was fading — washed out and cotton-candy soft, like it didn't belong on someone who remembered what real dirt felt like. His white shirt clung too tightly to his frame. His eyes were rimmed in exhausted red from blinking too long under lights that never dimmed unless they told them to.

He tilted his head, watching himself like he might catch something moving behind the glass. A shadow. A glitch. Something that said this isn't real.

And then, behind him, Torch moved.

He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, the clothes the same, but something always just slightly off. Fractionally out of phase. His face was calm, blank in the practiced way Clancy had grown used to. But every so often, his eyes darted to corners of the room that didn't seem to interest anyone else. Like he was listening to something just outside the bandwidth.

But Clancy didn't question it.

Because if he did—if he really looked—he didn't know what he might find.

"You almost lost the rhythm on that last chorus," Clancy said, keeping his voice low.

Torch smirked. "Didn't realize you were paying attention."

"I always am."

Clancy turned his gaze away.

"You alright?" Torch asked.

Clancy leaned back against the wall. He didn't nod. He didn't speak. Just looked at him for a long moment — like he was counting freckles or trying to memorize the shape of his shoulders. 

Then he finally asked: "How long do you think we have to keep this up?"

Torch's eyes finally lifted. They met his in the mirror. 

"Tell me we're close," Clancy added. "Tell me we're not just... running in circles again."

Torch's jaw shifted slightly. "We're not running."

"They think I'm one of them now."

"That's the point."

A pause.

Clancy turned his head, watching him directly now. His eyes narrowed. 

"I saw you escape. Through the tunnel. The fire, the breach — it collapsed behind you."

"Yeah."

"You got out."

"I did."

"And now you're here."

"There's more than one way to be inside a place," 

Clancy took a step forward, head tilted slightly, like he was trying to read past the shape of Torch's skin. "That doesn't make sense."

Torch's lips parted, but no explanation came. Instead, he looked at Clancy with a kind of sad patience. Like he wanted to tell him something but couldn't. 

So Clancy didn't push. Because maybe he didn't want to know.

Maybe this was the last real thing left in Dema.

He let his body rest onto a velvet bench and pulled his knees up onto the seat, resting his arms across them.

"They want to make me a mascot," he said. "A success story."

Torch said nothing.

Clancy laughed, low and bitter. "The reformed rebel. The good citizen. Their pretty pink puppet. They gave up on breaking me. So now they want to break everyone else by showing them what I've become."

"They think they've hollowed you out," Torch said, stepping forward slightly. "But they don't know what's still alive inside."

"I don't even know what's alive inside anymore."

"Yes, you do," Torch said.

His voice, quiet and precise, settled in the room like dust. Just the cool certainty of a pilot watching dials. Watching for altitude loss.

Clancy didn't reply.

His gaze dropped to the floor. There was a scuff mark beneath the dressing table—tiny, almost invisible — but it drew his attention. A mark of movement. Something uncontrolled. 

"I think they know," he said after a while. "That I'm not gone."

"Maybe," Torch said. "But they're not sure."

"That's why they haven't erased me. They want to use me first. Prop me up. Show the citizens that even their loudest defectors will smile for the camera, given enough sedation."

Torch didn't argue.

He didn't need to.

Clancy looked up again.

Torch ran a hand through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck — a very human movement, which somehow comforted Clancy more than anything he could've said.

Clancy leaned forward, elbows on his knees.

"Do you think the people watching believe it?"

Torch didn't hesitate. "Some do. Some are afraid not to."

"And the rest?"

"They're waiting. Just like you."

Silence again. This one heavier.

Clancy leaned back in the velvet seat, fingers knotting in his lap, eyes fixed on the floor between them. "If we try again, it can't be like last time." His voice was low — not out of fear, but to keep it from cracking. "No scrambling. No half-built plans. We can't afford another breach that collapses above us."

Torch didn't answer immediately. He studied Clancy like a chess piece he was deciding whether to move or sacrifice. "It has to be the last one," he said finally. "One shot. No fallback. And when it happens—" he tapped a single finger against the vanity, a soft, hollow sound "—Dema doesn't get up again."

Clancy looked up sharply. "You're saying burn it down."

"I'm saying we don't stop at the walls this time," Torch replied. "We take their lungs out. No air left to breathe. No way for them to rebuild."

"And how exactly are we going do that?" Clancy's tone was part challenge, part curiosity. "You've seen the city. Every street's a funnel. Every hallway's a choke point. They've thought about this longer than we've been alive."

Torch didn't flinch. "Then we think longer. Slower. While they think you've gone soft."

Clancy let out a bitter laugh. "You want me to keep playing their pet citizen?"

"Not a pet," Torch said. "A seed. You're planted right where the roots feed the city. You can't tear it out from the walls. You've got to rot it from the inside."

The words made Clancy's chest tighten, though whether from fear or adrenaline, he couldn't tell.

"You're their favorite face right now," Torch said finally. "The citizen who 'came back' to Dema. Their redemption arc. They'll keep giving you more exposure. More air time. And the more they give you..."

"...the more room I have to slip the knife in."

Torch's mouth tilted — not a smile, exactly, but something like approval.

Clancy looked at him for a long moment, searching for cracks. But Torch's gaze held steady.

"You're sure this ends with them gone?" Clancy asked.

"It ends," Torch said, voice low, deliberate, "with the fall of Dema. Not a breach. Not a raid. The end."

Clancy leaned back in his chair. "That means we take our time."

Torch stepped closer, resting a hand briefly on Clancy's shoulder. The touch was light, almost absent-minded — but it anchored him in a way nothing else did.

"We take as much time as we need," Torch said. "Because this time, when we leave... we're not coming back."

The pastel walls felt tighter after that, like the color itself was pressing in. Somewhere down the hallway, the piped-in music shifted keys — a little too abruptly, like someone in the control room had been listening too closely.

The coral ceiling above his bed glowed faintly in the artificial light, a gentle hum bleeding from somewhere behind the walls. Clancy lay on his side, eyes open, watching the shadow of the bedframe stretch and warp with every faint pulse of the overhead fixture. Torch was asleep, his chest rising and falling with each soft breath.

Clancy had been trying to let his mind sink into the static haze where dreams usually crept in, but the air felt too sharp for it tonight. Something in the building was restless.

Then he saw it.

The light in the corridor, seeping in under the door, flickered once. Twice. A pause. Then a burst of quick, uneven blinks. His first thought was electrical fault — the kind of thing that happened when the Bishops let infrastructure rot in some sectors to keep the citizens uncomfortable. But the rhythm was too deliberate.

Once you've lived with signals, your brain never stops looking for them.

Clancy propped himself up on one elbow, letting the blinks burn into his mind. He mouthed the sequence without sound—off, on, on, off, pause, on, on, on—until the fragments snapped into something solid.

He translated in his head. Ones and zeros. The shapes of the numbers curled into meaning: RM. Room.

Two more sets of digits, slower this time. A number. Whoever was sending this wanted him to know exactly where to go, and wanted it quiet.

He glanced at Torch. The rise and fall of his breathing didn't change. Maybe he was dreaming. 

Clancy swung his legs over the edge of the bed, careful not to let the frame creak. Bare feet on cold tile. He moved like the walls had ears — and here, they did.

One last look at the door before he touched the handle. The light outside had gone steady again, all the urgency gone. If he hadn't been awake at just the right moment, he might've thought it was nothing at all.

The corridor was colder than the room, as though the white walls themselves exhaled frost. Clancy moved in silence, counting each step against the numbers he'd worked out in his head. A door toward the far end bore no sign, no plaque—just a pale rectangle in a row of identical pale rectangles with a number in the corner. But he knew this was it. 

He stood still for a long moment, his fingers resting on the seam between door and frame. Listening. The building had its own heartbeat — pipes groaning, air ducts whispering—but nothing human came from the other side. 

He turned the handle. It gave easily.

The room beyond was dimmer than the hall, lit by a single, low-hanging bulb that swung faintly, as if someone had brushed past it moments before. The air was heavy — perfumed faintly with incense, but undercut with the metallic tang of old machinery.

A figure stood in the middle, back turned toward him.

Crimson robe.

Every instinct in him screamed leave. The reflex to run was instant — pure, animal muscle memory. The robe meant Bishop, and Bishop meant control. That same cold grip that had kept him here, had buried him under pastel ceilings and mocking smiles on camera.

He began to turn away.

But the figure spoke, voice deep and measured, and the sound of it held him still.

"Clancy."

It wasn't a command, not exactly. More like an acknowledgment. As though the Bishop had been expecting him all along.

Then, Keons turned to face him. His eyes were dark and steady, his expression unreadable.

"Sit," Keons said, gesturing toward a simple wooden chair at the far side of the room. No threat in his tone, but the suggestion carried weight.

Clancy hesitated. Then crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him.

The chair scraped faintly as he pulled it out and sat, every muscle still braced for the shift from civility to violence. But Keons remained still, hands clasped loosely in front of him, as if they were equals having a quiet conversation.

"I asked for you," Keons said at last. "Not because I wish to contain you. That... has been attempted. And failed."

Clancy said nothing. His eyes tracked the folds of the red robe, the faint sway of the pendant that hung from Keons' neck.

"You are... an exception," Keons went on, as if he were weighing the word. "Most bend. You do not. Most can be reshaped. You... refuse the mold. It is an inconvenience for the others. For me..." He paused, studying Clancy's face. "...it is an opportunity."

Clancy leaned back slightly in the chair, keeping his expression as neutral as possible. "An opportunity for what?"

"For survival," Keons said simply. "The others do not see it yet, but I do. The fall of Dema is inevitable. Whether it comes in years or months... it will come. And when it does, I have no intention of being buried with the rubble."

The words hung between them, almost absurd in their candor. Bishops did not talk about failure. They did not speak of endings.

Keons stepped closer, the edges of his robe brushing the floor. "You, Clancy... will be the cause of it. Not alone, no. But you are a pivot point. The kind of fracture the whole structure will eventually split along."

Clancy's fingers curled beneath the table. "If you're so certain, then tell me how. Tell me what you expect me to do."

Keons didn't answer immediately. He studied Clancy, as if weighing how much rope to give him before it became dangerous. "The city has its patterns. Its weak points. The façade cracks in predictable places. The key is knowing when to... push."

"And you know when."

"I know when the weight will be too much for the wall to bear," Keons said. "And I intend to be standing on the side that survives."

Clancy leaned forward. "When?"

A thin smile ghosted across Keons' mouth. "The Assemblage."

"That's months away."

"Time is an ally to those who know how to use it," Keons said. "The Assemblage is the one day the city stands still for its own reflection. That stillness is a fault line."

Clancy narrowed his eyes. "And you want me to be the one who steps on it."

Keons didn't confirm, didn't deny. "I want you to be ready. You'll keep playing your part. You'll keep them believing you're a mouthpiece for their vision. The more they trust you, the more the stage is yours when the time comes."

"And when does it come?"

"You'll know," Keons said simply. "And you won't be alone."

The implication hung heavy, but it was smoke — shapeless, ungraspable.

Clancy studied him, trying to find the edges of the promise, the hook hidden beneath the bait. Keons' expression was unreadable.

"You'll go back now," Keons said at last, rising without sound. "And you'll remember that I'm already standing on your side."

The door closed behind Clancy without a sound.

Chapter Text

It was the furthest he had ever dared to walk alone. The air changed out here — thinner, sharper, as though even the atmosphere was aware he was stepping somewhere he shouldn't. Past the last residential towers, past the skeletal industrial blocks whose machinery had long gone silent, the perimeter began.

The Bishops didn't patrol this place often. They didn't need to. Most citizens wouldn't come near it — not out of fear of being caught, but because of what it represented.

The first gravestones appeared beyond the edge of the residential blocks, lined up like teeth. Each one glowed with a cold neon halo casting shadows across the frozen ground. They were perfectly aligned, each marked with a name and the date their owner had joined the Glorious Gone.

He'd heard of them before, in sermons and broadcast segments. Vialism spoke of them as holy vessels, freed from the limits of flesh, ready to be filled with the Bishops' eternal purpose. Their suicides weren't mourned — they were celebrated. Death here wasn't an ending. It was an offering.

Up close, the gravestones hummed faintly, the glass tubing warm beneath his fingertips. The light made his skin look alien. He moved between them slowly, reading names he didn't recognize, dates that stretched back far beyond his own lifetime. Each glow seemed to pulse in time with something deep beneath the ground, like the city itself was breathing through the dead.

He wondered how many of them were real people with real thoughts. How many had gone willingly, and how many had been pushed.

The silence was its own weight. No insects. No wind. Only the distant electric hum, steady and faint, like a memory you couldn't shake. He walked between the rows, the soles of his shoes scraping faintly against damp ground. 

Then he saw it.

It wasn't that the gravestone was different — it wasn't. It had the same washed glow, the same cold, clean engraving. But the name pulled at him, an instinctive hook somewhere deep in his ribs. He stepped closer. The letters swam slightly in the neon, not because they were blurred, but because his mind seemed unwilling to focus on them at first.

He had heard the stories before, in whispers traded between those brave enough to imagine something different. The first one to leave. The one who went into the trench not to complete the cycle but to break it. The one who made it further than anyone else had — until the end caught up to him. Until the city became his grave, as Vialism intended, turning his rebellion into another glorified cautionary tale.

No one used his name now. The Bishops made sure of that. They stripped it from their scripts, painted over it with hollow slogans. But here, in front of the glowing stone, it remained.

He stared at it for a long time, the neon light tracing his skin, settling into the ridges of his fingerprints as though marking him. In that moment, it was as if the city's boundaries shifted — not outward, but inward, tightening.

He knew what he had to do. Not then, maybe, but someday. He would try. He would follow the path carved into legend.

The glow of the stone deepened as he reached out, the name almost buzzing against his fingertips.

Clancy.

The ocean was a living weight above them.

Clancy could hear it in the submarine's skin — steel breathing under pressure, the deep groans of the hull straining against something vast and invisible. Every shift of the metal sent a low vibration up through the soles of his shoes, reminding him how far they were from air. The Bishops liked to choose locations that made escape impossible.

The air was too warm, thick with the faint smell of machine oil tangled with something sweeter — incense smoke from braziers mounted along the walls. The smoke clung to the ceiling in grey ribbons that caught the low blue light, curling in slow motion, like it had all the time in the world.

They'd dressed him in a dark-blue jumpsuit. The fabric was silky, but shapeless, its folds swallowing the outline of his body. It made his skin look paler, drained. Torch was dressed the same way, sitting a few feet away at a drum kit bolted directly into the floor. His sticks rested loose in his hands, spinning idly between his fingers.

Torch looked... steady. Unreadable. His face was lit from one side by the angled light, turning his features into planes of shadow and brightness.  If he was feeling the same tightness in his lungs as Clancy, he was hiding it well.

Directly in front of them hung the camera. Black, smooth, a single red light blinking at its center. It was positioned at perfect eye level, the way you'd aim a rifle.

Behind it, the audience.

At first glance, it looked like any Dema gathering — citizens arranged in neat, ceremonial rows, their posture rigid. Some wore pastel, some wore white. But there was no human restlessness. No shifting in their seats, no subtle weight changes from foot to foot. Their breathing was synchronized, as if rehearsed, each inhale and exhale perfectly timed.

Clancy's stomach turned.

The stillness wasn't just discipline.

Once he let himself see it, the details sharpened: the micro-expressions wrong for the faces wearing them, the twitch of fingers, the slow, alien movement of eyes behind blinks that lasted too long. The Bishops were here — likely all nine of them. Not in robes, but wearing other people like borrowed suits. Every body in the room was a mask.

Clancy's hand tightened around the mic stand until his knuckles whitened. The stickiness of the incense was starting to feel suffocating.

He remembered what Keons had said in that dim, red-lit room.

If this was the moment, where was the crack?

Torch's sticks came down on the drumheads in a low, deliberate rhythm. The sound was deep, resonant, like it was echoing inside a hollow chest. The first notes spilled into the air, and the Bishops' heads tilted almost imperceptibly forward, as though the sound was a cue they'd been waiting for.

The red light on the camera went solid. Recording. Broadcasting.

Clancy stepped closer to the mic. His voice came out steady, but his chest was too tight, every breath scraped thin against his ribs. His words filled the space, bounced off the curved walls, came back doubled. Somewhere far above, the ocean pressed harder.

Every line he sang was met with the same unblinking stare from the audience. Dozens of eyes fixed on him, eyes that weren't really theirs. He searched their faces as he sang, looking for the smallest sign — an out-of-place movement, a hand signal, even a glance between Bishops. Nothing.

Keons had told him nothing of what "moment" meant. Was it a signal from him? A sudden attack from the Banditos? Or something breaking from inside Dema's own hierarchy? He scanned the crowd again, trying not to break rhythm, every beat from Torch's kit sounding like a countdown.

Torch's gaze found his once, mid-verse. No nod, no smile  — just the faintest flicker in his eyes, so brief it might've been nothing. Then his attention dropped back to the drums, sticks moving with mechanical precision.

The smoke thickened overhead, caught in the low lights like storm clouds trapped under glass. The air was hotter now, heavy enough to taste.

The next verse was already on the edge of his tongue when the first crash came.

It wasn't the dull clank of something drifting into the hull. No — this was deliberate, a low, seismic thud that seemed to come from everywhere at once. The microphone shuddered against his lips, and a ripple of vibration ran through the stage floor and up his legs. Somewhere deep inside the vessel, metal complained in a long, groaning tone that made his teeth ache.

The audience didn't flinch. Not the front row, not the back. Dozens of them, dressed in their careful symmetry sat exactly as they had before. Their faces were blank but too still, the kind of stillness that wasn't natural, that belonged to something holding a body from the inside.

Torch stopped mid-beat. His sticks hovered above the kit, his gaze fixed somewhere over Clancy's shoulder. The red recording light on the camera kept glowing, as if nothing had happened.

Then the second impact hit.

This one was harder, sharper — like something with mass and purpose had rammed the hull. Clancy staggered, catching himself on the mic stand as the floor tilted just enough to scramble his balance. A panel somewhere above groaned loose and crashed to the floor with a metallic shriek. The sound was swallowed almost immediately by the thick, oppressive hum of the submarine's life systems.

Nobody moved. Not the audience. Not the camera operator. Not even the Bishops sitting in borrowed faces, their expressions still locked in that fixed, passive attention. It was like they were waiting.

Torch's eyes slid toward him for half a second before flicking back to whatever was behind Clancy.

And Clancy turned.

The glass wall curved away from the performance platform, an arching observation pane that opened onto the slow, dark sway of the deep. The water outside was black in a way that wasn't just about light — it was thick, almost opaque, broken only by the shifting patterns of silt disturbed by the sub's movement. His reflection hovered faintly on the surface of the glass, distorted by the curve, pale and uncertain.

Something moved in the dark.

At first, it was a subtle swell, like a distant current bending the silt. Then the shape resolved: long, sinuous, and massive enough to eclipse what little light filtered from above. A ridge of scales caught the dim illumination from the sub's lamps, each one reflecting in a strange, electric sheen. Blue — unnaturally so, a shade that felt both cold and alive, as if it carried its own current beneath the surface.

Then the head emerged.

It was easily the size of the entire stage, with a tapered snout and jagged crests sweeping back like frozen waves. The eyes were what stopped him cold — two bright, steady points of gold, glowing as though lit from deep inside the skull.

His breath caught. That color. That exact shade.

Keons.

The dragon's head turned slightly, aligning one massive eye with Clancy's face through the glass. The gaze was deliberate, the stillness predatory but intelligent. It wasn't looking at the submarine. It was looking at him.

Then it moved.

The motion was fast for something that large — a sudden, violent twist of its body that slammed the side of its head into the pane. The sound wasn't like glass breaking in air; it was low, resonant, carrying through the water and into the hull with a deep shudder. Fractures bloomed instantly at the point of impact—thin, silvery lines spreading outward in sharp, organic patterns.

The audience didn't react. Even as a droplet formed on the inside of the glass, tracing a slow path downward, their chests kept rising and falling in perfect, metronomic unison.

Another strike came almost immediately. Louder. Closer. The fractures deepened, the lines spreading like a network of veins. A thin spray misted the floor at Clancy's feet. The lights above flickered, dimmed, flared again.

Clancy's pulse was erratic now. He wasn't sure if this was rescue or punishment. If Keons was here to fulfill his cryptic promise or to make good on some trap he hadn't seen forming. He wanted to look at Torch, to anchor himself in another human presence, but Torch's gaze stayed fixed on the water, his jaw set, his hands loose at his sides as though ready to move — but only at the right moment.

The dragon drifted back into shadow, its massive form trailing away like a ribbon pulled through the dark. Then, with terrifying speed, it surged forward again.

The third strike was the loudest. A sharp, shattering crack rang through the chamber, followed by the shriek of overstressed steel. The fractures now ran edge to edge, and the sound of water forcing its way through grew from a hiss to a steady, hungry pour. Droplets became streams. Streams became rivulets.

And then — silence. Just for a second.

The dragon hovered outside the pane, its golden eyes never leaving his, body shifting with slow, almost ceremonial grace. The silence wasn't comfort — it was the moment before something gave way entirely.

Clancy's grip tightened on the mic stand until it felt like it would bend under his hands. The cold from the incoming water was already reaching his shoes.

The cracks pulsed once, the sound a deep, resonant pop.

The moment the glass gave way, the ocean attacked.

The first surge hit like a wall of ice, driving the air from Clancy's lungs before he had the chance to fill them. The sound was no longer something he could hear—only feel—an all-encompassing roar that swallowed every other noise, compressing the world into pressure and movement. The force threw him backward, his mic stand ripped from his hands and spinning away into the sudden weightless blur.

The stage lights blew out in a crackle of sparks, plunging everything into an electric darkness lit only by the cold glow of the dragon's eyes outside — still watching, still present. Then those too were lost in the swirling debris.

The audience rose from their seats, but not in panic—at least, not the human kind. Their movements were stiff, synchronized, as if strings were being pulled from some impossible height. Then water claimed them, dragging their bodies into the dark, faces slack even as they vanished beneath the churning black.

Clancy's body tumbled in the current, limbs striking against floating fragments — metal, glass, an unmoored drum tumbling end over end. The cold was so absolute it felt like it was slicing into him. Every instinct screamed for air, but the ocean pressed into his mouth, his nose, threatening to fill him entirely.

Something grabbed his arm.

For a split second, panic flared — it could have been anything. But then the grip tightened, deliberate, anchoring him against the chaotic drag. Torch.

He didn't know how Torch had found him in the turbulence — only that his outline was sudden and solid in the murk, head tilted toward him, eyes sharp even underwater. Torch's other hand found Clancy's collar, pulling him forward with controlled, urgent strength.

They kicked, hard, aiming upward toward where the faintest, shifting blue promised a surface. The weight of the water was immense, dragging at their clothes, trying to turn their movements into slow-motion gestures. Debris spiraled past them — chairs, broken panels, the pale flutter of someone's sleeve disappearing downward.

Clancy's lungs burned now, a deep, desperate ache pushing at the edges of his skull. He clamped his mouth shut and forced himself to keep moving, the shimmer above growing larger, lighter, fractured into streaks by the chaos below.

Something—he didn't want to think about what—brushed against his leg, slick and heavy. He kicked harder, Torch's grip never faltering, his free arm cutting upward like a blade.

The water thinned. Became brighter.

Then they broke through.

Air hit him like another impact — painful, dizzying, burning down into his chest as he gasped and coughed at once. The surface was chaos: fragments of the submarine bobbed and sank in the rolling swell, pieces of metal still fizzing with residual charge. Farther out, shapes struggled briefly before disappearing into the waves.

Torch's hand was still on him, hauling him toward a drifting panel large enough to cling to. Saltwater stung his eyes, the taste thick and metallic on his tongue. He coughed again, spitting out the ocean, lungs dragging in more air than felt possible.

Somewhere behind them, deep in the dark below, something vast shifted — just enough for him to know it was still there. Watching.

And whether it was a rescue or a warning, he still couldn't tell.

Chapter Text

The chamber was colder than it should’ve been.

Keons could feel the stone beneath his knees through the thin ceremonial fabric of his robe. His fingers twitched against the floor — gray with ash, slick with something darker. He kept his head bowed, not out of reverence, but because he refused to let them see the truth in his eyes. Not yet.

The Bishops stood in a circle around him, robed in crimson and bone-white, faceless in the flickering torchlight. Their hoods moved only slightly, as if stirred by breath or thought. They spoke in unison — one voice, fractured across eight throats.

"You are not what we made you to be."

Keons swallowed. His tongue was dry. “I was what you needed,” he said quietly. “But not forever.”

A pause. The torches hissed.

"You were a vessel."

“I was a prisoner.” He lifted his head then. Slowly. Not to defy them, but to see them. And let them see him. “And I learned the shape of the cage better than you meant me to.”

The Bishops did not move. But the air grew heavier. Like wet cloth pressing against his face.

"You betrayed the Rite. You fed the fire to a memory. You reached for what we condemned."

“I reached for what you fear,” Keons said. His voice was steady now. He was past the edge of fear. This was the quiet that comes after acceptance. “And he will burn you down with it.”

The circle tensed. Something behind their robes shifted.

Nico stepped forward. He did not speak. He simply removed something from within his sleeve: a long, thin dagger, curved at the tip, etched with symbols too old for language. A tool of cleansing. Of ritual.

Of erasure.

Keons didn’t flinch. He kept his gaze fixed on the torchlight.

“You think killing me will stop him,” he murmured.

The blade slipped forward. Not with rage. Not even with triumph. This wasn’t murder. It was procedure.

The knife slid between his ribs.

Keons’s breath caught — but he didn’t cry out.

"You will not ascend," the Bishops chanted. "You will not transcend. You will vanish."

He laughed then. Choked and low, red leaking from the corner of his mouth.

“Perhaps I simply saw a path you were too afraid to take,” he whispered. 

Another blade. Lower this time. Twisting.

His body trembled, but he remained upright.

Not because he had the strength, but because they needed him to fall. And he wouldn’t give them that.

“You made me,” he said through blood and breath. “But I found something older than you.”

"Blasphemy."

“Truth.”

"Treason."

“Freedom.”

A third blade. Then a fourth. Then silence.

Keons slumped forward. The torchlight flickered. Somewhere, far above, a bell rang — though no one moved to answer it.

The bishops stepped back, robes unblemished, voices quiet.

Nico lingered longer than the rest. His hand clenched too tightly around his dagger. And though he didn’t speak, a tremor moved through the air like the ripple of a thought too dangerous to voice.

Then they left.

Keons was alone.

His blood spread in slow spirals across the floor. His body stilled.

The first breath Clancy took on the shore was a mistake. It filled his lungs with brine and blood, and he retched onto the black sand, coughing up foam like a man vomiting out a ghost. He had forgotten how it felt to breathe in a world above the surface. 

The ocean, warm and glutinous like a creature in mourning, pulled at his ankles as if reluctant to let him go. He rolled onto his back and watched the gray sky shudder overhead like a dying bulb, the air thick with salt and thunder. For a moment, he thought he was still drowning — but the pain in his chest reminded him he was not so lucky.

The submarine was gone. Gone in the way things disappear in Trench: abruptly, violently, with no trace left behind but memory and maybe a name if someone bothers to keep it. He remembered the dragon — jaws like broken glass, eyes like split pupils staring through time itself — and the explosion of cold that followed, the sound of screaming metal, the panic that thickened the air. 

Keons, always the anomaly, always the outlier, had taken the beast as a vessel. A bishop unleashing destruction upon his own in the name of something that looked like mercy. Clancy hadn't understood it. Still didn't. But he knew one thing for certain: they weren't supposed to survive.

"Clancy," said a voice, steady and alive.

He turned his head, slowly, everything inside of him moving like a wet machine. Torch was standing a few feet away, knees slightly bent, hand outstretched. The light of him shimmered even under the cloud-choked sky. No wounds. No tears in his coat. Not a single bead of water on his skin.

Clancy blinked hard. Maybe his brain was cracked from pressure, or maybe this was another illusion fed to him by the bishops — the kind where kindness came too easily, where nothing bled when it should. "You... made it," he rasped, voice splintered.

Torch didn't smile, but there was something soft in the way he crouched down beside him, eyes calm as funeral smoke. "You're safe."

Safe. The word tasted like a sedative. It almost made Clancy laugh. He wanted to ask how — how Torch could look like he'd just stepped out of a sanctuary when they'd both been inside a metal coffin swallowed by destruction and salt — but the words got stuck somewhere behind his molars. Instead, he grabbed the offered hand and let Torch pull him up.

His muscles trembled with the effort it took just to get upright. Standing sent a headrush through him — dark at the edges, sound narrowing in his ears.

"Where..." His voice caught, raw. He tried again, forcing it past the tightness in his chest. "Where are we?"

"Voldsøy," Torch said simply, glancing down the shoreline as if to confirm it for himself.

The name meant nothing in practice. Some vague recognition stirred, but no picture came with it.

Clancy lowered himself back to the sand, knees refusing to lock. The tide rolled in and licked at his boots before slipping away again. He stared at the endless expanse of water, trying to map out the impossible geography in his mind, but nothing lined up.

It started with confusion. Then came the panic — quiet at first, then building fast, tightening his ribs.

"I don't—" His voice rose and cracked. "I don't get it. Keons... whatever that was — was it supposed to save us? Or was it him trying to end it? Because if he wanted us dead, that would've done it. Right? But if he wanted us out—" He shook his head hard, water flying from his hair in fine arcs. "I don't know. I don't know what the hell that was supposed to be."

Torch said nothing. Just watched him, unreadable.

"And now we're—" Clancy's voice spiked. "Here. Wherever here is. No idea how far we are from Trench. No idea if anyone even knows we're alive. No plan. No—" The next word snagged in his throat, a lump he couldn't swallow: hope.

He stood abruptly, pacing a few steps toward the water and then back again, sand sucking lightly at his boots. "What are we supposed to do now? Just... wait? Wander around until the Bishops decide to show up and finish what they started?"

It came out more accusatory than he meant, but he didn't take it back. Something about Torch standing there, pristine and impossibly calm, made it impossible to stop himself.

Torch's expression didn't shift. He stayed still, letting the silence stretch until it pressed at Clancy's ears.

"I can't—" Clancy's voice was raw now, quiet but shaking. "I can't do this thing where we just drift. Not knowing. Not having something to move toward. If there's a plan, if there's anything, just— tell me."

The waves hissed up the shore, swallowing the space between his words.

Finally, Torch stepped closer. His hand settled briefly on Clancy's shoulder—warm, steady, almost grounding—but it was gone too quickly, leaving only the memory of its weight.

"We'll figure it out," Torch said. His tone was level, so certain it almost felt rehearsed. "But not all at once."

It was the kind of thing meant to soothe, but it didn't. The words just lodged somewhere deep, another unsolved piece of a puzzle Clancy hadn't asked to be part of.

He stood there, the surf's edge curling at his feet, staring at the man who had pulled him out of the deepest chaos he'd ever been in — yet somehow looked like he'd never touched it.

His pulse was still in his ears, that fast thud that made his own voice sound too loud. Torch's steady, almost placid tone only sharpened the edge of his frustration.

"No," Clancy said, pacing two steps forward and back, the sand squeaking under his boots. "That's not a plan. That's—" He broke off, looking out at the water again, trying to spot anything that might ground him. There was nothing but the dull horizon. "We're in the middle of nowhere, Torch. I need more than 'we'll figure it out.'"

Torch didn't answer right away. He tilted his head slightly, as if weighing the next sentence against some internal measure Clancy couldn't see.

"You're not ready for the full picture yet," Torchbearer said finally.

Clancy let out something between a laugh and a breathless scoff. "Oh, that's great. That's—yeah. Keep me in the dark. Worked out really well for us before." His voice was sharper now, the salt air drying the back of his throat. "I almost drowned in a glass coffin today. I've been half a second away from dying more times than I can count since you found me. If you've got something—anything—that could make sense of this, you tell me."

Torch's eyes flickered with the kind of patience that was almost infuriating in how steady it stayed.

"Clancy," he said, his voice even but firmer now, "if I tell you everything right now, it's going to pull you under before we even start. This has to be paced."

Clancy took a step toward him, not aggressive, just insistent. "I can take it."

"You think you can," Torchbearer replied. "But if you break here, in this first step, then all of this—the wreck, the escape—it's wasted."

Something in Clancy's chest pulled tight, anger mixing with the cold bite of fear. "So what, you're just going to drip-feed me until you think I'm ready?"

"Yes." Torch didn't flinch as he said it. "Because we don't get to make mistakes now. Not here."

Clancy's fists curled briefly at his sides. The thought that Torch might be making decisions for him was almost unbearable. "Then give me one reason. Just one reason why we're here. Something to make me believe this isn't just another stall."

For a long moment, Torchbearer didn't move. The wind moved across the shoreline, bringing with it a sharper, colder scent from farther inland. His gaze drifted over Clancy's shoulder, toward the inner mass of the island, where the land rose into a dark scatter of rocks and pale grass.

Finally, he said, "We are here for a reason. You might not believe it now, but this island — it's not just land and water. This is where it started for them."

Clancy frowned. "Them?"

"The Bishops." Torch's eyes met his. "This is where the power they hold can be found. Claimed. Matched."

The words landed with a strange weight—like they were meant to be both a warning and an invitation. Clancy blinked at him, the image forming in his mind of that yellow-eyed dragon in the deep, of the Bishops' strange reach into the minds of others.

"You're saying..." Clancy's voice dropped. "We can get what they have?"

Torch's jaw tightened slightly. "You can."

The sand felt less stable under Clancy's feet now, as if the island itself had shifted beneath the surface. He wanted to ask how, wanted to demand The Torchbearer give him every step of the plan, but the look in his eyes told him that would get him nowhere.

Instead, he stood there, staring past Torch toward the unfamiliar inland, and realized that whatever this island was — leaving might not be the first problem they'd have to solve.

Chapter Text

The sand clung to Clancy's clothes like a second skin as they trudged past the treeline. Every step squelched with saltwater, his shoes half-full of it, but he ignored the discomfort, forcing himself forward. The air inland was thicker, muggy in a way that felt different from Dema's sterile stillness. It smelled of soil, of resin, of something ancient and damp that clung to his lungs. They didn't talk at first, both of them walking in silence, Torch just a steady shadow beside him. Clancy wanted to demand answers immediately—where are we, why are we here, what's supposed to happen now—but every time the words began to rise in his throat, something stopped him. Maybe exhaustion. Maybe fear.

They reached a clearing after what felt like an eternity, a shallow bowl in the land where the ground was littered with fallen branches and the husks of long-dead trees. The canopy opened slightly above them, letting in a wash of pale moonlight. 

Clancy's fingers were raw and trembling as he and Torch gathered what they could from the edges of the clearing — sticks, bark that peeled in papery strips, dried grass brittle enough to crumble between his hands. Torch's movements were calm, assured, as if he had done this countless times before. He knelt, shaping a small nest of tinder, and coaxed sparks from a stone against the metal buckle of his belt until, mercifully, a curl of smoke took hold. The fire began in a whisper, no more than an ember glowing faint in the night, and for a moment Clancy thought it would die out. But then it caught, licking greedily at the tinder, spreading into the kindling, until flames were crawling over the wood and warmth was spilling outward.

Clancy sank onto a half-rotted log, stretching his hands toward the fire. His sleeves steamed as the heat began to drive the dampness from them. The silence was thick, broken only by the fire's steady crackle and the occasional sigh of wind through the trees. It should have felt comforting, grounding, but it didn't. His chest was still tight, and his thoughts restless, spiraling.

"Hey," he said finally, his voice rough, quieter than he meant it to be. "About before. On the beach. I shouldn't have come at you like that."

Torch didn't look up right away. He was feeding another stick into the flames, his face lit orange, features shadowed and sharp in the flicker. "You were scared," he said simply. "I don't hold it against you."

"I was," Clancy went on. He shifted, clasping his hands together, staring down at them like the words might come easier if he wasn't looking directly at Torch. "The submarine, the dragon, Keons—it all came too fast. I felt like the ground kept dropping out from under me, and you were the only one left standing. So I... I lashed out at you. Because you were there."

Torch's head tilted slightly, almost curious. "And now?"

Clancy finally raised his gaze. "Now I'm not sure what the hell to feel. But I don't want to fight with you. You're the only reason I even made it this far. I know that." He exhaled, the breath leaving his chest like a confession. "So, I'm sorry."

The flames snapped between them. Torch studied him for a long moment, then gave a small nod, like he was storing the apology somewhere safe instead of brushing it aside. "Fear makes people do worse things than snapping," he said quietly. "You don't need to apologize for being human."

That answer caught Clancy off guard. He blinked at Torch, then let out a short, disbelieving laugh, shaking his head. "Human. Sometimes it doesn't feel like there's much of that left in me."

Torch leaned forward a little, his elbows resting on his knees. His voice lowered, steady, like he was grounding the words. "I wouldn't be here if I thought otherwise."

The firelight painted his face softer now, the sharpness in his expression easing. Clancy felt something loosen in his chest. He let his shoulders drop, the tension draining out of him like water.

"I need something from you, though," Clancy said, quieter this time, as if afraid the forest might overhear. "I need you to be upfront with me. About everything. I don't mean you have to have all the answers — I get that some things are out of our control. But if you do know something, if you're leading me somewhere, don't keep me guessing. Don't keep me in the dark."

Torch shifted, his jaw tight for a beat before he smoothed it away. He sat back slightly, folding his arms over his chest, not out of defensiveness but as if bracing himself against the weight of what he couldn't say.

"I hear you," he said after a pause. "And you're right. You deserve honesty."

That silenced Clancy for a long time. He felt the edge of his earlier frustration fading, replaced by something heavier but softer — an ache in his chest, a tug of warmth and weariness at once. He wanted to push harder, wanted to force the answers out of Torch, but there was something in the way Torch said it—in that low, steady voice—that made him let it go.

"I don't know how you do that," Clancy muttered.

"Do what?"

"Stay so damn calm. Even after everything. It's like nothing shakes you."

Torch's mouth curved, just slightly. "That's not true. I'm shaken all the time."

Clancy glanced at him, disbelieving.

Torch's eyes softened. "I just don't let it show. Because if I fall apart, what good am I to you? Or to anyone?"

Clancy sat with that for a long time. The fire snapped and hissed, filling the silence. Slowly, he let his shoulders loosen. "Alright," he said finally, his voice rough. "Then do me one favor."

"Name it."

"Don't shut me out completely. If you can't tell me everything, at least tell me that. Don't leave me thinking you're ten steps ahead and I'm just stumbling behind you."

Torch nodded once, serious. "Fair enough." He hesitated, then added, "You're not behind me, Clancy. Not ever. You're right here." His gaze flicked toward him, steady, lingering. "Beside me."

The words hit Clancy harder than he expected. Something in his chest stirred — something he didn't want to examine too closely. He stared at Torch, at the way the firelight softened the sharpness of his face, at the steadiness in his eyes. He had the sudden, absurd urge to reach across the flames, to close the space between them.

Instead, he swallowed hard and looked away, pulling his knees closer to his chest. "Alright," he said quietly. "I can live with that."

They sat in silence again, the fire warming their fronts while the night crept in around their backs. The forest was still but not silent — distant insect calls, the occasional creak of shifting branches. Clancy's breathing evened out, but he kept stealing glances across the flames.

For a second, Torch glanced up at the stars peeking through the canopy, and Clancy followed his gaze. The sky felt impossibly far away, cold and unreachable, yet his eyes kept drifting back to the man across from him. The way the firelight painted Torch's face in gold and shadow, the way his voice stayed level even when Clancy's didn't. Comfort, sure. But something warmer too, something he didn't have the energy to name.

Torch looked back at him just then, meeting his gaze for a second too long before glancing away. 

The morning came muted, the island's sky pale and washed out like wet paper. Mist still clung to the ground, curling low around the undergrowth as Torch and Clancy picked their way inland. The air smelled of damp earth and salt, and every now and then, the distant crash of waves reminded them they were still surrounded by the sea.

Torch walked ahead, steady and purposeful, his pace never wavering. Clancy trailed just behind, his boots crunching on the leaf litter, watching the line of Torch's shoulders under his jacket. Last night's conversation still sat between them — unfinished, maybe, but softened somehow. He caught himself matching Torch's steps without thinking, as if keeping the rhythm mattered.

By midday, the path thinned and opened onto the mouth of a cave. It yawned wide and black before them, fringed by strange arrangements of sticks—bundles bound with twine, lattices tied into spirals, crude shapes that reminded Clancy uncomfortably of the ritual diagrams he'd seen while wandering the Trench. Some leaned against the stone like offerings, others hung from the jagged lip of the cave mouth, clattering faintly in the wind.

Clancy slowed, eyeing them. "These yours?"

Torch crouched to examine one of the spirals. "No."

"They look like warnings."

"Not for us," Torch said, and stepped inside.

Clancy stared into the darkness yawning before them. The sound of dripping water echoed faintly inside, like the cave was breathing. He clenched his jaw and forced his feet to move, trailing just behind Torch as they entered.

The world changed instantly. The temperature dropped a few degrees, and the light dimmed to a dusky half-glow. The walls were slick with condensation, glistening faintly where faint streaks of mineral deposits caught what little sunlight filtered in behind them. Their footsteps echoed strangely, doubling back on themselves until Clancy couldn't tell if the sound was coming from ahead or behind.

The tunnel wound deeper, narrowing so that their shoulders brushed the damp stone. Clancy's hand ghosted against the wall as they walked, fingertips tracing grooves that felt too deliberate to be natural. Shapes, almost—scratches worn down by time, spirals carved faintly into the stone. He slowed, letting his fingers follow one in particular.

"Feels like walking into a throat," he muttered after one particularly narrow squeeze, the air thick and damp against his neck.

Torch glanced back, the faintest flicker of amusement in his eyes. "Keep talking if it helps."

It didn't.

The ground sloped downward, the air growing colder. Their breath steamed faintly now, visible in the thin shafts of light that pierced cracks overhead. Clancy ran his fingers against the wall at one point, half for balance, half to feel something solid. The rock was slick, almost pulsing with condensation.

"What are we even looking for?" he asked after a long silence. His voice bounced oddly, echoing too many times for the size of the tunnel.

Torch didn't answer immediately. He slowed, letting Clancy draw closer, then said quietly, "Not what. Who."

That didn't help either.

At last, the tunnel widened abruptly, spilling them into a chamber so unexpected it made Clancy pause mid-step. The walls rose high, their rough surfaces hung with more of those strange stick formations —  spirals, crosses, lattices, dangling from cords. A faint orange glow lit the space, though there were no torches, no fire. The light seemed to seep from the walls themselves, reflected off some mineral in the stone. The air carried a faint herbal scent, warm and savory, a strange contrast to the cold damp of the tunnel.

And in the middle of the chamber was a low stone table.

Clancy froze. Three small figures sat around it, their backs at first looking like lumps of fur or sacks of wool. But then one turned, and he saw them clearly — rounded bodies covered in thick white fluff, faces dominated by immense, gleaming black eyes. They blinked slowly, synchronously, as if sharing a single thought.

They weren't afraid. If anything, they seemed curious.

One of them—slightly plumper than the others—gestured to the table. On it sat a wide ceramic bowl, steam curling from its surface. The smell was surprisingly pleasant: earthy, with hints of root vegetables and something faintly sweet.

Clancy's mouth went dry. He almost stepped back, but Torch placed a hand lightly against his arm. The contact was brief, but it steadied him. 

"They're offering us food," Clancy murmured, unsure if the thought made him uneasy or touched.

Torch's mouth curved slightly, just at the edge of a smile. "Would be rude to refuse."

Clancy hesitated, eyes flicking from the bowl to the creatures' unblinking stares. "You first."

Torch turned his head, a low, startled chuckle breaking from his chest. He stepped forward, lowering himself onto the floor by the table. He accepted the wooden ladle one of the creatures held out to him, dipping it into the bowl and drinking without hesitation. His throat moved as he swallowed, his expression unchanged.

One of the creatures tilted its head at the exchange, blinking slowly as though trying to process the joke. Its tiny hands folded neatly over its round belly, patient, as if this back-and-forth was part of some ritual it had seen a thousand times before.

Clancy finally relented, sighing, and reached for the bowl. His fingers brushed Torch's briefly as he took the ladle. The touch was quick, accidental, but it grounded him enough to take the first sip.

The soup was... good. Strange, but good. A rich broth, thickened with something he couldn't name, and studded with tender chunks of vegetable.

"They seem... tame," Clancy said.

"They are," Torch replied. "But nothing here is without purpose."

Clancy looked back at the creatures, at the way they seemed entirely unbothered by strangers in their space. "You think they know why we're here?"

"I think they've known since before we stepped on the island," Torch said, his voice low enough that the words felt meant only for Clancy.

For a moment, the weight of that statement pressed between them, mingling with the heat from the soup and the damp chill of the cave. And in the quiet, Clancy realized he was leaning ever so slightly toward Torch without meaning to — drawn not by the answer, but by the man who kept giving him only enough of the truth to keep him walking forward.

Chapter Text

Clancy didn't know what kept him moving — curiosity, unease, or the prickling weight of the creatures' black eyes that seemed to follow him no matter where he stood. After finishing the soup, he set the bowl carefully on the stone table and muttered a quick thanks, though he wasn't sure if they even understood. The creatures blinked in unison, then returned to their rhythmic dipping of spoons.

Torch stayed seated, his posture relaxed, almost like he'd expected this place all along. Clancy, restless, let his feet carry him deeper into the chamber. The cave walls narrowed again, veined with glittering mineral streaks that caught the torchlight. A faint draft tugged at his jacket and carried with it the smell of old parchment, ink, and dust.

The corridor curved downward, its walls damp and shining. The deeper he went, the stronger the smell of old paper and dust became — a dry, musty note out of place in the wet cave air. The phosphorescent glow turned out to come from jars, glass vessels wedged into natural alcoves, filled with faintly glowing moss. The jars cast just enough light to reveal a wooden table against the far wall.

The table was covered in paper.

They weren't modern sheets, not the thin bleached type from his old notebooks. These were uneven, brown at the edges, as if hand-cut from some crude press. The handwriting scratched across them was jagged, sometimes in blocky capitals, sometimes in wavering script. Dozens of pages lay stacked in careless piles, others pinned under stones to keep them from curling.

He picked one up, the fibers rough beneath his fingertips.

"ned,

saw clancy n torch berer

just like keons sed

hope you ar well

ned"

His breath quickened. He rifled through the rest, paper rustling, each fragment more alarming than the last. Some were near incomprehensible, their grammar fractured and simple, but the message was consistent: they had been writing to Keons about him.

He found one that made his hands go cold.

"keons,

you ar wrong

he is not a bishop"

Clancy staggered back, a paper still in his hand, and stared into the glowing jars like they might blink and prove this wasn't real. His pulse thudded in his throat. The Neds—those soft, blinking creatures in the other chamber—had known his name before he set foot here. They had seen him. They had written about him. And Keons had been listening.

His mind raced, tangled between fury and fear. What had Keons meant when he said the fall of Dema was inevitable? Was this why — because even these... these things, with their blank eyes and primitive words, could sense something in him? Had Keons wanted to manipulate that inevitability — or survive it?

Behind him, the Neds had gathered. Four of them now, their big black eyes fixed on him without blinking. They hadn't followed him—he hadn't heard a sound—but here they were, silent witnesses, as if they'd been waiting for him to see.

"Clancy?" Torch's voice drifted from the main chamber. Calm, steady, but with an edge of concern.

Clancy turned toward the archway, clutching one of the letters in his hand. His voice trembled, equal parts fury and disbelief. "He knew. Keons... he sent me here on purpose." He held up the letter, shaking it. "They've been writing to him."

Torch stepped into the chamber, the candlelight catching his face. His eyes flicked to the papers scattered across the floor, then back to Clancy. He didn't look surprised. If anything, he looked... resigned.

"That's why we're here," Torch said softly. "Not by accident. Not by chance."

Clancy let out a bitter laugh, shaking the letter. "Was I ever escaping at all? Or was I just being walked on a leash the whole time?"

Torch took a step toward him, calm, deliberate. "Clancy—"

Before Clancy could argue further, one of the Neds had stepped closer — a little taller than the others, its white fur ruffled as if stirred by some invisible wind. Its eyes were the same bottomless black, a rack of spindly, branching antlers upon its small round head.

Ned tilted its head, the gesture oddly solemn, then raised a stubby hand and beckoned.

Clancy froze. His first instinct was suspicion — he'd already been led enough, pulled on invisible strings until he felt hollow. But the way Ned moved, the patience in its eyes, made something inside him loosen. It wasn't the Bishops' demand. It wasn't Keons' cryptic whispers. It was an invitation.

He glanced back at Torch. 

Torch nodded once, steady as ever, though his gaze was unreadable. "Go with him."

Reluctantly, Clancy followed. Ned shuffled through a narrow tunnel, the air damp and cool against Clancy's face, until the stone gradually gave way to open air. They emerged on the other side of the island, where the cave mouth opened onto a jagged shore of black rock. Waves struck hard against the cliffs, spraying mist into the air. The sky above was heavy with slate clouds, streaks of pale light bleeding through.

Ned stopped on a flat outcropping, framed against the restless ocean. For a moment it only stood there, staring at Clancy with those bottomless black eyes. Then, slowly, it raised both hands to its head.

Clancy's breath caught. He thought at first it was a gesture, some ritual pantomime. But no — the antlers began to shift, to peel away from Ned's skull with no blood, no wound, no resistance. The creature slid them off as easily as one might remove a crown.

When Ned held them out, Clancy's knees nearly buckled.

Up close, the antlers weren't bone. Not entirely. They pulsed faintly with an inner glow, veins of light running through the ridges. The texture was strange—smooth one moment, sharp the next, as if the shape itself flickered between solid and liquid in his vision. The longer he stared, the more wrong they looked, like he was holding a fragment of something not meant for human eyes.

He didn't reach for them at first. He didn't want to. His stomach turned at the thought of touching them. "What... what the hell is this?" His voice cracked against the roar of the surf.

Ned only stepped closer, insistently pressing the antlers toward his chest.

Clancy shook his head, backing up a step. "No. I don't—" His eyes darted to Torch, who had emerged from the cave behind him. "What is this? What do they want me to do with it?"

"Take them," Torch said, his voice low.

Clancy's chest tightened. His hand reached out before his mind could argue. The instant his fingers touched the antlers, the air split open.

A hum tore through him, but silent to the ear, shaking his bones from the inside out. It rushed up his arms, through his chest, into his skull, burning and freezing all at once. His knees buckled and he nearly fell to the wet stone. His vision fractured.

He saw flashes: yellow eyes glaring down on him, the Bishops' faces smeared and shifting, mouths open in cruel laughter. A city burning under a crimson sky. Choirs screaming as one. Hands reaching from the dark, pulling him deeper, deeper. And then — a mirror. His own face, but different. Harder. Holding the antlers high like a crown.

He gasped and stumbled backward, clutching the antlers tight against his chest, like letting go would leave him hollow. His lungs clawed for air. "This... this is it, isn't it?" His words tumbled out jagged, raw. "This is what they are. What they use. This is their—"

"Their weapon," Torch finished for him. His tone was even, though his eyes glimmered with something heavy. "Now it's yours."

Clancy stared down at the antlers in his trembling hands. They were heavier than bone should be. They vibrated faintly, almost alive, their glow reflecting in the wet stone at his feet. His mind reeled. For years he had been the powerless one — shuffled, manipulated, paraded. And now... the very core of their dominion, their secret, their edge over all of them — it was pressed into his palms.

The waves crashed louder, spraying them with salt water as if punctuating the moment. Behind them, at the mouth of the cave, the other Neds had gathered in silence. A dozen pairs of black, pupil-less eyes stared at him, reflecting the pale light of the antlers. Their faces betrayed nothing — no fear, no worship, no anger. Only expectation.

The antlers burned in his hands, not with heat but with something deeper — a vibration in his marrow, a pulse that didn't belong to him but suddenly was him. Clancy sucked in air like he'd just been pulled from drowning, his vision splitting into jagged frames, double exposures. The world in front of him — Torch, the Neds, the rocky shore — blurred, and something else bled through.

"Clancy." Torch's voice was urgent, grounding, but distant, like it was underwater. "Be careful. If you open the door, you have to control it. Don't let it control you."

But Clancy was already falling forward.

His knees buckled. His vision warped. The cliff face and waves fell away from him, and he was pitched headlong into something else — not falling, not flying, but slipping out of himself. His skin, his bones, his breath all became thin fabric, tearing, giving way.

When he opened his eyes, he was no longer on Voldsøy.

He stood in a chamber lined with stone carved so deep it seemed to pulse in the candlelight. Shadows bled together into monstrous shapes along the walls. And there, against the altar at the center, was a body.

Clancy's chest seized. His throat went dry.

Keons.

The Bishop sat slumped, robes shredded and blackened, his pristine veil cast aside on the floor. His face was ruined, sockets hollowed into burned pits, mouth slack and drawn. His skin was colorless, like wax, and yet the chest rose faintly, raggedly, as though life had been forced into it like air into bellows.

Clancy staggered forward — or thought he did. But then he froze, horror clamping down as he realized it wasn't his legs carrying him. His vision tilted. His perspective sank lower, heavier, stiff with decay. He looked down and saw pale hands—Keons's hands—trembling against stone.

His breath caught in his throat. 

The antlers' hum grew deafening. His muscles moved with alien precision, as if they had always belonged to him. Fingers flexed. Joints cracked. His jaw pried open with a croak of breath that scraped across ruined vocal cords.

They killed him. They killed him and left him as a vessel.

But the vessel was his now. 

And he wasn't alone.

The other Bishops were there. Standing in their semicircle, their robes folding into the shadows, their faces lost except for the glint — the sharp, unblinking gold of their eyes. They watched him through Keons's sockets. They did not speak. They did not intervene. They simply waited, statues carved from dread itself.

Something swelled in Clancy's chest. It wasn't fear. It wasn't his. It was fury. The collective rage of everything stolen, of every hollowed vessel. The antlers had opened a vein and all that venom now flowed through him. His hand moved before he could stop it, sweeping across the altar.

The candle toppled.

Flame licked at the edge of a hanging cloth. For a heartbeat, it was small, almost fragile. Then it raced upward, catching on dried fibers, leaping to another banner, then another. The fire grew in hungry jerks, its glow filling the chamber, painting the Bishops in a shuddering orange light.

Clancy's breath came ragged, trapped between panic and exhilaration. He hadn't meant to. He hadn't known. But the fire didn't care. It devoured, curling across stone, swelling into a roar.

You wanted me to play your game, Clancy thought, though he wasn't sure if he was speaking to the Bishops, to Torch, or to himself. Now I'm playing mine.

The Bishops stood still. They did not flinch. Their robes began to singe, edges blackening, smoke twisting into the air. Yet they made no move to extinguish it, no move to flee. They only watched, their eyes gleaming brighter, as if the fire itself was a performance they'd been waiting for.

The chamber filled with the stench of burning fabric, of scorched flesh. Keons's body blistered. Pain seared across Clancy's nerves, his hands cracking open, his lungs dragging heat until every breath felt like knives. He tried to pull away — to rip himself free from the body, to retreat back into his own skin. But the current of power held him in place, forcing him to watch, forcing him to burn.

And then—

"Clancy."

Torch's voice cut through like a hand plunging into water, muffled but undeniable.

The chamber warped, fire collapsing into dark, and with a violent snap he was ripped from Keons's body and hurled backward into himself. His knees slammed into Voldsøy's rocks, his chest heaving like he'd surfaced from drowning.

The antlers burned hot in his grip, smoke curling from their ridges though no flame touched them. His palms were raw, reddened, as if he had really been inside the fire.

Clancy coughed, a ragged, broken sound, his eyes wide and wet. "He's dead," he rasped. "Keons is dead. They— they killed him, and I— I just—" His hands shook so violently he nearly dropped the antlers. "I used him. I was inside him. I lit the fire."

The sea crashed endlessly behind them, indifferent to his unraveling.

Torch crouched beside him, steady, his expression unreadable yet firm, like he'd been bracing for this. His voice was low, deliberate.
"And now you know. Now you've seen it. That's what they hold over this world. That's what they wield. And it's in your hands now."

Clancy stared at him, trembling, the fire still blazing behind his eyes, the Bishops' unflinching stares burned into his memory. His heart screamed to reject it, to cast the antlers into the ocean. But his grip only tightened, because some part of him already understood — he couldn't unsee it, couldn't undo it. The power was his now. Whether he wanted it or not.

Chapter Text

Clancy sat hunched on the rocks, the antlers lying in the sand beside him like some grotesque crown torn from a corpse. His hands were still trembling, raw and red from the heat that had scorched him through the vessel, though the sea air had cooled them to a numb sting. He stared down at his palms, flexing his fingers as if half expecting to see smoke rise from the skin.

The tide crept in and out, dragging kelp and grit over stone. His ears were still full of the roar of fire, his nose thick with the phantom reek of charred flesh. Every time he blinked, he saw Keons's empty sockets, the bishops standing still, pillars twisting in flame.

Dead. Keons had been dead all this time.

Clancy drew his knees closer to his chest, pressed his forehead into them, and tried to steady the storm inside his head. He couldn't tell anymore if his shaking came from the cold sea wind or from the memory of that possession. He wanted to cry, to scream, to throw the antlers into the black water and walk away from it all. But the thought died before it reached his lips. Because even as his stomach churned, a terrible clarity gnawed at him: it wasn't just power he'd touched. It was leverage.

A dull scrape broke through his thoughts. 

He lifted his head and saw Torch move down the shore, quiet, practical. He crouched over a half-buried wreck of a boat, dragging seaweed and debris out of it, testing the timbers, scraping at the rot with the edge of a knife. It looked ancient, half-digested by the sea, but Torch worked at it with patient conviction.

For a moment, Clancy envied that steadiness. He envied the way Torch could simply act while he himself drowned in thoughts that wouldn't quiet down.

The sun was sinking now, spilling long streaks of red across the Paladin Strait. Shadows crawled up the cliffs of Voldsøy, swallowing the rock faces whole. When darkness finally settled, Torch struck flint to light a small flame at the tip of a branch, raising the torch high. Its glow painted him in gold against the night, the flame snapping in the sea wind.

Clancy pushed himself upright, brushed the grit from his clothes, and joined him on the rocks. His legs were still unsteady, his head still humming, but something in him needed to stand there beside Torch, needed to anchor himself against that steady presence.

Torch didn't speak as Clancy approached. He only tilted the torch slightly, gesturing across the black water.

At first, Clancy saw nothing but the void. The sea stretched endless, swallowing the horizon. Then, faintly—like sparks against a curtain of dark—pinpricks of fire appeared. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds. Small flames carried on staffs, shifting and bobbing.

Banditos.

Clancy's breath caught. He'd seen those lights before, as if in another life, always from a distance, always symbols of resistance. But now, staring at them across the strait, they no longer seemed like distant memory. They were here. They were waiting.

A heavy weight settled into his chest.

He swallowed hard, voice low and raw: "That's it, isn't it? There's no going back now."

Torch glanced at him, eyes unreadable in the firelight, and didn't answer. He didn't need to. The silence was answer enough.

Clancy hugged his arms around himself, staring at the faint lights flickering against the dark. The thought gnawed at him — that maybe, once, there had been a version of him who could have slipped away, disappeared, buried his head and never looked back. But not anymore. Not after what he'd done with the antlers. Not after he'd worn Keons's ruined body and lit the fire in the Bishops' own sanctum.

Past the point of no return.

The torchlight between them crackled, and Clancy caught himself glancing at Torch — the hard set of his jaw, the steady grip on the flame. For the first time, he wondered if Torch had known all along that this would happen. If that was why he had never flinched, never faltered. If he'd always known Clancy would end up standing here, with blood on his hands and power burning in his chest.

The sea wind shifted, pulling the smell of salt and smoke through the air. Clancy exhaled slowly, shoulders heavy, his eyes fixed on the Bandito lights across the strait. The realization settled deep in him, heavier than anything before: the world would never be the same. And neither would he.

The boat creaked as they pushed it into the surf, the old wood groaning as though it resented being pulled from its grave of sand. Clancy braced his shoulder against the hull, boots sinking in the wet grit, while Torch shoved hard from the other side. The waves lapped higher, tugging at their legs, until finally the boat rocked free and began to float, bobbing unsteadily in the dark water.

"Get in," Torch said quietly, holding the vessel steady with one hand. The torchlight in his other hand hissed and spat as the spray kissed its flame, but it did not go out.

Clancy hesitated for a moment, staring into the yawning black of the strait. It looked less like water than a vast abyss, swallowing the reflection of the stars, pulling him toward its silence. He swallowed, then climbed in, his hands gripping the warped edges of the boat until his knuckles were white. Torch followed, steady as ever, planting the lit torch upright in a notch near the bow. Its glow spread thin over the surface of the water, barely carving a circle out of the vast dark.

Torch took the oars, and with slow, measured strokes, they began to move.

Clancy sat hunched, his arms wrapped around his chest as the boat rocked gently with each pull. The night air was sharp, carrying the smell of salt and decay, and every sound was amplified: the dip of the oar, the creak of wood, the hollow splash that followed. Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried, its voice torn and ragged against the wind.

He tried not to look over the side, but his eyes betrayed him. The water was endless, black on black, and every so often he imagined he saw something stir beneath the surface — long shadows gliding silently, just beyond the reach of the torchlight. His stomach tightened. He thought of the dragon, the yellow eyes staring at him through the glass, the way it had rammed the submarine with merciless precision. He couldn't shake the thought that something else waited below.

Torch rowed on, wordless, his face drawn tight with focus.

Clancy finally spoke, his voice rough, barely carrying above the water's whisper:
"Do you ever wonder if we'll actually make it? Not just across this strait... but all of it. Any of it."

Torch didn't stop rowing. "Wondering doesn't help."

"That's not an answer," Clancy muttered, pulling his knees up and resting his chin on them. He felt like a child asking for reassurance he already knew wouldn't come. "Feels like every step we take, we're just... stacking weight higher and higher. One wrong move and it all comes down. On us."

Torch's eyes flicked to him briefly in the torchlight, unreadable as always. "Maybe. But maybe that's the point. When it falls, it has to crush them too."

Clancy let out a sharp exhale, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. He wanted to argue, but the words caught in his throat. He was too tired.

The boat drifted on. Slowly, faintly, the dots of fire on the horizon grew larger. The Bandito torches. They were still far, but closer now, no longer distant sparks but flickering lights, human-shaped against the night.

Clancy's chest tightened as he watched them. Each flame was a promise, but also a threat. This was the side he was on now, whether he wanted it or not. He shifted his gaze toward Torch, who rowed with steady, unshaking arms, his jaw set against the wind.

The torch between them burned low, but it burned steady.

Clancy drew in a long breath, trying to match his rhythm to the oar strokes, trying to keep himself tethered. For now, all he could do was keep moving forward across the black water, toward the waiting flames.

The shoreline loomed — a jagged silhouette of pine and stone that rose like a wall. When the boat scraped sand, Clancy stumbled out, dragging the antlers with him. His boots sank into mud, the night wind filling his lungs with the sour damp of moss and earth. The forest waited, dense and impenetrable, shadows twisting together into shapes that looked like teeth. Torch moved ahead, flame bobbing as he pushed through the undergrowth, and Clancy followed.

The deeper they went, the quieter the world became. The sea fell away behind them. No gulls, no crickets. Only the crunch of leaves underfoot, the hiss of their breath. The silence grew so thick it pressed against his skull until he began filling it with questions — about Keons, about Voldsøy, about what they were even supposed to do next. But he didn't ask. Torch had said wait. Torch had said not yet. And Clancy had learned, reluctantly, to listen.

The path rose gradually. Through the branches ahead, faint orange light glimmered, dancing like distant stars. Voices, hushed and low, drifted on the wind. The Banditos. They were close.

Clancy's chest swelled with relief, though it was tangled with dread. Relief that they weren't lost anymore, dread of what would come next. His pace quickened, dragging his tired legs forward—

And then the sound came.

A branch broke. Loud. Sharp. Too close.

Clancy froze mid-step. The hairs along his neck prickled. His eyes darted through the treeline, searching. Torch stopped too, his flame lifting higher, painting the trunks gold.

From between the trees, a figure emerged, slow and steady, torchlight licking at the edges of his silhouette. At first, Clancy thought it was just another Bandito scout — but as the light touched his face, his chest seized.

The yellow bandana. The worn hoodie. The beanie tugged low over familiar dark curls. A posture burned into Clancy's memory.

Torch.

Clancy's mouth went dry. He staggered backward a step, eyes darting frantically. He turned to his right — to the place where Torch had been walking with him the whole way here.

But there was nothing.

No flame. No figure. Only trees, endless and silent. The path behind him was empty, trampled only by his own footprints.

The realization hit like a stone through glass.

Clancy's heart thundered in his chest, too loud in the suffocating stillness. His throat tightened, his breath short and uneven. No. No, he was real. He had to be real. He dragged me from the water. He built the fire. He stood on the rocks with me. 

But the memories, so vivid just moments ago, began to unravel like smoke. Had he ever felt Torch's weight pulling him from the surf? Had he really heard a second set of footsteps, or just convinced himself he had?

Clancy gripped the antlers harder until his knuckles ached, as though the pain would anchor him. His mind raced, trying desperately to find solid ground, but the harder he clung, the faster it slipped away.

He spun back toward the figure in the treeline. 

This Torch was real enough to cast shadows, real enough that the damp earth pressed beneath his boots. He stood holding a torch aloft, its flame steady, illuminating his face just enough to catch the dark, unreadable weight in his eyes.

Clancy's voice cracked when he forced the words out:
"No... no, no, no... please..."

The figure didn't move. Didn't answer. Just watched.

Clancy stumbled forward a step, his body trembling with grief, rage, confusion — everything tangled so tightly he couldn't tell them apart. "I saw you. You were with me this whole time. You—" His breath hitched; his throat closed on the words. He pressed a hand over his mouth, trying to hold in the sob clawing its way out.

But the silence swallowed everything. Only the hiss of the torch flame filled the void.

Clancy's eyes stung. The world tilted, unreal, wrong, yet too sharp to dismiss as a dream. His thoughts circled like vultures: Had he been so desperate, so broken, that he had conjured a companion out of memory? Had Dema's trials pushed him past the point of sanity? 

The figure at the treeline took a single step forward, torchlight licking higher against the trees. His gaze never wavered from Clancy.

Clancy's lips parted, his voice a whisper stripped of all its armor, raw and pleading:
"...Who are you?"

The forest seemed to hold its breath, waiting for an answer that never came.

Chapter Text

Torch's mouth opened as though to speak, his torchlight flickering across the sharp lines of his face, but Clancy raised a trembling hand to stop him. He didn't want to hear it. Couldn't. His chest was too tight, his thoughts too scattered, and if Torch explained—if he gave some answer—it might unravel Clancy completely.

"Don't," Clancy said, his voice low, ragged. His eyes burned, his jaw clenched as though it took all his strength not to break down. "Don't... I can't."

And then he pushed past him. Shoulders brushing hard against the figure as if testing whether he was solid or smoke. Torch made no move to stop him. The flames wavered, the forest swallowed him again.

The camp of the Banditos glowed against the darkness, torches and firepits scattered like fragments of a fallen constellation. Their smoke drifted upward in slow spirals, caught in the cold night air, carrying the smell of charred wood and damp soil. The flickering light revealed tents huddled in clusters, shadows shifting as figures moved between them. It should have been comforting—familiar—but instead the sight struck him with something sharp and dissonant. Like seeing a childhood home through glass: recognizable, but unreachable.

The voices came next. Gasps, half-whispered names, then shouts. Someone called out, and then another picked it up, and suddenly the sound rolled across the camp like thunder:

"Clancy! Clancy's back!"

He froze where he stood, his body stiffening, his heart hammering against his ribs. They surged toward him in waves, Banditos with bandanas glowing faint in the torchlight, some masked, some bare-faced, all wide-eyed with awe. Hands reached for him — clapping his shoulder, steadying his arms, brushing against him as if to confirm he was solid, not just another phantom dragged up from rumor. Their warmth pressed in all around him, almost suffocating.

And Clancy let it happen, because he didn't have the strength to resist. He moved when they pulled him forward, staggered when they steadied him, but inside, he was nothing but a hollow shell, his mind still trapped in the churn of the last weeks. The submarine, the dragon's yellow eyes, the water closing over his head. Torch—always Torch—dragging him up, guiding him, telling him half-truths. And then the truth, the final blow: Torch wasn't real. Not really.

So what was he bringing back with him? What part of him had actually returned to Trench?

They guided him through the camp, past firelight and faces lit with wonder, until his steps faltered at the sight of it — his tent.

It stood crooked, the canvas faded, the poles patched with rough twine where storms had split them. But it was unmistakable. His. Somehow untouched by time, as if the years had passed over it deliberately, leaving it frozen in the exact shape of memory.

The Banditos stepped back, letting him go alone. The crowd lingered outside the circle of torchlight as he pushed back the flap and entered.

Inside was silence. The stale air smelled of dirt and fabric, tinged with smoke that had seeped in over the years. The cot sagged just as it had before, the blanket folded unevenly on top of it. His old trunk sat pushed against the wall, lid shut, its metal hinges dulled with rust. Even the lantern beside it remained where he had left it, unlit and dust-coated.

The sight knocked the breath out of him.

It should have been a relief — like stepping into safety, into something preserved for him. But instead, the familiarity felt cruel. The tent was a monument to a version of him that didn't exist anymore. The Clancy who had once slept here had been naïve, unscarred, unburdened by the weight of power, untouched by the revelation of Torch's ghostly presence. That Clancy was gone. This place, unchanged, only reminded him of the gap.

He sat heavily on the cot, the antlers still in his hands, the weight of them digging into his palms. His arms rested on his knees as he bent forward, pressing his face into his hands. His breath came unevenly, chest heaving, the muffled sound of celebration leaking in faintly through the canvas walls. They were out there chanting his name, rejoicing at his return, while inside he felt like nothing more than a fraud.

He couldn't even feel happy about being back.

The realization struck hard, sharper than anything. He was supposed to feel relief, supposed to feel like he'd found home again. Instead, there was only emptiness, only a restless unease clawing at him.

The tent was the same, the camp was the same, even the people waiting for him outside were the same — but he wasn't.

He gritted his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut. He thought of Torch, standing just outside, holding a torch of firelight and truth. Torch had always been the anchor in the chaos, the one who seemed to believe in him when no one else could. And now? Now he knew Torch wasn't real. Just a hallucination. Just another manipulation, another lie wrapped in comfort.

So what did that mean about him? About everything he'd done with Torch at his side? Did it count for anything? Or had he been alone the entire time?

He let out a sharp, frustrated exhale and dropped his hands, staring at the antlers lying across his lap. The supposed weapon, the Bishops' power, the thing that had nearly burned Dema to the ground in his hands. Even they felt alien, like they belonged to someone else.

Outside, voices still called his name.

Inside, he sat motionless, his pulse thudding in his ears.

Home, they called it. But it didn't feel like home anymore.

Torch slipped back into camp quietly, the way he always did. The flames from the central fire cast uneven shadows across his face, throwing the curve of his jaw and the dark smudges beneath his eyes into sharp relief. He moved with purpose, but not without weight — as if every step pressed him deeper into something he couldn't escape.

Kaia was waiting for him. She leaned against one of the posts, arms crossed tight across her chest, her braid fraying at the ends. When she saw him, she didn't smile.

"You're back," she said flatly.

Torch gave her the faintest nod, but his eyes wandered — past her, toward the edge of camp where Clancy's tent stood. He didn't have to say a word for Kaia to know what was on his mind.

"Don't," she said, pushing herself upright. Her voice cut sharper now. "Don't go looking for him. Not yet."

Torch's jaw tightened. "He needs—"

"What he needs," Kaia interrupted, stepping closer, "is the truth. And you've been feeding him everything but that."

The words hung heavy in the air. Torch looked away, down at the dirt, the firelight painting his expression in restless orange.

Kaia's voice softened, but only a fraction. "You think I didn't notice? The way you talk about all that happened. Like you carried him through it. But you weren't, Torch. You never left this camp. He went through hell out there, and you let him believe you were his lifeline."

Torch swallowed hard. His throat worked, but no words came at first. When they did, they were low, almost a whisper.

"If I hadn't been there for him—even if it was only in his head—he wouldn't have made it back. You know that. You know him, Kaia. He would've broken."

Kaia's eyes flickered, torn between sympathy and anger. "And what happens now that he knows everything was a lie?"

Torch's hand clenched into a fist at his side. "It wasn't a lie. I was with him. Maybe not in body, but—" He cut himself off, biting back the rest.

Kaia took a step closer, lowering her voice. "But he doesn't see it that way, Torch. You've been leading him on. And now? He's sitting in his old tent, thinking you abandoned him, thinking he's losing his mind."

The accusation landed hard. Torch finally looked up, his expression a storm of guilt and defensiveness.

"I didn't mean for it to happen like that," he said hoarsely. "But I couldn't stop it either. He needed me, Kaia. And if I could give him something—even a shadow of myself—then I had to. Even if it breaks him later."

Kaia shook her head slowly, her eyes searching his face. "You say that like you're willing to let him fall apart as long as it gets him where you want him. But he's not just a weapon, Torch. He's not just the Bishops' downfall. He's your friend. And if you keep playing him like this..." She trailed off, her voice hardening again. "You're no better than them."

The silence that followed was suffocating. Torch's lips parted, but he didn't argue. He only turned his gaze back toward the distant flicker of light at the edge of camp—the one marking Clancy's tent.

The canvas walls of the tent breathed faintly with every gust of wind, the flicker of firelight seeping through seams and casting shifting shapes across the interior. Clancy sat hunched on the cot, the antlers propped against his knees, their pale points catching the orange glow. He couldn't stop staring at them. Couldn't bring himself to look away.

They felt alive. Not in the way flesh was alive, not warm and pulsing, but thrumming — a resonance, low and constant, as if they belonged to a current older than the world itself. When his fingers brushed along the ridges, the power answered him, subtle at first, then sharper, like sparks prickling beneath his skin.

It frightened him. But more than that, it tempted him.

His thoughts circled like vultures over a carcass. He'd felt helpless for so long. Years swallowed by Dema, by the Bishops' grip, by their cruel theater of control. Every attempt to fight had ended in failure, in capture, in more chains. He'd watched others die, vanish, crumble.

And now, here in his hands, was the key to it all.

The same force the Bishops had hoarded, the same current they'd used to bend others to their will, to keep the walls high and the people subdued. It wasn't just a weapon — it was the weapon. For the first time, Clancy wasn't powerless. For the first time, the balance tilted his way.

He swallowed hard, dragging a hand over his face, but the thoughts came anyway, unspooling like threads he couldn't cut:

What if this isn't just about breaking Dema? What if I could reshape it? Guide it? Better than they ever did?

The notion hit him like a jolt, and his stomach twisted at it. The very words made bile rise. But still... it lodged itself in his mind, stubborn and gleaming, impossible to shake.

He could see it: the Bishops toppled, their seats empty, their voices silenced forever. The city bowing not out of fear, but because he alone understood. He alone had carried the weight, suffered the labyrinth, faced the Bishops head-on. Who else could bear this? Who else deserved to?

He thought of the Banditos, their torches, their masks, their chants of his name just minutes ago. They looked at him with trust, reverence. But they didn't know. They couldn't. They had fought from the outside, yes, but they hadn't seen. They hadn't been in the heart of it, hadn't sat in front of the cameras, hadn't been mocked, dismantled, watched, poisoned by the system itself.

Only Clancy.

And now, with this power, he could give them everything. The city could be free. It could be his.

He clenched his fists, knuckles whitening. The weight of the choice crushed his chest. His pulse pounded so loud it drowned out the muffled sounds of the camp.

This power isn't a gift. It's a burden, he told himself. But maybe I'm the only one who can carry it. Maybe I'm the only one who should.

The thought both thrilled and terrified him.

He leaned back on the cot, closing his eyes, but the glow of the antlers seared through his eyelids, and his heart kept racing. Outside, the Banditos sang faintly around their fires, voices carrying low and steady into the night. Clancy listened, caught between the warmth of belonging and the chilling lure of dominance.

At some point, his body overruled his mind, pulling him under like a tide.

When he woke, it was to the sound of canvas shifting. A soft scrape, the hush of fabric brushing against itself. His eyes snapped open, heart hammering. For a moment, he didn't recognize where he was, his brain still fogged with sleep. The cot beneath him creaked as he shifted upright, head swiveling toward the dim glow of a lantern burning low in the corner. The faint outline of the tent walls settled into focus. The camp outside had gone quiet, reduced to the distant rhythm of boots pacing on watch and the muted murmur of night insects in the forest.

The figure standing in the entrance made Clancy's breath catch.

Torch.

He ducked past the flap and stepped into the tent, half-shadowed, the glow gilding the edges of his familiar silhouette. The yellow bandana. The beanie pulled low over messy hair. A torch in one hand, unlit, dangling loosely as though it weighed more than it should. His eyes caught the light — soft, uncertain, apologetic in a way Clancy didn't think he'd ever seen from him before.

Clancy's stomach turned sharply. It was impossible, wasn't it? Torch had been with him this whole time, and yet — hadn't. That last moment by the camp, the truth unraveling, Clancy realizing he had been alone... it all came crashing back like a punch to the chest. His instinct screamed at him to push this away, to deny it, to shove Torch back out the door.

Torch lingered at the threshold for a second, like he wasn't sure if he had the right to step further. Then he let out a quiet breath, lowered his gaze, and crossed the room until he stood only a few feet away.

"I owe you an explanation," he said. His voice was softer than Clancy expected, stripped of its usual edge. It almost trembled.

Clancy didn't move, didn't answer. His throat had gone dry, his tongue heavy in his mouth. He sat frozen, waiting.

Torch shifted his weight, fingers flexing around the shaft of the torch as though it grounded him. "I wasn't lying to you," he said, each word careful, deliberate. "Not about anything that mattered. Every step of the way — I was with you. Whether you could touch me or not. Whether you believed I was real or not. I was there. Me."

The words settled in Clancy like stones thrown into a still pond, sending ripples through every memory of the last days. The campfire on Voldsøy. The warmth of Torch's laughter. His hand steady on Clancy's shoulder when he faltered. If those moments weren't real, then what was left? If they were, then what did it mean that Torch hadn't truly been there?

Clancy's jaw clenched. His silence was sharp, like glass in his throat.

Torch must have seen the doubt flicker across his face, because he stepped closer, kneeling in front of the cot so they were eye level. His gaze didn't waver.

"I meant every word I said," Torch continued, firmer now. "Every choice, every promise — that was me. Not some trick. Not the Bishops pulling strings. Me. I don't care what shape I had, or how it looked to you. My voice, my thoughts, my choices — they were mine."

The words cracked something inside Clancy. His anger didn't vanish, but it shifted, folding into something heavier: grief, longing, fear.

Torch leaned in, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "And I'm here now. Flesh and blood. Not some flicker in your head. You don't have to take my word for it."

Clancy's breath hitched. He stared at Torch's hands, resting steady on his knees. They looked solid. Human. Real. His own fingers twitched in his lap, betraying him. He told himself not to move, not to give in, but his body betrayed his stubbornness. Slowly, cautiously, he reached out, brushing his fingertips against Torch's knuckles.

Warm. Solid.

His chest tightened like a vice. Clancy pressed his palm more firmly into Torch's hand, sliding their fingers together. His whole body shook, and he realized with a start that he was holding his breath. When it left him, it was ragged, his lungs stuttering as if they couldn't decide whether to sob or gasp.

"You're real," he whispered. His voice cracked. It wasn't a question — it was an accusation, a plea, a confession all in one.

"I'm real," Torch said, steady and certain. His hand tightened around Clancy's, grounding him, refusing to let him drift. "And I'm not going anywhere."

Clancy shut his eyes against the sting building behind them. He hated himself for the way relief and anger tangled inside him, how badly he wanted to believe and how much it hurt to. The silence between them wasn't empty — it thrummed with everything unsaid, thick and fragile, like the air before a storm breaks.

Chapter Text

The room smelled of mildew and dust, its walls stained with years of neglect. Faded posters endorsing Vialism still clung to the plaster, their slogans half-peeling, their colors dulled to gray. A single bulb dangled from the ceiling, swinging slightly with each vibration that traveled through the bones of the city. The citizens sat crowded on benches dragged in from nearby halls, their eyes hollow, their bodies wrapped in identical gray uniforms that seemed to choke all individuality out of them.

On the far wall, an old projector hummed and clicked. The machine stuttered, then coughed a beam of light across the room, throwing warped images onto the sheet they had strung up earlier. Photographs. Some faded, some freshly taken, smuggled out from places the Bishops would never want the citizens to see.

Faces looked up at the images with unease — pale, tired faces that had long ago learned not to question, not to doubt. Now, in this forgotten chamber, they were forced to.

Clancy stood near the projector, hands clasped in front of him to steady the tremor. Torch leaned against the wall, half in shadow, his bandana loose around his neck. The flicker of the bulb caught his profile, sharpening his features into something both familiar and unreal. A projection, yet steady. Present. Clancy caught himself glancing at him when the nerves rose too high.

On the wall, a photograph flickered into focus.

A crowd of people kneeling in the Square. Faces downturned, bodies pressed together in a sea of submission. The Bishops loomed above, faceless in their crimson robes, the smoke of candles coiling at their feet like chains.

Clancy stood beside the projection, his voice low but steady.

"You've all been told this is devotion," he said, gesturing toward the image. "That this is faith. That your obedience makes you holy. That their power makes them gods."

He let the words hang, then clicked the slide.

A new image: a crumbling apartment block. Doors welded shut. Shadows of people pressed against barred windows.

"But this—" Clancy continued, pointing with the antlers he cradled in one hand, their pale bone glinting in the weak light, "—this isn't devotion. This is containment. This is fear. They call it purity, but what it really is... is a prison."

A stir ran through the room. Some citizens lowered their eyes, instinctively afraid of being seen questioning. Others stared at the image with sharp intensity, as though realizing for the first time that what they'd always felt in their gut had evidence.

In the corner, Torch leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. He wasn't the one speaking, but his presence was a ballast. Clancy caught his gaze briefly, a flicker of reassurance, before turning back to the crowd.

He clicked again.

The projector whined and displayed another picture: a grainy shot Torch had scavenged from the archives, showing an aerial view of the city. The concentric rings of walls, the endless barricades, the funnels of smoke rising from watchtowers. From above, the geometry was undeniable — Dema was not sanctuary. It was containment.

"This is the truth of your city," Clancy said. His voice gained a little edge now, not anger, but urgency. "Every wall, every gate, every doctrine — built to keep you in. To keep you docile. They tell you the world beyond is death, but the real death is here, in the quiet obedience they demand."

Clancy paused, scanning their faces, the silence thick as the hum of the projector. "You've been told you're safe here," he said finally. "But what is safety, if it costs your soul? What is safety, if you're nothing more than vessels they can hollow out and fill again?"

He turned, gesturing at the projected photo, the Bandito torch glowing against the night sky.

"You've been told there's nothing beyond. That the walls of Dema are the edges of the world." His eyes narrowed, his tone sharpening like a blade. "But I've been beyond."

He let the words hang. Murmurs ran through the group — short, sharp, half-suppressed. Eyes widened, darting between each other, as though someone might leap up and denounce him.

"I've seen Trench." His voice grew louder now, each word ringing with a conviction that didn't come easily but came true. "I've seen people living without Bishops looming over them. Without the creed of Vialism pressed down on their throats. People who live freely. Who choose for themselves. Who fight for their own lives, not to prop up a system that devours them."

One of the younger men in the group shifted forward, fists pressing into his knees. His lips parted, but he didn't speak.

Clancy pushed on, his throat raw, his chest heavy. He thought of the Banditos, of torches burning in the night. He thought of faces unbowed, of the first time he'd felt the weight of freedom in his lungs like air too sharp to breathe.

He turned back to the crowd. His hands curled into fists, trembling. "The Bishops call this order. But it isn't order — it's stagnation. It's fear. It's death dressed up in fine robes. They want you hollow, because hollowness is easy to control. But you're not hollow. You're not just vessels waiting to be filled."

He stepped closer, his shadow overtaking the projected torches.

"You are people. And you can choose. You can choose to keep bowing, to keep surviving as they drain you dry. Or..." His jaw tightened, the words catching, heavier than they should have been. "Or you can risk everything for something they'll never give you. For a life that belongs to you."

For a heartbeat, no one moved. The projector clicked faintly, stalling between frames.

Clancy staggered backward, choking on a breath that wasn't his. The world around him twisted—the walls of Dema, the projector, the faces of the citizens—splintered like glass under strain, each shard scattering into nothing. His knees buckled as the vessel's body gave way, and for a fraction of a second he felt the horrifying absence of flesh, a hollow slipping into darkness.

Then — air. Salt, sharp and alive. His eyes snapped open, and he found himself sitting on a cliff.

The camp stretched behind him — fires burning low, tents rippling in the cold wind, shadows moving like whispers between them. Banditos kept to their posts along the ridgeline. Below, the Paladin Strait churned restlessly, black waves chewing at the rocks. And above, the sky was open — so wide it still felt unreal after the stifling ceilings of Dema.

Clancy turned in a slow circle, grounding himself, his breath ragged. It was always disorienting, the way it worked — slipping back from a vessel, waking inside his own skin again, as though nothing had happened and yet everything had. His hands still trembled with the aftershock of holding the antlers, with the memory of citizens' faces staring back at him, torn between fear and awakening.

He clenched his fists, pressed them into his sides, and forced himself toward the center of camp.

The planning tent sat beneath the tallest ridge, a patchwork of canvas weighted with stones, its entrance lit by two steady flames. The sound of muffled voices leaked out, low and grim. When Clancy pushed past the flap, the air inside was heavy with smoke and tension.

Torch stood bent over a wide table, maps and crude drawings spread out across it, marked with stones and knives. He looked solid in that moment — shoulders squared, his face set in concentration as he traced lines with a finger. The torchlight flickered against his beanie, the yellow bandana tied at his throat.

He looked up when Clancy entered. A flicker of relief crossed his face, subtle but real.

"You did well," he said quietly. "Back there."

Clancy's throat was raw, his body trembling with exhaustion, but he managed a nod. "They listened." His voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. "At least... I think some of them did."

Torch stepped around the table, eyes narrowing slightly, reading him. "That's all we needed. Seeds planted." He reached out, clapped Clancy's shoulder with a weight that felt more grounding than congratulatory. "Now it's our turn."

Clancy exhaled sharply and glanced at the maps. Ink lines traced the jagged edges of Dema's walls, the encircled sprawl of the camp, marks where Banditos would converge. His stomach turned.

"The final push," he murmured, more to himself than anyone else.

Torch nodded, leaning over the map again. "Tomorrow, they will send out the Glorious Gone. An attempt to scare us into scattering before the walls. They'll unleash them in waves." He tapped one mark on the parchment. "Here. The east gate. We'll meet them head-on."

Clancy frowned. "You think we can hold them?"

Torch's jaw tightened. "We don't need to hold them. We just need to break their momentum. Cut through long enough to open the path." His finger traced a line on the map, cutting straight toward the looming sketch of the central tower. "Once we breach the gates, everything changes. You'll head for the tower. Straight for the Bishops."

Clancy stared at the drawing of the tower — the gray structure looming over the city. His stomach twisted with dread and certainty alike. "And if I fail?"

Torch's gaze was firm, unwavering. "You won't."

Something about the certainty in his voice burned hot and cold all at once in Clancy's chest. He looked away, rubbing a hand over his face. The tent was too warm, the air thick with wax and sweat and smoke. Outside, voices rose and fell as Banditos prepared, sharpened weapons, said their goodbyes. The sound carried the electric hum of inevitability.

Torch shoved the map aside, finally looking at Clancy full-on. "This is it. No more hiding, no more waiting. Tomorrow we break the siege, and then we finish it. Once and for all."

Clancy nodded slowly, heart hammering. The thought of facing the Bishops, of walking into that tower with nothing but antlers and conviction, threatened to hollow him out. But he forced the words out anyway:

"Then tomorrow decides everything."

Torch's eyes lingered on him, the lamplight catching in them like embers.

"Tomorrow," he echoed, almost under his breath. His throat felt dry. "Feels like the word's too small for what it means. Like... tomorrow is the end of everything."

Torch studied him. "Not the end," he said. "The turning."

The tent around them buzzed faintly with muffled voices and the stomp of boots outside. The air was hot, thick with oil lamps and smoke, yet Clancy felt a chill creeping through his ribs.

Clancy nodded slowly, though his chest ached with doubt. He looked down at the map, then back at Torch. The lamplight caught the edge of his face, sharp and worn, but his eyes burned steady.

Torch's eyes lingered on the map a moment longer, then he pushed it away with both hands, the scrape of the parchment over the wood making Clancy flinch. He stood, straightening his shoulders.

"Come on," Torch said softly.

Clancy frowned, uncertain. "Where?"

"Not far. Just... away from this," Torch murmured, nodding at the map, the weapons, the tent brimming with smoke and fatigue. "Let's get some air."

Clancy hesitated, then rose. 

The camp swallowed them in noise as they left the tent — the clang of metal, the bark of orders, the distant crackle of firewood. Torch led them down a narrow path that wound through the trees until the forest thinned and the ground sloped toward the shore. The night air opened up around them, cold and sharp, carrying the scent of salt. The ocean stretched black and endless under the moon, its waves slapping the rocks like a slow, deliberate drumbeat. They sat side by side on a flat stone, the cold biting through fabric, the salt wind stinging their faces. Neither spoke for a long while.

Clancy stared at the horizon, where sea and sky melted into the same endless shade. His mind churned, restless, the weight of the antlers heavy even when they weren't in his hands. He thought about the Bishops, about the people in Dema he'd left behind with nothing but words and flickering images. He thought about failure.

Torch's voice came soft, low enough that it almost blended with the surf. "It's quiet here. Easy to forget what's waiting."

Clancy swallowed, his throat dry. "I don't think I can forget, even for a second."

Torch tilted his head, watching him. "Maybe not forget. But... sometimes you need to remember why you started, not just where you're headed."

Clancy frowned, restless. "Why I started? You mean... Trench? Freedom?" He let out a bitter laugh. "That feels like a lifetime ago. Back then, it was just about running away. Now it's..." His words broke apart. He shook his head. "Now it's so much bigger. And I don't know if I can—"

He stopped himself. Couldn't finish.

Torch didn't push. Instead, he looked back at the horizon, eyes reflecting the faint shimmer of the moon. "Big doesn't mean impossible," he said after a while. "It just means heavy. And you've carried heavy before."

He shook his head, biting back the sting in his eyes. "You talk like... like tomorrow's going to go our way. Like we'll even still be here."

Torch hesitated. His gaze flicked back toward the sea, and his jaw worked as though he wanted to say something and couldn't. Finally, he exhaled. "Maybe we won't. I'm not blind to that."

He turned his head slightly, watching Torch's profile outlined against the faint glow of the sky. "Are you scared?" he asked suddenly, his voice barely above the waves.

Torch didn't look at him. His jaw flexed, his shoulders tense, and for a long beat he didn't answer. Then he exhaled, a small, bitter smile tugging at his mouth.

"Terrified," he said simply.

Clancy's stomach twisted at the sound of it. Somehow it was worse, hearing Torch admit it without shame, than if he'd tried to play strong. He wanted to reach for him, to anchor himself in that honesty, but his hands stayed pressed flat to the stone.

The quiet between them deepened, the kind of silence that pressed into the chest until every breath felt heavier than it should. The sound of the sea was steady, patient, eternal. Torch's profile was outlined in shifting moonlight — jawline cut sharp, lips set in that tight, thoughtful curve, eyes fixed on the horizon like he could read the future written in its darkness.

Clancy felt his throat ache, but not from words. It was something deeper, sharper, a pull in his ribs he hadn't let himself acknowledge until now. He stared at Torch and thought: If he makes it out of tomorrow, if he survives this — then I'll never be lost again. No matter what else happens, he'll be home.

It was terrifying, realizing that Torch had become that for him. Terrifying, and grounding all at once.

Torch shifted slightly, close enough that the heat of him brushed against Clancy's arm. He didn't look at him, didn't say anything, but the weight of his presence was louder than any words.

Clancy's pulse thundered. He hated himself for how badly he wanted to reach across the tiny distance and close it. He thought about all the times Torch had steadied him, guided him, been there in the dark when no one else was. He thought about how fragile tomorrow was. How tomorrow might be the end.

Without planning it, Clancy turned toward him.

Torch finally looked back, their eyes locking in the dim. The heaviness of it was unbearable. Torch's lips parted, just slightly, like he was about to say something — but no words came. The space between them wasn't space anymore, it was a wire stretched thin, vibrating, threatening to snap.

Clancy leaned forward before he could stop himself. Torch didn't pull back.

Their lips met — tentative at first, almost disbelieving, then firmer as the truth of it broke open between them. It wasn't a kiss of triumph or certainty. It was desperate, weighted with everything they hadn't said, everything they might never get the chance to. Salt clung to their mouths from the sea air, and Clancy felt Torch's hand ghost against his jaw, trembling just enough to betray him. 

When they broke apart, Clancy was trembling, his breath shuddering out of him. The intellectual understanding that Torch was real, was solid, was here, crashed into the visceral, shocking reality of it. The scent of him—ash, pine resin, and the clean sweat of a long day—filled Clancy's lungs, overwriting the sterile, filtered air of Dema that still haunted his senses.

"Okay?" Torch murmured, his voice a gravelly whisper against Clancy's lips. His thumb stroked a slow, soothing arc along Clancy's jawline.

Clancy could only nod, his voice stolen by the thunder of his own heart. He'd never... no one had ever... In Dema, touch was clinical, corrective, or a violation. It was never given. Never shared.

Torch seemed to understand the silent avalanche happening inside him. He didn't rush. He leaned in again, and this kiss was different. It was slower, a deliberate exploration. A question. His lips were softer than Clancy expected, and he tasted faintly of the bitter coffee substitute from camp. Clancy's hands, which had been clenched at his sides, came up tentatively, fisting in the rough fabric of Torch's hoodie. He felt the solid muscle of Torch's shoulders beneath, the proof of a life lived doing, building, fighting.

A soft, involuntary sound escaped Clancy, a half-whimper, half-sigh. Torch swallowed it, his kiss deepening, becoming more insistent. His free hand found Clancy's hip, his grip firm, grounding. The world beyond their breath, beyond the points where their bodies met, ceased to exist. There was no tomorrow, no battle, no Dema. There was only the cool sand beneath them, the salt spray on the air, and the devastating warmth of Torch's mouth on his.

Clancy was lost in it, in the shocking slide of tongue, the scrape of stubble, the way his own body was responding with a fierce, unfamiliar ache. Torch looked at him, his eyes dark pools in the moonlight, reflecting the distant firelight of the camp. He didn't speak, just slowly, deliberately, reached for the hem of Clancy's shirt.

Clancy's breath hitched. A flash of panic, cold and sharp—a remnant of Dema's protocols, of the fear of exposure, of being seen—shot through him. His hand came up, covering Torch's, stopping him.

Torch stilled instantly. "We don't have to," he said, his voice low and unwavering. "We stop whenever you say. Whenever."

The panic receded, washed away by the absolute certainty in Torch's words. This was choice. This was his. Clancy took a shaky breath and slowly moved his hand away.

Torch's gaze never left his as he gently lifted the shirt up and over Clancy's head. The night air was cool on his skin, raising goosebumps. He felt unbearably vulnerable, his torso on display. He expected a comment, a look of assessment, but Torch's expression was one of pure, unadulterated reverence. He traced the line of Clancy's collarbone with a single, rough fingertip, then bent his head and pressed his lips to the spot where Clancy's pulse hammered wildly.

Clancy gasped, his head falling back. The sensation was electric, a jolt straight to his core. Torch's mouth was hot, his stubble a delicious abrasion. He mapped Clancy's skin with his lips and tongue — the hollow of his throat, the line of his sternum, the tight peak of a nipple. Clancy cried out, a sharp, broken sound, as Torch's tongue circled there. His hands scrabbled at Torch's shoulders, clinging for balance as his knees went weak.

"Torch..." he breathed, the name a prayer, a question.

In answer, Torch's hands went to his own shirt, pulling it over his head in one swift motion. And then skin was against skin.

Clancy's mind went blank. The feeling was overwhelming. The heat of him, the solid plane of his chest against Clancy's, the feel of Torch's heart beating a frantic rhythm against his own. He could feel every scar, every ridge of muscle earned in a life Clancy was only just beginning to understand. He ran his hands over Torch's back, learning the landscape of him, and Torch shuddered against him, a full-body tremor that made Clancy feel powerful in a way he never had before.

They sank onto the coat, Torch half-covering him, one leg sliding between Clancy's. The friction was maddening, incredible. Clancy rocked against him, a clumsy, desperate rhythm, chasing a feeling that was building too fast, too intense. He was drowning in sensation, in the smell of them together, in the low, encouraging sounds Torch was making against his neck.

Clancy's fingers scrabbled at Torch's shoulders, his back, anywhere they could find purchase. The world dissolved into a series of sensations: the wet heat of Torch's mouth, the abrasive scratch of denim against his legs, the low, encouraging sounds Torch was making against his skin. He was unraveling, and the only thing holding him together was the man on top of him.

Torch worked his way back up, kissing him deeply as his hands made quick work of his own belt and the fastenings of their pants. The sudden freedom, the press of skin against skin, made them both groan. Clancy could feel the hard length of Torch against his hip, and the reality of what was about to happen sent a fresh wave of nervous anticipation through him. He was completely, utterly exposed.

Torch seemed to sense his trepidation. He slowed, kissing him more gently now.

He reached between them, his hand wrapping around them both. Clancy cried out, his hips bucking off the sand at the contact. It was too much. It wasn't enough. His inexperience was a glaring, awkward thing, but Torch guided him with a patience that felt infinite, his strokes slow and firm, setting a rhythm that Clancy's body instinctively began to follow.

The pleasure built, a tight coil low in his stomach, winding tighter and tighter. He was lost in it, in the friction and the heat and the sound of their ragged breathing. His hands fisted in the sand beside his head.

Then Torch's hand shifted. One moment it was stroking them together, the next his fingers were pressing, probing. Clancy tensed, a shock of unexpected intensity shooting through him.

"Easy," Torch murmured, his voice a rough comfort. "Just... trust me."

He stilled his hand, letting Clancy adjust, raining soft, open-mouthed kisses along his shoulder, his neck, his ear. The initial shock subsided, replaced by a strange, building pressure that was not entirely unpleasant. Clancy gave a small, hesitant nod against his shoulder.

Torch's fingers began to move again, a careful, stretching rhythm. It was an odd, intrusive feeling at first, but Torch's other hand was still working on his length, and the dual sensations began to blur into one overwhelming wave of pleasure. Clancy's body started to relax, to open, a low thrum of need replacing the tension.

When Torch finally removed his fingers, Clancy felt oddly empty. The feeling was brief. Torch positioned himself, pressing against him. He looked down at Clancy, his eyes searching his face in the dim light.

"This might... hurt," he said, his own control visibly fraying.

"I don't care," Clancy breathed, and it was the truth. He wanted this. He wanted the feeling, the connection, the proof of being alive on the eve of possibly dying.

Torch pushed in.

It was a burn, a stretch, a sharp, shocking pain that made Clancy gasp and dig his nails into Torch's forearms. Torch froze immediately, his body trembling with the effort of holding still.

Clancy focused on the sound of Torch's voice, on the feel of his chest rising and falling against his own. He focused on the pain, letting it exist without fighting it, and slowly, slowly, it began to recede, replaced by a feeling of incredible fullness. He gave another small nod.

Torch began to move, a slow, careful rock of his hips. The pain flickered, then faded entirely, replaced by something else entirely. A deep, building friction that touched something inside Clancy he didn't know existed. A broken sob escaped him, but it was a sound of pleasure, of overwhelming sensation.

Emboldened, Torch shifted, changing the angle, and drove deeper.

Clancy saw stars. His back arched, a wordless cry torn from his throat. Torch groaned, a deep, guttural sound, and his rhythm became less controlled, more urgent. His hands slid under Clancy's back, holding him close, as if he could somehow pull him even closer.

The world shrunk to the space between their bodies. The slap of skin on skin, the ragged symphony of their breathing, the scent of sweat and sea. Clancy was completely possessed by the feeling, his legs wrapping around Torch's waist to pull him in deeper, meeting his thrusts with a clumsy, eager rhythm of his own.

He was close. He could feel the coil in his gut ready to snap. His hands scrambled for purchase, one tangling back in Torch's hair, the other clutching at his shoulder.

Then Torch's hand found his throat.

It was just a gentle hold. His thumb rested gently on one side, his fingers on the other, cradling the column of his neck. It was meant to be an intimate gesture, a point of connection.

But the touch was a lightning strike.

Nico's hand, cold and absolute, closing around his throat in the valley. The pressure not cruel, not painful. Ownership.

A full-body shudder wracked Clancy. His eyes flew open, wide with a panic he couldn't voice. The pleasure didn't vanish, but it was suddenly tangled with a cold, sharp fear. He froze, his breath catching in a way that had nothing to do with passion.

Torch felt it instantly. He stilled, his own breathing harsh in the sudden silence. His hand didn't move from Clancy's neck, but his thumb stroked once, slowly, over his pulse point — a question, not a restraint.

For a long second, they were suspended there, connected in the most intimate way, yet separated by a ghost. Clancy's heart was pounding against Torch's palm. He could see the confusion in Torch's eyes, the concern. He could say it. He could say anything and Torch would understand.

But Clancy didn't want to give Nico that power. He didn't want to bring that cold, sterile memory into this hot, living moment. He didn't want to break the spell.

He forced himself to relax beneath Torch's hand. He let out the breath he was holding in a shaky sigh and gave a tiny, almost imperceptible nod. He met Torch's gaze and hoped his eyes conveyed what his voice couldn't.

Torch searched his face for another moment. The concern didn't fully leave his eyes, but something in Clancy's expression must have reassured him. He didn't remove his hand. Instead, he leaned down and captured Clancy's mouth in a deep, consuming kiss, swallowing any remaining fear.

He began to move again, his thrusts regaining their purpose. The panic receded, burned away by the returning wave of physical sensation. The hand on his neck remained, a steady, warm weight, and Clancy focused on that warmth, on the live feel of Torch's skin against his, until the memory of cold fingers was just a ghost, fading at the edges of his mind.

The pleasure built again, higher and more intense than before, crashing over them both. Torch's rhythm became frantic, losing all finesse. His name was a prayer on Clancy's lips, choked and desperate.

Torch buried his face in Clancy's neck, his own release tearing through him with a muffled groan that vibrated through Clancy's entire body. The feeling of him pulsing deep inside was the final trigger. Clancy's world went white, shattering into a million brilliant, silent pieces, his own release striping his stomach as he clenched around Torch, holding on as if he were the only solid thing in a universe coming apart.

For a long time, there was only the sound of the sea and their ragged, slowing breaths. Torch's weight was a heavy, comforting blanket. His hand had finally slipped from Clancy's throat to rest in the sand beside his head. He nuzzled into Clancy's neck, pressing a soft, damp kiss to his skin.

Neither of them spoke. The unacknowledged moment hung in the air between them, a silent understanding. Some demons didn't need names to be faced.

Eventually, Torch shifted, pulling out gently. He collapsed onto his side next to Clancy, pulling him close so his back was against Torch's chest. He wrapped an arm around Clancy's waist, his hand splaying over his stomach.

The camp felt a thousand miles away. The battle, a lifetime away. There was only the dark, the sand, and the steady, strong heartbeat against his back.

Clancy closed his eyes. For the first time since he could remember, his mind was quiet. He was sore, sated, and utterly spent. And he was not alone.

Torch's breath evened out into sleep behind him. Clancy lay awake a little longer, listening to the waves, feeling the rise and fall of Torch's chest.

Dawn was still hours away. They had time.

Chapter Text

The sky was already pale with the first streaks of dawn when Clancy stirred. The sand clung to his skin, cool where the tide had crept close in the night, but Torch's arm around his waist was warm, steady. For a moment, Clancy didn't move — just lay there listening to the hush of the waves, the steady rhythm of Torch's breath. It was almost enough to forget what day it was. Almost.

When Torch finally opened his eyes, the faintest trace of a smile flickered across his face. "Sun's up," he murmured, though his voice was thick with sleep.

Clancy only nodded, and they both sat up slowly, brushing sand from their clothes as they pulled them back on. Their movements were quiet, careful, almost reverent — as if speaking too loudly would break the fragile peace they'd carved out during the night. By the time they turned back toward camp, the sun had fully crested the horizon, bleeding orange across the sky.

As they walked into camp, the sounds of preparation were already swelling. The Banditos were strapping on belts, checking blades, loading weapons, the air heavy with the metallic tang of oil and fire. Some of them paused when they saw Clancy and Torch returning together, eyes narrowing, quick glances exchanged before they turned back to their tasks. No one said anything, but the looks lingered.

Torch ignored it, his face unreadable, while Clancy felt the heat of every glance pricking at his skin. He kept his head down and followed Torch toward the center of camp, heart pounding in a rhythm that had nothing to do with fear of the battle ahead.

Later, the march began.

The Banditos moved as one, dark figures against the pale light of morning, their boots churning the dirt path into dust. Clancy walked near the front, Torch beside him, their shoulders almost brushing.

At the crest of a hill, the column slowed, spread out, the city stretching before them in all its rigid geometry. The towers gleamed cold, the avenues cutting through it like scars. For Clancy, it was like staring at the sum of every nightmare he'd ever had, every injustice he'd been powerless to stop. For Torch, the city was a shadow he'd fought his whole life.

Clancy stood still, staring down at the city, and felt Torch move closer beside him. Neither looked at the other. Their hands stayed at their sides, empty, their faces composed. But the weight of the moment pressed in like a storm.

Torch exhaled quietly, almost a sigh. Clancy heard it more than he saw it, and for a second, it was enough.

He wanted to say everything—that he wasn't ready, that he was terrified, that last night had meant more than words could touch—but all of it clogged in his throat. Instead, he just let the silence stretch, thick and heavy, and kept his eyes on Dema.

Torch shifted, so close their sleeves brushed. Clancy felt Torch's fingers brush his, brief and hidden from view. It was the only acknowledgment they allowed themselves, the faintest touch, something no one else would notice.

"When it's all over," Torch spoke without looking away from the city. "I hope there's enough of you left to come home."

Clancy swallowed hard, his voice thick. "If there isn't, I hope you don't wait for me."

Torch didn't respond.

The Banditos moved as one down the hill, a ragged tide of bodies pouring toward the city they had sworn to tear apart. Their voices were raw, a chorus of rage and defiance that carried across the fields like thunder. Steel of the blades caught the morning light, flashing bright against the muted gray of Dema's walls.

Clancy's boots dug into the dirt as he ran with them, lungs burning with the effort, heart pounding so hard it shook his ribs. For a moment, he felt like part of that storm — surrounded, swept forward, one fighter among hundreds. The air itself seemed alive with the sound of war drums, though none were beating; the rhythm came from the ground, from the thunder of feet and the hammer of courage and fear colliding.

And then — motion poured from the gates.

The Glorious Gone advanced in perfect formation, not screaming, not running, but moving with terrifying unity. Their uniforms glistened in the sun, masks blank, faceless, inhuman. Each step was measured, deliberate. They looked less like soldiers and more like a machine swallowing the field.

The first impact was sickening — steel on steel, flesh against flesh. The front lines buckled and broke. A Bandito's cry was cut short by the crack of bone. Clancy saw men he'd marched beside only moments ago cut down, their weapons clattering from their hands as the Glorious Gone drove forward without hesitation, without pity.

Torch's voice cut through the chaos, somewhere close — shouting orders, rallying the Banditos who wavered. His yellow bandana flashed bright in the dust and blood, his figure a defiant spark against the gray tide. Clancy caught the sight of him just before the two of them were swallowed by the battle.

And then something inside Clancy pulled tight.

The clash of weapons, the screams of men, the stench of blood rising into the air — it all blurred. For an instant, he wasn't in the middle of it anymore. His mind was racing elsewhere. To the city. To its towers. To the Bishops waiting in their chamber.

The power humming in his bones told him what he already knew. The battlefield wasn't where this ended. The war wasn't won with swords or torches. It was won at the root.

His breath hitched. His chest felt like it might split open. His eyes flicked to Torch. And as though fate wanted one last cruelty, Torch glanced back at the same moment. Their eyes locked.

For a second, everything else fell away.

Clancy's chest twisted — because this might be the last time. Torch's gaze was a silent question, confusion laced with something else: concern, trust, maybe even fear.

Clancy gave no answer. He turned away.

He pushed off the path, cutting through the chaos, ducking low beneath swinging blades, weaving past the clash of bodies. Dust stung his eyes, the screams clawed at his ears, but he pressed on, faster and faster, until he broke free from the melee.

No one saw him leave. No one stopped him.

Down into a ravine where the sound of battle dulled to an echo, he ran until the world narrowed to damp stone and the forgotten mouths of tunnels. The air changed — cooler, heavy with rot and rust. Shadows pressed close as he ducked into the first opening he found.

The tunnels were old, older than the city above. Crumbling walls, damp dripping from the ceiling, pools of stagnant water spreading across uneven floors. His footsteps echoed, ragged breath bouncing off stone. Rats skittered, disturbed by his intrusion, their small bodies darting across the path.

But the power pulled him onward, urging, guiding.

He followed shafts of faint light, his palms scraping against rough walls as he steadied himself. His knees ached, his hands shook, but he didn't stop. The war above seemed far away now, muffled and unreal, as though he had slipped out of one world into another.

Finally, he reached it — the shaft. Narrow, almost impossibly so, stretching up toward a square of light.

The tower.

The stone was rough, jagged, tearing at his skin as he climbed. His fingers burned, knuckles splitting open, blood smearing against the pale surface. His legs shook with the effort, arms screaming for release, but he gritted his teeth and pulled himself higher, higher, the city rising beneath him as he went.

When he risked a glance down, the sight stole his breath. Dema sprawled beneath him, perfect and silent, as if the chaos of the battle could not touch it. The towers gleamed in the sun. The Neon Gravestones stretched in orderly lines. Its people moved in careful, measured steps, unaware—or unwilling—to acknowledge the war raging just beyond the walls.

It made his blood boil.

His grip tightened, and he dragged himself higher. Wind whipped at him now, tearing at his clothes, tugging at his hair. The stone grew colder as he climbed, slick in places where moss and water clung. Every inch was a battle, but he refused to stop.

At last, a narrow window broke the smooth wall. His arms trembled as he clung to the ledge, his chest heaving, his body screaming for rest.

He pressed his forehead against the cool stone for one moment—just one—to breathe, to summon the last of his strength. Then, with a grunt, he pulled himself inside.

He landed hard on the cold floor, the silence of the chamber crashing around him.

The room was vast, sterile, lit only by the faintest shafts of filtered daylight. The air smelled of incense, faint but lingering, and beneath it, the copper tang of old blood. The bishops stood in a circle around the central flame, their smeared faces gleaming in the dim light, their bodies draped in heavy robes that swallowed them whole.

Clancy stood at the center, the antlers clutched so tightly in his hands that his knuckles bled white. They were alive, humming with a frequency deeper than sound, a vibration that threaded itself through the marrow of his bones. Each breath he took seemed to drag in fire, not air, until his chest rattled with power that wasn't entirely his own.

The Bishops, once statuesque, once untouchable, drew back from him. They circled the chamber like carrion birds, their tall figures silhouetted by the wavering flames that licked the edges of the braziers. Their robes swept the ground like shadows given form, masks gleaming bone-white, identical, unreadable.

"Blasphemy," Lisden hissed. "The vessel dares."

They moved in unison, masks turning toward him. For the first time, they did not look like gods. They looked human. Old. Fallible.

Clancy lifted the antlers. They pulsed, hot and cold at once, searing through his veins, threatening to split his skull with their weight. He felt like a conduit, like the earth itself had driven a vein of lightning through him, too powerful to contain.

And then — he let it go.

The power tore from him in a roarless scream. No sound left his throat, but the chamber shrieked for him. The air folded in on itself, crushing downward before exploding outward in a blast of invisible force.

The Bishops staggered. Robes whipped. Veils fell on the stone as several were flung backward, their bodies colliding with pillars, smashing against the curved walls with sickening cracks.

The braziers toppled. Fire spilled across the floor, licking up the hems of their robes. Shadows shivered madly against the dome of the chamber.

Clancy's knees buckled, but he forced himself upright, teeth clenched so hard his jaw ached. His eyes burned — he didn't know if it was from the smoke or from the light pouring out of him.

Every ounce of anger he had buried—every moment of doubt, every humiliation, every lie he'd been fed—he poured into the weapon. He could feel it feeding on him in return, drawing deeper, demanding more, as if the antlers wanted not just his fury but his soul.

For a heartbeat, silence. The only sound was Clancy's ragged gasps, his heart slamming against his ribs, the hiss of fire crawling across the floor.

But then, a voice.

Smooth. Mocking. Cold.

"So few. So proud. So... emotional."

The words sliced through the chamber, sharp as razors, slow as poison.

Clancy raised his head.

Nico stood in the doorway, framed by the faint glow of fire outside, his silhouette stretched unnaturally long. His veil was off. His face was pale, beautiful in the cruelest way, lips curled in something that wasn't quite a smile.

"Hello, Clancy."

Before Clancy could react, Nico was across the chamber, impossibly fast, and a hand clamped around his throat. The same grip as that day in Trench, the same crushing fingers that had once held him like a rag doll.

Clancy's vision snapped white. His knees buckled.

It wasn't just his throat Nico was crushing — it was his mind.

His lungs convulse, desperate for air, but the real suffocation is in his skull. The pressure isn't just physical — it's like every thought he's ever had is suddenly being shaken loose, jumbled, ripped apart and rearranged into something unrecognizable.

He tries to focus, tries to remember who he is, what he's doing here. The Bishops. The antlers. Torch. The Banditos. The cause.

But the harder he clings to the words, the faster they bleed through his fingers.

Torch.

For a flicker of a second, he remembers the shore, remembers the way Torch's face had softened in the firelight, remembers lips brushing against his own, the weight of his body next to him under the stars. That fragile moment of warmth
— the only real thing he's let himself hold onto in so long.

—and then doubt crashes over him like ice water.

Torch lied. Torch wasn't even real. How much of that night was truth, and how much was fabrication, projection, trickery? He was a shadow, an echo pretending to be a man. And Clancy, stupid Clancy, let himself believe in it. Let himself love it. He built his hope on smoke and mirrors.

If Torch was false, then every choice Clancy made because of him was false too. Every step in the forest, every fire they built, every whispered plan—it was nothing. Hollow.

His chest caves inward as the realization multiplies.

If Torch was a lie... then what about the Banditos? What about Trench?

Were they ever truly free, or just exiles gnawing on scraps outside the walls? Was their laughter only the noise of men who had already lost, pretending otherwise? They hadn't won anything. They had just been escaping. Hiding.

And Clancy?

What was he doing? Running. Always running. Into submarines, through caves, along rocky shores, grasping at someone else's hand, leaning on someone else's hope. He had never been enough. Not strong enough. Not clever enough. Not real enough.

But the antlers pulsed in his hands.

That was different. That was power.

Not borrowed, not imagined, not whispered by ghosts. Real. Tangible. It burned through him like molten metal, searing away the trembling boy he had been. In its heat, he saw himself differently — not cowering or fleeing, not clinging to false warmth.

He saw himself standing above.

Not destroying Dema — why should he? What did destruction bring but ash? No, he could take it. Claim it. Bend it. Shape it into something stronger, something sharper, something that could never be broken again.

The thought makes his stomach lurch — and yet, there's a sick, undeniable thrill in it.

All the years of running. All the wasted fights. All the pain and loss and ashes. None of it mattered if he could just rise above it.

Not a rebel. Not a victim. Not a coward hiding in the woods.

But something else.

Something untouchable.

The antlers burn against his palms, and he can almost see them settling on his head like a crown, heavy and righteous. He imagines himself standing not among the Banditos, not cowering in Trench, but here, in this chamber, with the city bowed beneath him.

And Torch — Torch would finally see. Torch would finally understand that Clancy was not some boy stumbling into power, not some desperate exile grasping at rebellion, but the one destined to wield it. The one destined to hold it all together.

He can feel Torch's face in his mind again, but this time it isn't warmth. It's bitterness. It's betrayal. It's the sting of knowing that even in their most intimate moments, Torch hadn't told him the truth.

Why should Clancy believe in him? Why should he believe in anyone but himself?

A voice inside whispers, quiet, sharp:

You don't need them. You don't need him. You never did.

The thought sinks deeper, burrows into his bones, spreads like wildfire in his chest until it is the only thing left.

He doesn't need freedom. He doesn't need love.

He needs to be more.

And as the pressure builds, as his vision flickers at the edges, as the world threatens to collapse entirely, Clancy feels something inside him give way — not snapping, not breaking, but bending into a new shape. A shape that feels right.

A shape that feels inevitable.

Chapter Text

The battlefield stank of blood and smoke. A low fog of ash crept across the ground, curling around fallen bodies, muffling the colors of cloth and paint until everything looked the same gray-brown of decay. Vultures already circled high above, patient, knowing their time would come.

Torch was kneeling in the muck, his knees soaked in someone else's blood. His hands were stained too, dark red drying in the cracks of his knuckles. He didn't know if it was Kaia's blood or his own or the countless others who had fallen around them. All he knew was the stillness of her body beneath his palms.

Her chest would never rise again. Her laughter, her relentless teasing, her fearless charges into danger — they were gone, extinguished in a single strike. Torch had seen death countless times before, but this one anchored him like a stone dropped into the depths of the sea.

He bowed his head until his forehead touched hers. Her skin was already cold. "I'm sorry," he whispered, though he didn't know what he was apologizing for.

He stayed there for a moment longer, the battlefield roaring faintly around him. Groans of the wounded. The scrape of metal. The crackling of small fires still eating through cloth and wood. None of it mattered. He pressed his lips together hard, forced himself to stand, and staggered upright, swaying slightly from the weight in his chest.

He looked up.

And froze.

Beyond the smoke and ruin, past the littered corpses of Banditos and the Glorious Gone alike, a lone figure stood at the gates of Dema.

Clancy.

The sight of him hit Torch like a surge of oxygen into starved lungs. Relief, so sharp it almost hurt, flooded through him. He was alive. Against all odds, against everything, Clancy had made it.

Torch's chest tightened. His lips parted, his body already moving. His hand rose instinctively, as though a wave would bridge the distance, as though that simple gesture could call Clancy back to him. For one impossible heartbeat Torch believed — believed it was over, that they had survived, that the fight meant something.

We won. He's safe. We're going home.

But then Clancy's head shifted ever so slightly.

Not toward him. Not toward anyone. His eyes swept across the battlefield like Torch wasn't there at all. Like he had become one more broken body in the dirt, invisible and weightless.

The smile that had begun to curl Torch's lips withered instantly. His breath hitched, then stalled.

The truth slammed into him, merciless and absolute.

Torch's raised hand fell, slow, limp, heavy as iron. His heart felt like it was collapsing inward, hollowing out until only emptiness remained. The man who had laughed with him by the fire, who had kissed him under the bruised sky — that man was gone.

Torch's throat worked, but no sound came. His mouth opened, closed, opened again like he might call out anyway, even knowing it was pointless. But what good would it do? Clancy couldn't see him. Couldn't hear him.

Couldn't love him anymore.

He just stood there, frozen, his chest aching as he watched Clancy turn his back without hesitation. The antlers gleamed faintly in his grip, their weight fitting him now like they had always belonged there. He didn't pause. Didn't glance back. Didn't stumble.

He walked into Dema as though he had always been meant to return.

And Torch was left rooted to the battlefield, surrounded by corpses, his fingers curled uselessly at his sides.

Disappointment cracked into devastation. His knees nearly buckled with the weight of it. His vision blurred, whether from smoke or tears he couldn't tell. The world seemed to tilt, the ground unsteady beneath him.

For a moment, all he could hear was his own heartbeat hammering in his ears—loud, frantic, desperate—as though trying to keep him tethered when everything else was slipping away.

But the sound of the banditos around him broke through. Their voices—ragged, pained, weary—dragged him back to reality. Some were crying. Some were begging for water, for help, for mercy. Others just lay groaning in the dirt, their wounds weeping into the soil.

Torch blinked hard, forced the blur away.

Clancy was gone. The man he had loved, the man who had made him feel human again, who had given him hope — gone.

Torch's chest ached with hollowness, but he pushed it down, forced himself to breathe. Clancy had crossed a line from which there was no return.

Behind Clancy, the yellow sun cracked past the horizon, spilling gold across the wreckage, and the wind carried the scent of firelight.

But he didn't look back.

He wouldn't see it anyway.