Dawn of a new era

by Gribbon

Summary:

Her chest rose and fell in slow, weak breaths. Seth’s trained eyes, honed from years of charting the Underworld’s bioluminescent caverns, saw no wounds, no marks: A miracle, considering the zombies that prowled after dusk. And what made it more intriguing was that she couldn't be a nymph; these sanguinary creatures impersonating lost girls only found deep in caves.

To Seth, something about her felt… impossible, as if she was a puzzle that he couldn’t solve despite the immensity of his knowledges.

OR

A lone Guide's existence is turned upside down when an amnesiac woman with strange abilities appears, leading them into a partnership that blurs the lines between survival and intimacy.

Notes:

Hi!

This is the first time I've gathered the courage to share my writing with an audience (despite it not being my first attempt).

As English is not my native language, I would greatly appreciate any feedback on errors you might notice.

Additionally, as this is my first shared work, I have no objective measure of its overall quality, so any thoughts you have on that matter are welcome.

Also, I like to explore the inner states of characters, which can sometimes lead to a slower narrative pace. I hope this approach still resonates with you.

Chapter 1: The one called by the world

 

Seth wandered through the forest under the emerging morning sun, each footfall muffled by the thick, emerald moss carpeting the ancient oaks. Above him, branches knotted like arthritic hands, their leaves whispering tales of lives long past. The Corruption had crept into the last village’s edges, and now all that remained were ruined dwellings, swarming monsters, and diseased vegetation that dripped purplish ichor onto the fragmented path. He carried nothing but his satchel of crafting tools, basic survival supplies, and the tattered journals in which he recorded every scrap of knowledge he could salvage.

From now on, he was the sole keeper of wisdom in this world. But this world, he feared, was no longer his.

It was near a clearing, where the rising sun pooled like liquid amber, that Seth first saw her: a slender form curled at the base of a large, fungus-capped tree stump. Her skin was pale as the alabaster marble from the Cavern layer, and she lay utterly still, muted auburn hair fanned around her like ash vines. There were no clothes to speak of; only a bed of wildflowers and tall weeds hiding parts of her bare form.

The man knelt beside her, curiosity mingling with cautious instinct, his hand never straying far from the bow slung across his back. He draped his woolen green cloak over her unconscious body, mindful of her exposed state.

“Who are you?” he whispered, the words dissolving into the hush.

Her chest rose and fell in slow, weak breaths. Seth’s trained eyes, honed from years of charting the Underworld’s bioluminescent caverns, saw no wounds, no marks: A miracle, considering the zombies that prowled after dusk. And what made it more intriguing was that she couldn't be a nymph; these sanguinary creatures impersonating lost girls were only found deep in caves.

To Seth, something about her felt… impossible, as if she was a puzzle that he couldn’t solve despite the immensity of his knowledges.

The man rummaged through his satchel for a healing potion. He had learned long ago that mushroom tinctures eased most ailments. He uncorked the small glass vial with practiced fingers: The scent of gel and mushroom drifted up, earthy and damp, tinged with the faintest sparkle of mana.

He slid a hand beneath the woman’s neck, lifting and tilting her head with caution. Her skin was cool to the touch; not the clammy cold of death, but the chilled stillness of one untethered. Gently, he tipped the vial to her lips, letting the potion trickle in. When a glint of the liquid escaped the corner of her mouth, he caught it instinctively with his thumb, swiping it away in a slow, careful motion. Her breath stirred slightly as she swallowed.

“There,” he murmured. “Let that do its work.”

Leaving her propped against the stump, he turned his attention to the clearing, gathering dry bark and fallen branches. Striking flint against steel, he caught a spark in a bundle of dry hay he'd kept in his satchel. Soon enough, a small fire licked upward, its warm glow spilling across the woman’s unresponsive form.

Seth settled cross‑legged beside the flames, watching her with a quiet focus as the potion took hold. Gradually, color returned to her cheeks, and her breathing settled into a less concerning rhythm. He studied her face for a bit. She looked no older than himself, perhaps a year or two younger, mid-twenties. He reached into his pack once more and retrieved a small, iron pot, setting it over the fire: A simple broth of herbs and mushrooms would do to strengthen her when she woke.

And wake she did.

Her eyelids fluttered open, slowly adjusting to the morning light. There was something unusual in the color of her eyes: green, but not merely so. Deeper. Mineral. Like polished emerald catching the sun. Her gaze drifted across the clearing, the trees, the fire, the cloak draped over her shoulders that she instinctively held closer, and finally came to rest on the man seated nearby.

Then she met his eyes.

For a while, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn't peaceful: It was the sort that carried weight, waiting to shift but unsure how.

Seth broke it first. “What’s your name?” He kept his voice low to not startle her.

Her eyes drifted, unfocused, as if the question itself needed time to settle inside her. “Suzuri,” she said at last, voice hoarse and cracked with sleep. “That’s… my name, I think. And I…”

She trailed off. Her eyes widened slightly as a shadow of confusion crossed her face.

“I… don’t remember anything…”

The words landed like a stone dropped in still water.

He watched her brows drew together, as if she tried to force her way through the fog by sheer will. After a beat, she suddenly lifted a hand to her temple, wincing in pain. Something throbbed beneath the surface, deep and unreachable.

Seth stood and crossed the clearing without a word. The wooden bowl in his hands carried the scent of warmth: salt, smoke, herbs, and mushrooms. He knelt beside her and offered it out, the steam curling upward in thin ribbons.

“Take it slow,” he said. “You’ve been out for who-knows how long. No need to rush into anything.”

She accepted the bowl with both hands, grateful, and for a moment, he saw the tremor in her grip. It wasn’t fear alone, since her body was probably running on fumes, nerves frayed thin. But she sat upright, shoulders squared, as though posture could inject strength back into her limbs. Seth noticed that too.

That kind of practiced control didn’t stem from comfort; it stems from experience.

“Is the headache still bad?” he asked once she’d finished the broth.

“It’s bearable,” she said quietly. “It only spikes when I try to remember.”

“Mind if I take a look?”

Her gaze lingered on his face for a moment, then she gave a small, cautious nod.

Seth reached out slowly, letting her see the movement before one hand found her cheek, tilting her head at the right angle. His fingers were rough, marked by splinters and calluses, but his touch was careful. He brushed a strand of hair getting in the way behind her ear, and pressed gently along her scalp, searching for any lingering trauma left by whatever had brought her here.

She tensed once, but didn’t pull away.

“Nothing broken,” he murmured. “No swelling either.”

When he pulled back, their eyes met again, and something about her expression caught him off guard. Her gaze was steady. Too steady. Not the blank stare of someone lost, but clear, aware, as if instinct hadn’t forgotten what her mind did. It unsettled him, just a little.

“You’re oddly calm,” he remarked, studying her. “In your shoes, most people would be freaking out by now.”

“To be honest, the idea was a bit tentative,” she replied simply. “But it also felt counterproductive, so….”

A beat passed. Then he gave a soft, almost reluctant chuckle.

“Fair enough.”

He didn’t say it aloud, but he respected that. In this world, composure was rarer than food, and more valuable in terms of survival.

Then her gaze shifted; not toward the trees or the sky, but to the air just above his head, eyes narrowing.

“Seth,” she murmured, tasting the name aloud.

He blinked. “I didn’t tell you that.”

“No,” she confirmed. “But I can see it, floating above you. Your name and… a slightly decreased number. You’re injured, aren’t you?”

His hand drifted to his side by reflex, fingers brushing a dull ache just beneath the ribs: A wound from the night before. He hadn’t mentioned it. Hadn’t meant to.

But Suzuri’s eyes had already followed the motion.

“May I see it?” she asked.

Seth hesitated, then let out a slow breath before lifting the hem of his shirt.

The bruise was a deep, splotchy maroon, blooming like ink beneath sun-kissed skin. It spread in uneven shadows under the curve of his ribs, the kind of mark that told a clear story: A hard fall, or something heavier with intent.

Her brow creased. “Do you have anything to treat it?”

He gave a half shrug, the gesture casual on the surface. “I don’t. And even if I did… potions are too precious to be wasted on something like this.”

He deemed irrelevant to add that he had already used his only one on her.

But she noticed. Of course she did.

Her eyes drifted to the empty vial lying in the grass just inches away from her outstretched fingers. A drop of crimson clung stubbornly to its lip, thick as syrup, catching the light like a drying bloodstain. Seth’s gaze followed hers, and his posture went still.

He said nothing, but the lack of response proved enough.

A silent sigh slipped from her lips as she pinched the bridge of her nose, something between guilt and reluctant gratitude passing across her face.

“You used your last on a total stranger,” she murmured. Not quite a question. Not quite a scolding. Just the truth.

He turned to her with a small, almost sheepish wave of his hand. “You needed it more.”

Her face tightened as she couldn’t argue against it. Then, unexpectedly, a smile ghosted her lips. “You look like the kind of person who’ll bleed out quietly while caring for other’s scratches.”

“You say it like it’s a bad habit,” he said, chuckling under his breath, though the metaphor did hit close to home.

“It is, for your own well-being,” she started, her tone leaning just enough toward amusement. “But thanks to your bad habit, I now owe you my life.”

She stood carefully, still concealed under the long cloak, and made her way to the edge of the clearing. Seth watched her with a mix of curiosity and concern.

“What are you doing?”

“Repaying a debt,” she replied over her shoulder. “You stay here.”

She returned a few minutes later carrying a small handful of large, waxy leaves and a bundle of mushrooms: Wide-capped and soft, the kind whose earthy scent mirrored the potion’s ghost lingering in the air. Looks like she had guessed their use just from it. She knelt again, setting her findings beside her.

He watched as she poured the mushrooms into the empty wooden bowl and, with the back of the spoon, began crushing them into a coarse, glistening pulp. Her movements were instinctive and precise, almost methodical, as if the familiar, tactile action was a way to anchor herself.

Seth raised an eyebrow. “What exactly are you doing?”

She didn’t look up. “I’m not sure,” she said. “Just… going with the flow of what my hands seem to remember.”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

Then she glanced up. “Do you have anything that can bring more… consistency to the paste?”

He blinked, then nodded, digging into his satchel. After a moment’s rustling, he passed her a soft cloth pouch. She unfolded it carefully, revealing a translucid blue gel that shimmered under the light like crushed sapphires. With cautious maneuvers, she poured some of it into the mash until the mixture thickened, turning a muted brownish green, sticky and slightly shining.

A pleased hum left her once she was satisfied with the result. Rising onto her knees, she gathered one of the large, waxy leaves and inched closer to him.

“I wouldn’t have thought to mix them like that,” Seth said quietly, watching as she scooped the green salve onto the leaf, spreading it into a smooth, even layer.

“Shirt up, please,” she instructed. “This might sting.”

He obeyed, lifting the hem again.

Then she leaned in.

He didn’t flinch when the remedy met his skin, but a sharp inhale betrayed him; not from pain, but from the physical contact. She didn’t seem to pay attention.

With the focus of someone conducting a ritual, she pressed the cool plaster over the bruise, working with precision. The salve struck cold at first, biting and sharp, before settling into a dull, soothing ache that bled gently through the throb of his injury. Her fingers lingered a moment longer, smoothing the edges of the leaf to keep it in place.

Seth swallowed. He wasn’t used to being cared for, especially not like this. Not with such diligence, devoid of pity or obligation. It rattled something quiet inside him.

She looked up, face close, her eyes searching his, unreadable. “Too cold?”

“No. I mean—yes. A little. But it’s fine.” His voice had taken on an awkward rasp, betraying the warmth he felt.

“There,” she said finally, scraping the remnants of paste from her fingers against the edge of the bowl. “It should pull most of the inflammation by the next morning.”

He lowered his shirt with care, the poultice now firmly in place, the relief of it still blooming under the leaf.

“Thanks,” he murmured, genuinely grateful for her administrations. He already felt a lot whole better.

Suzuri hummed quietly, her gaze fixed on the green salve clinging to the bottom of the wooden bowl. The gel had blended well: smooth, cohesive, stable. It might be useful again.

“I wonder,” she murmured, mostly to herself, “if there’s a way to preserve it for later…”

She held the bowl with both hands, brows knitting in thought, fingers tracing the rim absently as her mind searched for an answer.

Then, without warning, it vanished.

Not slipped. Not dropped. Simply gone.

No sound, no shimmer, the space between her hands hollowed out in an instant.

Her breath caught, fingers remaining curled in place, frozen around emptiness.

“Oh.”

Seth leaned forward. “What the—”

Both of them stared at the empty air with equal parts of surprise and disbelief.

“Did you… mean to do that?” he asked carefully.

She frowned, a flicker of raw confusion in her expression. “I—no,” she replied, the word a little too quick. But even as she said it, her eyes began to drift, like something in her mind had tilted open: The same distant look had crossed her face when she first saw his name hovering above his head.

Her fingers twitched, and she turned one palm upward, hesitating for a beat as she wrestled with an unseen wave of disorientation. Then, she narrowed her eyes, focusing solely on the emptiness between her hands.

A heartbeat later, the bowl was back, restored to her hand with a quiet, seamless reappearance. It was as though it had never left. The salve inside hadn’t shifted.

Seth exhaled sharply, his eyes unreadable for a moment. “I had my doubts,” he murmured. “But I guess that confirms it.”

He leaned back, the realization landing like a weight across his chest.

Suzuri watched him quizzically, brow still furrowed.

He held her gaze, steady and serious. “You’re the one this world called.”

“Called?”

“The Terrarian,” he said, the word emerging like a name uttered only in myths. “A figure that only appears when the balance of this world teeters on collapse. Not born here. Not summoned by spell or ritual, either. But chosen by the world itself. You’ didn’t just show up by chance. You’re here because this place needs you.”

The title hung between them like mist. Terrarian; alien and familiar all at once.

“I must be your chosen Guide,” Seth continued. “Every Terrarian is given one. We’re… meant to advise. To assist. To try to keep you alive long enough for you to do what only you can do.” A dry smile flickered at the edge of his mouth. “I’ve been studying the past, memorizing maps, and chasing old tales for years… Guess it makes sense that I’ve been designed for the task.”

He let out a quiet laugh, though not sounding amused. “Still… I never actually believed it would ever happen.”

His eyes drifted to the fire, where the flames danced low and lazy, reflecting amber in the gray of his iris. “But here you are, not just appearing out of nowhere, but landing exactly where I’d be.”

As if on cue, a ray of sunlight broke through the clearing overhead, piercing the tangle of high branches and spilling gold across the forest floor. The dew clinging to each blade of grass caught the light and shimmered, crystalline, as if the morning itself had been polished to a mirror shine. Even her hair, so muted before, turned luminous as the wind lifted it sideways, catching threads of amber in its strands.

Seth didn’t move. Something in the air held him still.

Suzuri stood in the center of that quiet radiance, arms loose at her sides, and he noted a faint tremor in her hands curled near the moss. Her eyes weren’t fixed on him anymore, but distant, somewhere deep inside herself.

“That’s… quite a lot to take in,” she declared after a while to give it some serious thoughts. Each word landed with the careful weight of someone testing the strength of ice beneath their feet, listening for the cracks. “I don’t have a single clue about who I am. So how could I possibly be trusted to save anything, anyone, if I can’t trust myself to do so?”

Seth remained silent. He had expected shock. Maybe confusion. Perhaps even rejection. But not this genuine, legitimate doubt. It struck something in him, something familiar.

“But…” Her gaze dropped to her hands. She opened one palm and studied the shape of it, the faint tremble in her fingers betraying the calm in her face. “If the world really had chosen me, then… I suppose I don’t have a home to return to. And neither the luxury of choice, to begin with.”

Her voice faltered there, another fracture in her composure she quickly smoothed over.

“So maybe it's not about being ready,” she continued, tone forged under pressure rather than resolve. “Maybe it’s about using what I’ve got; making something out of… whatever this is,” she touched her chest, fingers splaying against it with the weight of reluctant acknowledgement.

There was no defiance in her tone; no heroic resolve. It was something quieter. A choice made in the absence of better options: Clarity born not of courage, but of necessity.

Seth let out the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding

“You don’t have to carry it all at once,” he said, almost whispering. “Just take one step forward and the rest will follow.”

A flicker of amusement ghosted her lips. “Sounds like something a Guide would say.”

He smiled back, but the motion didn’t quite reach his eyes. Because even now, beneath the morning light and the promise it carried, a dull ache settled in his chest.

She didn’t know yet.

That for her to rise, the Guide must one day fall.

Chapter 2: A piece of humanity

Summary:

Suzuri begins to grasp the lethal nature of this new world's nights, prompting her and Seth to construct their first fragile shelter against the growing darkness.

The day unfolded in a quiet rhythm, and by the time the sun had risen fully above the treetops, the Guide had already explained the most pressing truth: At night, the world changes.

He spoke of the dark as a veil that invited all manner of restless, hunger-driven things. Creatures drawn to life and warmth, summoned from the world’s unraveling seams. When dusk fell, survival meant shelter. Without it, the dark wasn’t simply dangerous. It was fatal.

Suzuri hadn’t questioned him. She only nodded once and followed him into the deeper woods.

The forest deepened quickly, trunks stretching like pillars into the sky, their leaves whispering overhead. They worked in companionable silence, gathering what they could: wood, stone, cobweb; anything that might be useful. Or rather, they started to gather.

Then something strange happened.

Suzuri approached a tall birch, her iron axe retrieved earlier from that strange, invisible inventory, now in hand. But before she could swing, her foot caught on a root. She stumbled slightly, the blade never touching its target.

And yet, with only a slight hint of motion, the tree split cleanly at its base.

After a few more tentative attempts, the trunk gave way and collapsed, the segments landing in perfect, uniform bundles at her feet.

They both stared.

“…You didn’t even touch it once,” Seth pointed out.

“I’m… not sure how,” she replied, stepping back. Then, she frowned. “Does this mean I only need to hold and swing the right tool?”

She decided to put it to the test again. Another tree. Another clean fall while standing from afar. She cut multiples ones around her without having to step closer once, remaining rooted to her spot. Her range appeared to be limited, but within that boundary, her reach was absolute.

Seth watched, awed, as the logs stacked themselves in tidy bundles, ready for use. It was efficient. Effortless. And strangely elegant.

“It’s like you can… extend your will,” he murmured, half to himself.

Suzuri’s brow furrowed, thoughtful. “Let’s see how far I can take it.”

They found a gentle rise near the edge of the clearing, where the grass thinned and the soil held firm. It would do. They began construction; though really, she did.

Seth, crouched beside her, unrolled a set of hastily drawn schematics onto a flat stone: a workbench to begin crafting; torches to hold back the night; walls and flooring, a table, chairs, door, and a chest to hold their growing collection of odds and ends. As he spoke, she listened, and something behind her eyes lit up. She absorbed the knowledge the way dry earth drinks the rain; thirsty, instant, alive.

Then, the scenery changed.

With the wood in her grasp, Suzuri moved as though following blueprints etched into the air; grids only visible to her eyes. Planks aligned, beams snapped into place, angles found balance with uncanny ease. Her power didn’t just build: it comprehended it. And what should have taken hours unfolded in mere minutes.

The sun bled lower behind the treetops, staining the sky with fire. Shadows thickened. And with them came a familiar sound: wet, rhythmic, approaching.

Seth froze mid-step.

Then came the glisten from a nearby bush: gelatinous bodies, semi-translucent and pulsing with sickly color. Slimes.

Seth rose in a heartbeat, bow already in hand before he could think.

The first arrow hissed through the air, catching the lead creature square in its squelching core. It exploded in a spray of muck. More followed, oozing from the thickets in rapid surges. He moved with experimented efficiency. Draw. Release. Draw again. Each arrow thudded, silencing the invaders before they could close in.

“Don’t stop,” he called over his shoulder. “I’ve got this.”

And she didn’t.

By the time the last slime burst beneath one of Seth’s arrows, the home stood solid.

A modest little box of safety in a world teetering toward ruin.

Suzuri stood framed in the doorway, smudged with resin and dust, hair clinging to her temples in damp strands.

Seth approached, wiping slime from his forearm with a grimace, and settled beside her. The torches inside crackled faintly, throwing flickers of gold as she remained silent for a time.

He cast her a sidelong look. “You did well. More than well, actually.”

Suzuri, still catching her breath, brushed a strand of hair from her brow with a frown, her mind already three problems ahead.

“It’s temporary,” she said at length, pondering. “Wood’s fast, not sturdy. Too flammable, too easy to rot. I should replace it all with stone once we get enough. Smooth stone. And sand; we’ll need that for windows. Seeing outside is a necessity. And ventilation. Maybe open slats near the ceiling… Oh, and a sloped roof for rain runoff…”

She paced a few steps from the doorway, already scrutinizing her own work and mapping ideas only she could see. Seth raised a brow, amused by her antics, but she wasn’t finished.

“I could widen the interior. More movement space. Then a proper foundation, so the floor doesn’t shift. Practical, but still aesthetic. Something that feels…” She paused, searching for the word. “…like home.”

Seth let out an honest laugh; one of the first that wasn’t wrapped in tension or fatigue.

“You really are something,” he said, shaking his head both in amusement and disbelief. “You built a whole house in one afternoon, and your first thought is, ‘It’s not good enough.’”

She blinked at him, then allowed herself a small smile. “It’s not about good or not,” she said with a glint in her eye. “It’s about making it better.”

 

---

 

Not long after they’d settled, Suzuri had slipped back out; something about needing more materials for tomorrow. She still wore the cloak pulled tight and awkward around her frame, the only thing between her and the elements. It slid from her shoulders when she crouched, tangled at her feet when she walked, and more than once she had to stop to wrench it back into place. She bore the inconvenience without complaining once, but the struggle showed.

In the corner of the cabin stood a loom, simple but sturdy, crafted by her hands not long after she’d unearthed the blueprint within his other recipes. It was clear she meant to address her clothing situation eventually, but she still had prioritized the broader picture over her own comfort.

Seth exhaled softly through his nose and crossed the room.

From its observations, she seemed to be the type who wouldn’t ask for help. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t offer it anyway.

He laid the silken cobweb threads across the frame, his fingers moving carefully over the loom. The fibers clung like breath, pale and tensile, whisper-fine but surprisingly strong. His hands, more used to calloused grips and the twang of bowstrings, still found a rhythm in the unfamiliar task. It was a bit clumsy, but survival didn’t demand perfection. Just effort. And right now, effort meant more dignity for her.

Thread by thread, a shape began to take form.

A single-piece gown long enough to move in, and simple enough to waste nothing. The spider-silk glimmered faintly in the torchlight, catching gold in its pale weave. It would be soft against skin, light as air, but warm. Modest, practical. Something that wouldn’t fall away when she ran or fought or bent down to study the ground. Something that wouldn’t need to be clutched to her chest.

When the final stitch was pulled taut and the last thread tucked neatly away, Seth eased back with a quiet sigh. He draped the finished robe over one of the chairs; hers now, whether she claimed it or not.

Settling himself and keeping watch at the doorway, he listened to the sounds of the forest. The light outside was deepening into a dusky gold, the time for safe wandering rapidly drawing to a close.

A few moments later, Suzuri appeared, even more covered in the grime of the world than before: Her hair was tangled with leaves and specks of dried mud, and a smudge of dirt ran from her cheekbone down to the line of her jaw like a misplaced shadow. She looked like the forest itself had tried to eat her alive and given up halfway through. But her eyes, steady as usual, also held a subtle sense of pride this time.

She was laden with findings. Tightly held over her chest was a cluster of dull, darkish lead ore with dirt still clinging to its facets, new bundles of fibrous cobweb, some sunflowers, as well as several sprigs of daybloom and blinkroot.

Seth blinked. “You’ve… been busy.”

“I found more resources and… pretty much took anything that seemed useful. Just in case,” she stated, tired but satisfied, dropping her discoveries inside the chest with a soft thud. “And I located a small stream not far from here. The water is clear. It should be suitable for…” Her gaze fell upon the chair, and the shimmering, pale gray fabric draped over it.

She paused, her breath caught.

The cloak, which had been clutched awkwardly around her all this time, loosened slightly. She walked towards the chair, and for a moment, she didn’t say anything. Her fingers, still smudged with earth, reached out tentatively, brushing against the soft, surprisingly warm silk. It felt wonderful on the touch.

“…You made this?”

He shrugged, suddenly feeling self-conscious. “Well… tried to make something decent at least.”

She looked from the robe to Seth, her eyes holding his for a long moment. The carefully constructed composure wavered, a flicker of vulnerability Seth hadn't seen before. There was no dramatic exclamation, no effusive thanks, just a deep, silent understanding that passed between them; he had seen a need she hadn't voiced, a fundamental lack of dignity, and quietly, without being asked, provided it.

“The cloak… it was becoming inconvenient,” she said softly, a rationalization for the gift.

Seth simply nodded, a small, gentle smile touching his lips. “No more wrestle just to walk.”

She carefully picked up the robe, holding it against herself. It was simple, practical, yet precious. A small piece of humanity in an alien world.

“The stream,” she started, “I should… wash quickly, before it gets dark. And get dressed,” she blurted out, too much going on in her mind at once.

“Alright,” Seth said, his hand resting near his bow once more out of habit. “But don't stray too far. Dusk falls fast.”

“I won't,” she promised, already moving outside. She paused at the doorway, looking back at him. “Thank you, Seth. Really.” This time, the gratitude was verbal, quiet but sincere.

It made his heart skip a beat.

She slipped out, the cumbersome cloak still draped over her, and Seth watched her disappearing in the bushes, running a hand through his tousled hair in embarrassment.

That woman was really bringing out a part of unknown within him, and he didn’t know what to make of it.

 

---

 

By the time Suzuri returned to the cabin, the last sliver of sun had melted behind the treetops. The air outside had turned from merely cool to something heavier, dense, electric, like a breath held too long. Inside, the torches crackled defiantly, spitting light as if to push back against the darkness creeping in from the wild. Shadows stretched and twisted along the timber walls, dancing, unreachable as ghosts.

Seth crouched by the door, bow resting loosely in his hand, his eyes combing the edge of the clearing. When he saw her step into the light; dry, composed, and fully clothed, his shoulders eased, tension bleeding away in a slow exhale.

She crossed the threshold barefoot, hair still damp and braided to the side. The gown swayed softly around her ankles, a silken shimmer in the torchlight. The cobweb fabric clung where it should and flowed where it needed to; hugging her waist and chest like second skin, falling in pleated folds around her legs to allow free movement. Modest, simple, yet beautiful. It suited her.

The sun vanished completely then, and with it, the world outside shifted. As promised.

The first groan rose like a breath from a grave: low, guttural, and close. Then came the scraping; fingers, brittle and stiff, raking across the outer wall. Slow at first. Then insistent. Testing.

Suzuri, crouched over the chest she'd built and busy sorting her findings, froze mid-motion. Her spine straightened. Her hands stilled. Her eyes snapped to the door.

Seth, already settled at the table, bow resting across his lap, kept his gaze fixed on the sturdy wood. “Zombies,” he murmured with a steadiness meant to inform, not alarm.

Another rattle; a hard, clumsy bump that made the planks shudder. Suzuri flinched.

“Can they…?”

“Open it?” Seth glanced her way, a faint, grim curve tugging at his mouth. “No. Handles are too much for them.”

A pause.

“As long as it’s not a Blood Moon.”

She turned to him, brows knitting. “A Blood… Moon?”

“Once a month the sky turns red. That’s when the dead get bold.” He didn’t elaborate, not wanting to add more to her plate.

The bumping continued, irregular now, like the creatures outside were pacing. Listening. They wouldn't break through, he was confident in that. For now. The door held, sturdy, despite how effortlessly she'd constructed it earlier. But he noticed how Suzuri’s hands clenched slightly each time a loud thud landed against the wall, her anxiety surfacing not in words, but in silence.

He thought about reaching out. A steadying touch. But, he stayed where he was, quiet and grounded. Sometimes presence was enough.

“They’re drawn to light and movement,” he continued, keeping his tone even. “They know we’re inside, so they’ll linger. But they won’t get in.”

The groans and thuds became an ambient rhythm, a grim lullaby to their first night. Seth leaned back against his chair, and pulled a small journal from his satchel. The leather cover was worn smooth, its edges singed and dark from torches. Documenting was his way of making sense of the chaos, of preserving knowledge in a world that seemed determined to forget. It made things feel real, manageable, something he could analyze, understand, maybe even improve. And tonight, there was one subject he needed to capture more than any other.

But how to describe someone who appeared out of nowhere, able to reshape the world with a thought?

He turned the page to a new one, and began his work, charcoal scratching softly.

Suzuri, the Terrarian (human female, approx mid-twenties) Total recall failure of identity and personal history → amnesia.

Exceptionally calm despite circumstances (though forcing it). Down-to-earth, instinctual, observant, quick absorber of information. Shows intellectual curiosity and a strong desire for growth. Demonstrated act of care.

Seems to lack in self-confidence (doubt about her fitness for the role). Struggles to voice needs and gratitude → self-sacrificing tendency? Overthink. React to loud noises → fear linked to her past?

Capable of interacting with/manipulating the world remotely. Manifests as near-instant resource gathering & construction from a distance. Appears tied to intent & presence of appropriate tool. Invisible inventory.

What triggers abilities? Are they limited? Is there a cost? Connection to amnesia? How to help recover memory? Need to test the extent of abilities.

He stopped, thumb brushing a smudge off the corner of the page. The entry felt clinical, detached, but he didn’t know how else to approach it. Assessment first, interpretation later.

When he finally looked up, Suzuri was seated across from him, her elbows resting lightly on the table’s uneven edge. She studied him with quiet attentiveness; curious, but not invasive.

“You’re writing about me,” she guessed, though not accusingly.

Seth glanced down at the worn leather journal in his lap, then back up with a sheepish smile. “Yeah,” he admitted, closing it gently. “I figured it might help… if we could understand more about who you are.”

There was no offense in her expression, only thoughtfulness. Her gaze lingered on the journal, then on his hands. “It feels… familiar.”

Seth tilted his head, intrigued. “Journaling?”

She nodded slowly, as if feeling her way through a fog of memory. “Not just writing. The act of… recording. Watching. Keeping track. Seeing you write felt like something I used to do. Or rather, something I need to do.” Her fingers flexed absently in her lap. “I can’t quite explain it. But it’s itching me. Deeply.”

Seth felt a quiet warmth stir in his chest. The fact that she still held some inner compass, however obscured, and that she instinctively gravitated towards the idea of documentation… It meant a shared activity, a common love of knowledge. “We'll make you one tomorrow,” he proposed with a small, earnest smile. “We have a lot to keep track of, after all.”

She nodded, a tiny flicker of gratitude flashing behind her eyes before she dropped her gaze. He let her sit with it for a moment, then shifted the subject with subtle pragmatism.

“Speaking of tomorrow… we need to gear up. Tools. Defenses. You saw the lead earlier. There might be tin or tungsten around too. With a furnace and an anvil, we can start forging real equipment. Metal blades. Reinforced armor. Maybe even something custom to suit your needs.”

Suzuri listened, brow furrowed in quiet focus. She nodded along, already anticipating and prioritizing tasks in her mind.

“First light,” Seth continued, “we test weapons. Swords, spears, bow, anything available for you to see what feels right in your hands. Then, we'll search after a cave for ores. We’ll need wood for charcoal, and stone for the furnace walls. It’s going to be hard work.”

Her lips quirked slightly. “Sounds good to me.”

A ghost of a smile crossed his face.

Then he hesitated, choosing his next words with care. “Eventually… it can’t be just the two of us forever. We’ll need other people. For example, a merchant would be nice for the supplies we can't craft or find. But for that to happen, we need to build a safe home for each of them.”

He noticed her eyes weren't focused anymore, but seemed to be looking through, a recognizable distant look settling in her gaze.

“A town,” Suzuri murmured as she held her chin, deep in thoughts. Seth watched her, seeing all the possibilities processed behind those eyes. She was already envisioning a whole city in her head while they were still trying to survive their first night in a wooden box.

The Guide smiled fondly, enjoying seeing her so invested, though it made her forget the essential part of survival: one step at a time.

He needed to anchor her back to reality.

Leaning forward slightly across the narrow space between them, Seth raised his index. He paused for just a fraction of a second, giving the woman a chance to react, but her focus was too absolute. Gently, he pressed the tip of his finger against her forehead, right between her furrowed brows.

Suzuri’s eyes snapped back into the present, surprise crossing her features at the unexpected physical contact.

“Not so fast, Champion,” he started, his tone laced with both amusement and care, letting his hand rest on the rough-hewn table between them. “We’ve got plenty to deal with just staying alive right now. So let’s not skip the basics.”

She studied him for a heartbeat longer, then gave in with a small smile that softened her features. “Right.”

The sounds outside, the shuffling and groaning, seemed to pick up again, a reminder of the world they were in. Seth settled back against the chair, the brief moment of physical contact leaving a faint warmth on his fingertip.

“You should sleep,” he offered, stretching his arms sore from inactivity. “I'll take the watch. You need to rest if you’re going to be swinging swords first thing in the morning.”

Suzuri straightened, shaking her head. “You’ve been on edge all day, and probably the nights before too. You’re probably more exhausted than I am.”

“I’m fine,” he said, though the moment the words left his mouth, his body betrayed him : a twinge in his spine, the weight in his eyelids. He hadn't realized how much the day's events, the tension, the sheer newness of it all, had taken its toll until she pointed it out. But the idea of letting her completely unguarded while he slept felt wrong, despite the sturdy door. He exhaled through his nose. “I’ve done worse.”

“But you shouldn’t have to,” she said, firmer now. “Not anymore, at least. We’re together, we share the weight together. Simple as that.”

There was no room for argument in her tone. Seth studied her for a moment, and it seemed like she was already lining up new arguments in case he chose to disagree. She wasn’t just trying to prove something. She meant it. And seeing her wanting to share the burden despite everything she was already dealing with, deepened that unfamiliar warmth in his stomach.

He gave a defeated chuckle, running a hand through his hair. “Alright, alright. Half the night each. But only if I manage to wake you up before my head hits the table.”

“Good,” she approved, rising slowly. “Let's hope I won't mistake you for a zombie at that moment.”

Seth shook his head in mock indignation. “Very funny.”

After giving him a non-apologetic smile, the woman crossed the room in a sweep of pale silk and shadow, retrieving the green cloak he had given her earlier. She curled near the back wall on their improvised mattress made of leaf and hay, the cloak wrapped around her like a shell.

“Goodnight Seth.”

“Goodnight Suzuri.”

That simple word felt foreign, yet oddly comforting.

He forced to turn his attention back to the door, listening to the persistent sounds of the night. Zombies shuffling, something heavy dragging through the undergrowth nearby. But underlying the fear the sounds evoked was a new feeling tonight: The quiet presence of another person in the cabin. Someone relying on him. Someone he could rely on. Someone who, against all logic, was already beginning to feel less like a mystery and more like… a companion.

He settled back in his chair, bow in hand, his gaze occasionally drifting towards the still form of Suzuri sleeping peacefully in the corner. Considering his role, he should probably keep his own heart from getting too deeply involved. But that felt like a battle he was already losing.

Chapter 3: Where the instincts are

Summary:

After a morning of training, Suzuri is forced to confront her surprising lack of combat instincts.

A sliver of dawn light slipped through the cabin’s narrow window slit, landing on Seth’s closed eyes like a gentle prod. He stirred, the warmth of it soft against his lashes. Then came a touch, feather-light on his arm.

“Seth, it’s time to wake up,” Suzuri whispered, crouched beside him.

He surfaced slowly from the weight of sleep, his senses greeted by the scent of burnt torches, damp earth, and the subtle medicinal tang of the poultice. His eyes cracked open, gritty and reluctant, and the first thing he saw was her fingers working deftly to peel the dried salve from his skin.

“Morning,” he managed, voice gruff with sleep.

“Morning,” she echoed, a flicker of amusement curling her lips. “Glad to see you look less like a corpse with a wig slapped on. Even your bruise appears… more acceptable.”

He huffed a raspy laugh and propped himself up on his elbows, following her gaze. The swelling had gone down. The angry bruise had softened into something less alarming: muted greens and fading yellows instead of harsh purple. It throbbed dully, but not painfully.

“It’s working better than I expected,” he noted, watching her doing a quick work with the fresh salve. And once she finished, Seth swung his legs over the edge of the makeshift bedding, stretching his stiff body until the satisfying crack of his spine echoed in the quiet.

The night had been long: He'd listened to the scraping and groaning outside, the occasional thud against the door, and thought about the free electron sleeping just across the room. Nothing had come close to breaching their fragile defense; the zombies, for all their terrifying presence in the dark, were predictable in their limitations.

When they stepped outside, the change in atmosphere struck him immediately. The forest lay washed in early gold, its floor damp and slick with dew. Mist clung to the roots and moss like breath that hadn’t yet faded. The air was crisp, filled with the scent of pine and the faint sweetness of wet bark.

Seth inhaled deeply. The silence felt profound, like the world itself had taken a deep breath after holding it all night.

“Ready for today?” he asked, adjusting the bow across his back, its familiar weight settling against his shoulder.

She nodded, though not immediately, her unfocused mind betraying a nervous energy she hadn’t let show before.

Seth led her toward the clearing just behind the cabin, where the underbrush thinned, and where a few stumps served as convenient workbenches. With what little time they'd had, gathering resources came first: Sticks, ropes, and bits of bone from the nearby remains of what had once been a hare. It wasn’t glamorous, but it would do. Seth also showed Suzuri how to lash together a crude dummy using twine and a broken fence post for a spine. By the time the dummy stood upright; lopsided and swaying gently, they had a small arsenal of makeshift weapons laid out on a stump nearby: A short sword from reinforced wood, a bigger two-handed one, a training spear with a sharpened stone tip, some throwing knifes, a boomerang, and of course, his trusty bow.

He started with the latter.

“Now,” Seth said, offering her the bow. “Let’s start simple. I want to see how it feels in your grip.”

Suzuri nodded and accepted it, her hands wrapping around the polished wood with a tentative curiosity. She turned it over in her hands, inspecting the curve of the limbs, the tension in the string, the slight nicks along the grip that told of use. Her fingers traced it like someone reading the spine of a book they’d never opened. Familiar in shape, alien in practice.

“Try getting into position. Let’s see what your instincts say.” Seth added, standing back to observe.

She took a cautious breath and reached for an arrow in his quiver. It fumbled in her fingers for a second before finally settling into place, albeit a little awkwardly. Then she raised the bow sideways, unbalanced, more like a foreign object than an extension of her arm. And when she tried to draw the string, it was a visible struggle: Her knuckles turned white, her elbow dipped low, and the string only came back halfway before trembling to a halt. The arrow’s tip wobbled, swaying aimlessly across the clearing without a target.

Seth winced.

No. This isn't it.

“Alright,” he said gently. “Stop right there.”

She froze, caught mid-draw, and glanced over her shoulder. “That bad?”

He approached, examining her posture with the same meticulousness as a craftsman inspecting his own work. “Not bad,” he replied, circling slowly. “Just… completely wrong.”

She exhaled a half-laugh, more breath than amusement. “Well, in case it wasn’t already obvious; I have no idea what I’m doing.”

He stepped closer. “May I?”

She nodded.

His hands found her shoulders first, coaxing them to relax, turning her ever so slightly. “You’re locking everything up. Archery isn’t about tension. It’s about rhythm. Breath. Balance.”

His touch trailed down to her elbows. “Here. Keep this one steady, not stiff. Similar to when you’re holding a cup of water you can’t spill.”

She adjusted, mimicking his direction with visible effort. He noticed how she held her breath, how it made her shoulders rise unnaturally again.

“And your grip,” he added, almost amused. He covered her hand with his, gently prying her fingers open. “No strangling. Hold it like a bird: just enough to keep it from flying away, not enough to break its neck.”

The tension eased from her knuckles, and for the first time, the bow settled in her hand like it belonged there; if only just.

“Now, the draw,” Seth continued, taking the bow back and demonstrating how to do it. “Don’t pull with your arm alone. Engage your back. Think of pulling your shoulder blades together. Like this.”

After a beat, she tried again, visibly applying the adjustments. The draw was still shaky, but stronger now. The string came back farther, closer to her face, though not quite touching it. Her breath steadied. The arrow quivered.

And then she let go.

The release was clumsy, abrupt. The arrow jerked forward and veered sharply left, landing with a soft thunk into a patch of weeds beneath a startled-looking sunflower.

Suzuri stared at where the arrow had fallen.

“That was disappointing,” she stated as a matter-of-fact.

Seth bit back a laugh. It was almost endearing in its complete lack of grace. He was used to the controlled power of archery, the satisfying thrum of a well-loosed arrow finding its mark. Definitely not… whatever that was. Still, her honest attempts held a strange sort of charm.

“Alright, bows are definitely not your natural affinity. And that’s fair: not everyone’s made for that. Besides, a team of two ranged isn’t practical in fights.” He gestured toward the array of weapons on the stump. “Let’s try something else.”

The short sword had been the first after the bow, a straightforward weapon. Suzuri gripped it with more confidence, and displayed a footwork surprisingly light for someone untrained. Her strikes were clean, clumsy at first, but improving with each swing. Yet, something in her stance was always a beat off. Too stiff here, too wide there. Seth gave her guidance where he could, adjusting posture, grip, timing. She listened. She tried. But there was no flash of recognition in her eyes, no glimmer of memory sparking to life. Her frow deepened.

The spear followed. Suzuri’s grip improved, and she adapted quickly to its range, using the haft with decent control. At one point, she even executed a spin that sent the dummy’s hay-stuffed head tumbling off. It was the first and only time she smiled, a flicker of pride breaking through. But it faded just as fast when Seth gently pointed out how open her flank had been during the maneuver. Again, nothing clicked. It was like she was trying to wear someone else’s skin.

Then came the long sword that dragged at her like an anchor, turning her every step into a struggle. He didn’t even need to say anything. She made a single, awkward motion and promptly buried the tip two inches into the dirt. Suzuri stood there a moment, barely concealing the scowl on her face, and looking down at the blade with pure repulse.

They didn’t speak of it. He just moved on.

The throwing knives brought a shift, at least for a moment. Her aim, while not perfect, was surprisingly precise. Three blades sank into the wooden dummy's torso, two of them landing within inches of each other. The fourth missed by a margin, but she frowned in concentration rather than disappointment. Seth caught the slight set of her jaw, the way she measured each angle before letting the next one fly. Suzuri had an instinct for it.

By the fifth throw, she was hitting near-center. Not dead-on, but consistent. Controlled. She adjusted her footing between tosses with subtle, natural shifts, recalibrating without needing to be told. There was no grin, no triumphant exhale, but the line of her shoulders relaxed for the first time all morning.

Encouraged, he handed her the boomerang. An odd choice, but Suzuri took it in hand without comment.

Her first throw snipped a branch, then spun out wide. The second try, she angled it toward the trunk of a nearby pine. It hit, bounced once and clipped the edge of the dummy’s arm.

The Guide raised an eyebrow at this unexpected use of the terrain.

The third throw sealed it; a clean arc that kissed the boulder at just the right angle and sank into the dummy’s chest with a satisfying thunk of impact.

But that time, the woman didn’t smile. She just watched the boomerang fall into the grass. With every weapon tested, she gave her all. She asked questions. Adjusted. Listened. She didn’t complain, didn’t whine. But her silence deepened. Not the quiet of focus, but the quiet of something unfolding deep inside.

Seth saw it then, the subtle crumbling of confidence. Her shoulders slouched in a way that had nothing to do with physical strain. Her spine, once held stiff with resolve, now bent ever so slightly, like a door easing closed on its own hinges.

He crossed the clearing as she bent down to retrieve the wooden projectile from the grass.

“You’re not saying much,” he said, gently, not pushing.

Suzuri straightened, the movement stiff. Her jaw was set, her voice even flatter than her tone. “There’s not much to say.”

“You hit four out of five with the knives,” he continued, coaxing. “And you pulled off a ricochet shot with a boomerang. Most people can’t even get it to come back.”

Her lips twitched, but not toward a smile. “I won’t be able to go far with just that.”

It wasn’t bitterness. It wasn’t self-pity. It was the dull edge of disappointment sharpened against herself.

Seth was quiet for a moment, letting the silence settle.

He looked at the woman, really looked. Her hair clung in places where sweat had gathered, her hands were scuffed from rough grips, and her eyes were stubbornly avoiding his. But beneath all that was the real exhaustion: the kind that came from trying with your whole heart and still coming up short.

“They all feel wrong,” Suzuri said at last, barely above a whisper.

He tilted his head, watching her closely. “Wrong how?”

She drew in a breath, slow and thoughtful. “Every time I pick one up, it’s like trying to write with the wrong hand; it never stops feeling familiar yet… odd.” She looked at him then, eyes shadowed with something deeper than frustration. “Just plain wrong.” The woman shook her head. “I hate that I’m missing something and don’t know what.”

He stepped forward, speaking low. “It’s alright if you don’t have everything figured out.”

She looked up at once, startled by the ease in his tone.

“You think I expected you to suddenly pull out a perfect form and mastery?” he asked. “I was hoping for instinct. Maybe a hint of history. But I didn’t expect you to become someone else in one morning.”

Suzuri searched his face, unsure what she was looking for. Some hint of disappointment. Some trace of that invisible standard she kept imagining in his eyes.

Instead, he offered a faint, lopsided smile. “There are more ways to fight than steel and arrows.”

She gave a faint snort. “Like rambling until the zombies can’t take it anymore?”

Seth shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve seen.”

That earned a small, reluctant smile. Barely there, but real. He felt a quiet victory.

“Let’s eat,” he said softly, a nudge out of the spiral. “We’ve got ground to cover.”

Back at the cabin, the warmth of the morning sun filtered through the cracks in the timber, casting soft light over the table where Seth laid out their supplies. A pouch of dried meat, some foraged nuts, and a few roots. It was simple, but nourishing.

Suzuri chewed in silence, gaze distant. She probably felt worried about running short of food because she ate just enough to keep her body going. The Guide didn’t push, instead, he reached beneath the bench and pulled out a hand-drawn map, worn at the folds, and smudged with old charcoal and grease marks.

He spread it flat over the rough surface of the table. The parchment was old, a patchwork of estimated terrain lines, trees, and rough symbols that marked landmarks; rivers, ridges, old ruins. It wasn’t elegant, but it was thorough. Practical.

“This is us,” he said, tapping the X he added last night. “Cabin’s here. Woods all around. But here…” His finger shifted northwest, just a short distance away, “…I marked a rock formation I scouted last week. From a distance, it looked like it might lead to a cave. Could be deep, could be nothing. But it’s the best shot we’ve got.”

“A cave would be useful,” Suzuri murmured, studying the lines. “Can serve as a shelter if things go wrong here.”

“Exactly.” He began rolling the parchment again. “We’ll go light. Tools, weapons, torches. No reason to haul everything until we’re sure it’s usable.”

Suzuri gave a single nod, then rose and moved with efficiency, packing the supplies he had listed aloud. When everything was in place, she made everything disappear into her inventory, and together they stepped into the trees.

The forest closed around them like a living curtain, thick with dew and the hush of morning. The path ahead was not a path at all; just memory and instinct, the land shaped by familiarity and faint patterns Seth had left behind. Notches on bark. Stones slightly out of place. Markers only he would notice.

The canopy filtered the sun into shards of gold and shadow, casting long, broken fingers of light across the undergrowth. Ferns brushed their knees, cool and wet. Moss clung to bark and rock. Beneath it all, the forest breathed slow and steady.

Seth walked in silence, his movements sure and deliberate. Every shift in birdsong, every branch that bent the wrong way, registered without thought. This was his language. The earth spoke in crunch and hush and distant calls, and he listened as naturally as he breathed.

Behind him, Suzuri moved with the quiet of someone trying not to be seen. She kept pace, light-footed and silent, but there was something taut in her rhythm. The kind of quiet that wasn’t peace. He glanced back once, saw the edge of her brow furrowed in thought, and said nothing. She would speak when she was ready. Or not. Either way, he would not pull.

The climb grew sharper as they veered northwest. Gravel replaced loam, and the trees thinned just enough to offer glimpses of sky. Seth paused at a leaning birch, its trunk scarred by an old lightning strike. He adjusted their heading, eyes scanning the terrain, until a flash of pale stone caught his attention through the brush.

“There,” he said, lifting one hand without looking back.

They crested a low ridge, where the ground flattened briefly before sloping into a shallow ravine. Rocks jutted from the hillside like ancient knuckles, gray and streaked with age. He moved forward, ducking beneath a low-hanging branch, and there it was, half-swallowed by vines and shadow, a narrow cave mouth yawned open in the slope’s far wall.

Seth approached, slow and cautious. The ground underfoot was soft with decay, muffling his steps. He brushed aside a curtain of vines with the back of his hand and leaned beneath the overhang.

The air that spilled from the cave was cold, tinged with the dry scent of stone and old moss. He stepped inside just enough to let his eyes adjust. The interior sloped downward slightly, the passage tightening the farther it went. The stone walls were uneven, jagged in places, with narrow hollows tucked into their folds. It wasn’t deep at the mouth, but the darkness inside hinted at a second depth beyond first sight.

He crouched, dragging his fingers across the floor. Dust clung to his skin, undisturbed. No fresh tracks. No damp patches or signs of animal bedding. And most importantly, no rot. No blood. That counted for something.

Seth hummed in satisfaction. “This place looks safe enough,” he reported, sensing the woman’s curious gaze on him.

He rose and stepped back into the sunlight, scanning the canopy. Still early. Plenty of daylight left to explore.

When he turned, Suzuri already prepared a torch in her hand, the flame licking softly to life in the filtered light. He gave her a short nod and motioned toward the cave, his expression unreadable.

They descended together into the mouth of stone.

Chapter 4: What lies deep inside

Summary:

A lot of things happen in this one.

The torchlight flickered over the cave walls, shadows rising like wraiths on every jagged edge. Seth moved first, guiding them into the deeper passage, the rope coiled over his shoulder unwinding as they went. The path was far from smooth. Stone gave way to loose gravel, then to treacherous ledges where the earth fell away beneath their boots. Moisture slicked some slopes, turning every step into a careful negotiation.

“Watch your footing,” he murmured, more warning than command.

The walls pressed tighter around them now; the tunnel bent and twisted like the gullet of some long-dead beast. Every few paces, he paused to knot an anchor into the stone. The rope stretched between them like a lifeline, tested and taut before he moved on.

Behind him, Suzuri followed close, the flickering torch in her hand casting gold and crimson across the slick, uneven rock. Her other hand occasionally brushed the wall, fingertips seeking balance against the unpredictable terrain. Her steps were cautious, nearly soundless, but he still heard it: the subtle slips, the faint scuffs. Her improvised soles were too thin. No grip. Just bare leather on wet stone. Too smooth for a descent like this. He filed the observation away; a problem to solve once they were above ground again.

Then the path ended.

A sudden drop yawned open before them, a vertical shaft vanishing into complete blackness. The air changed there: colder, motionless. Waiting.

Seth crouched and leaned over the edge, letting the torchlight spill downward; it dissolved into the dark. He reached out, fingers testing the surface of the chasm. Solid. Dry. Climbable. He plucked a pebble and let it fall; three seconds passed before he heard it land.

“Alright,” he said. “This leads deeper. I’m going down first.”

He set the rope, braced his boots against the vertical wall, and began his descent. The flickering torch above grew smaller with every footfall, until it looked like a flame floating in space. When his boots touched solid ground, he shifted to the side, tugging gently on the rope.

“You can come now.”

Suzuri didn’t hesitate, her smaller frame moving swiftly down the line. But halfway down, came the sound he dreaded: The scuff of leather against slick rock, the snap of tension on the line.

A slip.

“Careful—” he began, but the word was swallowed by the echo of gravel tumbling after her, the hiss of a startled gasp ensuing. Seth’s heart spiked as he lunged to try to intercept her from falling flat against the hard ground.

But the fall never happened.

A sharp gust of air, like cloth snapping in a storm, echoed through the cavity; a sound that didn’t belong here. Then, a delicate flutter of feathers.

Wings.

Pale and translucent, they burst from her back in a sudden flare, arcing outward and seizing the air. They weren’t strong enough to let her fly, but they slowed her descent just enough. Her trajectory shifted; unstable, uncontrolled.

Right toward him.

Seth barely had time to curse and brace himself before she collided into him full-force, the impact knocking the wind from his lungs. His boots slipped on loose gravel, and the world tilted around him. They hit the ground hard, limbs entangled in a cloud of dust and muted pain.

Silence settled. Only their ragged breathing filled the space: sharp, uneven, alive.

Her knee between his legs. His arm locked around her waist.

Seth lay flat on his back, staring up at the craggy ceiling, torchlight flickering a few feet away in molten oranges and golds. Dust drifted like ash in the still air. His pulse thudded behind his ribs, slow to catch up with the reality that they were both, somehow, still breathing.

Suzuri hadn’t moved. Maybe she couldn’t. Maybe she didn’t want to.

Her breath came in quick bursts against his neck. He could feel the shallow rhythm of her chest against his, the involuntary way her fingers had fisted into his shirt and refused to let go. It wasn’t intentional. It was instinctual: the body clinging on reflexly before the mind caught up.

Seth didn’t let go either. The two had become hopelessly tangled in the span of a few terrifying seconds.

His hand remained where it had landed, spread over the curve of her spine. The adrenaline that had surged in her system was now leaving her body, and he could feel the tremors running beneath the tips of his fingers.

He turned his head slowly, brushing a lock of her hair with his jaw. “You alright?” he asked. His voice had dropped several tonalities.

A small nod followed. “Yeah,” she murmured, barely above a whisper. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—” She stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I slipped. Again. And the wings just… came out.”

The wings.

Gone now, vanished as quick as they came; no feathers left behind. They had sprung into being just long enough to save her.

Seth shifted slightly, gravel crunching under his shoulders. He propped himself up on one elbow, enough to see her better. Her face was still half-shadowed, her expression unreadable in the low light. But she wasn’t injured. And that was enough.

He exhaled, slow. His voice followed after a beat. “You scared the hell out of me. Thought that was it.”

The rawness in his voice startled even him. Fear had teeth; it lingered in the tone even after the moment had passed. But it wasn’t just the Guide in him speaking; fearing to lose the Terrarian. It was something far more human, far more personal, something that had nothing to do with his duty.

Suzuri stirred against him, her body warming the space between them. “Me too,” she murmured against his collarbone. “But I almost took you down with me.”

“You did take me down,” he corrected, allowing the corner of his mouth to lift in a tired smile. “But I’ve survived worse.” He paused. The flickering torch cast amber across her face, and something tightened in his chest. “And… well,” he added, quieter this time, “being used as a landing pad is not that bad compared to surviving this place alone. So for what it’s worth… I’m glad you’re here.”

The silence that followed was heavier. Not awkward, but full; crowded with everything he hadn’t said before now.

Her gaze lifted, searching his face in the dark. He didn’t look back at first, just watched the firelight move across the stone walls, cursing himself for saying too much. He hadn’t meant to say that last part aloud. Maybe he hadn’t meant to feel it either. But near-death had a way of tearing off masks, of turning cowards into confessors.

Now he became acutely aware of her, of how closely they still lay, of how the heat of her skin bled through the layers between them. The way her leg brushed against his. The way her hands still hadn’t fully let go.

Dangerous ground.

Seth eased his arm from around her waist and pushed himself upright; not suddenly, not in retreat, just enough to reclaim space, to breathe again. Suzuri followed suit with careful motions, her leg withdrawing from his hip as if unsure whether she'd overstepped. Her eyes flicked toward him, searching for something with quiet intensity before dropping away.

They sat side by side in silence, brushing dust from their clothes without speaking.

Suzuri was quiet for a moment, then turned slightly to look at him. “Did I hurt you?” she asked all of a sudden.

“No.” Seth rubbed at the side of his shoulder with a wince. “Crushed a little. But nothing serious.”

Her lips pressed into a thin line; it was hard to tell if it was guilt that sealed them shut or the urge to say something she was holding back. Either way, he could feel her eyes on him again: familiar, studying, and impossible to ignore. It was the kind of gaze that didn’t simply land on you; it saw through.

He shifted, rising to his feet with a low grunt, brushing dirt from his palms. The strap of his pack bit slightly into his shoulder as he tightened it; not out of necessity, but as an attempt to dismiss the prickling sensation crawling up his skin. A small, pointless gesture; but it gave his hands something to do.

“Still good to go?” he asked, trying to sound casual.

She stood as well, the ghost of a smile on her lips. “Just a bruised ego. I’ll manage.”

Seth retrieved the torch from where it had landed, its flame guttering but still strong. He raised it high, casting a new wash of light over their surroundings.

The space around them had changed.

The narrow tunnels they’d been crawling through had spilled them into something else entirely. Wider, echoing, scarier. The walls no longer closed in like a throat but swept out and up in stony arcs, veined with minerals that shimmered like ghostly rays. There was depth here. An age to this place. The air smelled colder. Older.

Seth turned toward her, his expression settling into something more alert. “We’ve reached the Cavern layer.”

Suzuri’s brow furrowed. “Is that… different from before?”

He nodded. “Very. Tunnels are mostly dirt. Dead places. But this—” He swept the torch around. “—this is alive. You’ll feel it. Deeper we go, the more dangerous it gets. We’re likely to run into things now. Real things.”

She didn’t ask what he meant. Her face darkened with understanding.

“But,” he added, lifting his voice slightly, “it also means better ore. Rare stuff. Maybe even treasure if we’re lucky.”

A glimmer sparked in her eyes; a subtle, involuntary flicker that betrayed her interest before she could guard it.

“… Though,” he continued with a wry tilt of his head, “some of the chests down there are rigged.”

Her posture softened, shoulders dipping with quiet disappointment; the hope that had briefly animated her gaze dissolved just as quickly.

Seth couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at his lips: watching her react was like reading a book whose pages she kept trying to close. She worked so hard to appear composed, but the truth of her emotions always managed to slip through the cracks.

They moved on, the cavern twisting and dipping in unpredictable angles. Some parts narrowed to a crawl; others opened into vast hollows that echoed back their breath a second too late. Several times, they stopped to mine ore from the walls, veins of tin, lead and gleaming tungsten under torchlight. The stone here was tougher, less forgiving. But Suzuri’s ability made it a piece of cake.

A dim glimmer caught his eye at the next bend, a soft metallic glint beneath dust and debris.

He knelt.

A chest. Old, carved from heavy wood covered in tarnished gold, nearly buried in rubble. He brushed it off, fingers finding the ancient latch and searching for any hidden mechanism. Once convinced it was safe, he creaked it open.

Inside, coins spilled like frozen sunlight. A small bundle of tightly wound cloth revealed a glass vial inside, the liquid within glowing faintly red. A small healing potion. Beside it, a coiled length of fine iron chain, some lead bars, torches, a handful of wooden arrows, and a pair of heavy boots with enchanted soles.

Seth nodded, handing the boots with one hand to Suzuri. “Those seem to be movement-boosting.”

The woman looked down at her improvised shoes, then back at him, quiet delight flickering behind her eyes. She sat on a flat stone to put them on, the boots magically adjusting to her size like water sinking into stone. They weren’t elegant, but they were built for grip, with thick treads and reinforced heels. He watched her test them.

Better. Much better.

When the Guide handed over the last of the loot, Suzuri’s fingers hovered, not over the ores or coins, but the chain. Something about the cold iron links seemed to stir her: An echo of memory, perhaps, or instinct. She touched it gingerly at first, then with growing certainty; her fingers curled around the length, testing the weight, the way it slithered and coiled through her grip like a living thing. She hooked a throwing knife through one end of the chain without giving it much thought, letting it clasp and swung like a pendulum of steel.

He made a mental note of her action, but said nothing.

Instead, he stood, brushing grit from his knees, and cast a look toward the black void above. “We should start heading back. We’ve got ore, stuff, and enough surprises for one trip.”

She nodded and followed him wordlessly as they began the slow ascent.

As they ascended through the winding tunnels, the tension in Seth’s shoulders finally began to unravel. They had made it deep into the cavern with more than he expected: ore, gear, information; Suzuri’s mysterious wings still occupying a corner of his mind.

He led the way, torch held high; its firelight stretched and recoiled along the jagged stone, revealing the slope ahead in flickering pieces. Behind him, Suzuri now moved with better steadiness. She no longer tripped over slick stone or reached for the walls to catch herself.

But then, just as he reached a narrow ledge winding upward like a serpent’s spine, a sound scraped the silence apart.

A rustle.

Then another. Subtle, skittering. From above.

Seth froze mid-step. His pulse surged. The instinct to survive wrapped around his muscles like a noose, drawing everything taut. Slowly, he lifted the torch higher; the shadows flared outward, jerking and distorting. With his other hand, he reached behind him, fingers brushing Suzuri’s arm to halt her.

A shriek shattered the silence, high and sharp. It echoed in every crevice.

Then: motion. A blur of black legs spilled from the ceiling cracks.

Spiders.

Dozens of them, pouring from their hidden nest in a living flood of glinting eyes and clicking fangs.

Before he could even shout to retreat, webbing lanced through the dark, striking his chest and arms with brutal force. The impact slammed him against the cavern wall; silk pinning him in place like a nailed relic. He thrashed; reflexive, desperate, but the more he wrestled, the tighter it became.

Pain exploded through his shoulder as one of them struck; its fangs dug deep, venom burning a path through his veins like molten wire. His grip failed. The torch slipped from his hand, struck the ground with a hollow clang, and rolled across the rock; firelight spun wildly, strobing the cavern in bursts of orange.

“Suzuri!” His yell came out raw, torn from his throat. “Get the hell out of here!”

She was just a few steps behind, barely out of reach, her chain hanging limp in her hand as she witnessed his injury.

But she didn’t move.

Seth squinted against the pain, vision blurred with the venom and the frantic flicker of torchlight. He strained to see her through the fog, catching glimpses of her form.

She was still. Still as death.

Not a twitch. Not a flinch. Her expression was just… blank, hollow, staring ahead with a suffocating emptiness that sent a ripple of dread down his spine.

The absence deepened, swallowing not just thought, but identity. Reason drained from her like blood from a wound, leaving only behind a terrifying void, as if the soul inside had stepped away.

And from that silence, something else began to stir.

Her pupils dilated, eclipsing the irises; black, mirror-like, and devoid of life.

She moved.

A single step. Slow.

Then another.

A low, quiet clink as the chain slid from her grip and dragged on the cavern floor.

And she struck.

The chain lashed wide in a glittering arc, terrifying fast, catching the first spider mid-pounce; the sickening crack of shattered bone echoed through the cavern. Chitin split. A severed leg flew sideways and skittered across the stone in a grotesque dance.

Suzuri didn’t blink.

She didn’t breathe.

There was no thought left in her, no fear, no hesitation. Just the pulsing urge to destroy winding through her guts.

Another one leapt at her. She pivoted, sliding low. The chain coiled up her forearm like a makeshift shield; the spider’s fangs snapped down and broke against the metal. She countered, elbow slamming into its face, the impact splattering black fluid across her cheek. Then, using the momentum, she hurled the weapon upward like a flail. It whirled in a deadly arc, slicing through two more before they could land.

Seth tried to call her name, but the sound died in his throat. He watched, helpless, as the woman he knew disappeared, consumed, hollowed out entirely like a vessel molded for violence.

A vessel made to end.

Her wings burst from her back in a pulse of wind, stretching wide and fluttering with tension. She kicked off the ground with a blast of air, soared upward, and landed on a jagged outcrop overhead. Her crouch was animalistic: low, knees bent, weight forward on the balls of her feet.

Watching.

Waiting.

Until one of them took the bait.

She twisted to the side, let it pass beneath, then dropped back to the ground.

But its jagged leg had managed to catch her forearm as she didn’t move quick enough, slicing through skin in a diagonal rake of claws. Deep. Bleeding.

She didn’t react.

Didn’t even glance at the red coursing down her arm.

The chain snapped behind her like a tail; it wrapped the creature’s legs in a blink. She slammed the thing into the cavern wall with one final yank, so hard it burst apart in a spray of ichor, just inches away from Seth.

He flinched, bits of blood splashing him.

She spun on her heel to face one crawling from behind. Then, a sharp crack; her boot connected with its head, the creature crumpling under the sole. Without pausing, she drove the blade end of her chain straight through its twitching body.

Four more surged from the shadows, eyes glowing like dying embers.

Suzuri didn’t wait.

She headed to meet them. The chain spun in her hands in a blur of silver arcs, every swing painting a new stroke of destruction. She didn’t wield it like a weapon anymore: It had become a part of her.

The woman pivoted, jumped, coiled it around faces and limbs. She pulled, severed, snapped off articulations. Blood sprayed in thick black streaks across her like a baptism. Her wings beat with each leap, giving her enough altitude to dive on them like a spear.

Two spiders broke off to flank her, and she crouched low, chain taunt.

As they charged, Suzuri flew upward, wings flaring wide to catch the updraft. In the spin, the chain lashed outward in a clean circle, slicing through one, entangling the other mid-leap. She turned as they collided in midair; their bodies struck each other with a wet crunch. One dropped in halves. The other lay twisted, still moving.

Trying to crawl away.

Suzuri walked after it.

Slow. Menacing. Chain trailing behind her over the gravel.

The spider hissed once; bloodied, pitiful.

Then she raised her boot.

And her heel came down hard.

The crunch it made beneath was meaty, mess flowing down like black ink between the cracks.

Silence returned.

Thick, oppressive silence.

Her chest rose and fell in heavy spasms. Ichor painted her face and clothes, ran in dark rivulets through her hair. Her eyes remained distant, unseeing, still caught in that feral trance.

Above her, something squeaked and fluttered close: A cave bat, drawn by the scent of blood.

Her hand shot upward.

The creature writhed once in her fist: a twitch, a desperate squirm for life. Then came the disturbing snap. She squeezed until its brittle frame gave way, until warm blood seeped through the seams of her fingers and pattered softly onto the stone below.

Among the torn remains of the spiders, she stood expressionless.

Seth, half-freed from the silken binds, gritted his teeth against the venom’s agonizing burn. His limbs trembled, heavy with pain, but his mind remained clear: Clear enough to understand what had just happened.

“Suzuri…?”

She didn’t move.

“Suzuri, it’s over.”

Still no response.

His voice rasped, louder and commanding. “Suzuri—look at me!”

Her gaze flicked toward him, slowly, eyes glazed. The chain remained clenched in her grip, and crimson was still dripping from her wound.

She blinked, once, then again, shoulders twitching in a brief, involuntary shiver. A small, fragile tremor that cracked through the daze. The wings behind her faltered, then faded altogether.

“Seth…?”

He exhaled a breath that felt like a stone rolling off his chest.

“Yeah. You back with me now?”

Like water draining from a faucet, the trance left her. Her shoulders sunk, her posture staggered. She dropped the chain like it burned her, breathing hard. She looked down at her trembling hands, then to the body parts littering the cave, the crushed bat in her palm, the gore smeared over her clothes. Her mouth opened, but no words came out.

Only a choked, shallow breath.

And then her legs gave out. She dropped onto the cavern floor like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

“—Shit,” Seth cursed, pulling hard against the webbing until it tore away. He stumbled forward and dropped to his knees beside her, reaching out. He gently took her shaking form in his arms, remnants of the web pulling against his skin.

“Easy now,” he murmured, giving her a faint smile despite the burning sting of the venom. “I’ve got you.”

Her head pressed on his chest, body limp. Her heartbeat was frantic, a relentless pounding against his ribs.

“Did I…” she began, then faltered. Her voice cracked. “Did I do all of that?”

Seth’s eyes flicked around the absolute mess again.

He didn’t lie.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “You did.”

When she looked up at him, she seemed terrified of what she’d done. Of what she could become.

The Guide’s arms tightened a little around her as she shook from the quiet horror rolling through her like an aftershock. His own limbs felt sluggish, his breath beginning to rasp deeper than normal, the poison in his veins dragging heat through his core like fire behind his ribs.

“Don’t,” he murmured, catching the flicker of guilt tightening her features. “Don’t go there. You did what you had to.”

Suzuri shifted in his arms, her cheek brushing lightly against the edge of his collarbone. For a moment, she stilled there; eyes closed, breath shallow, as if willing time to pause.

Then a furrow formed between her brows.

The heat radiating from his body had worsened; Seth felt it in the way her muscles tensed, in the involuntary wince that crossed her face when her skin touched his. She adjusted; a subtle lean forward, and pressed her ear against his chest. Her breath hitched.

Whatever she heard had unsettled her: The venom must be winning.

Suzuri shifted again; a slight, pained movement that sent a sharp gasp through her teeth. Her gaze lowered, catching the red spreading beneath her palm.

Blood. Her own. Too much lost for her to stand on her own.

It still oozed from her forearm, a deep gash he’d half-forgotten in the chaos. Her eyes met his. No words passed between them, but the silence said enough: neither of them could make it back to the surface like this.

As if remembering something, Suzuri’s fingers fumbled, searching through a fog. A moment later, a vial summoned from her inventory glinted between them. Smooth glass. Glowing faintly red. It was the small healing potion they found earlier.

Small enough to only save one.

Seth froze, and she looked at him for a long, breathless second.

“Drink it,” she said, trying to remain steady.

He shook his head. Sweat had gone cold on his temples. “You need it more.”

“You’re worse.”

“You’re half conscious.”

“I’m still talking.”

“And you won’t be for long unless you drink it.”

“But we don’t know how strong the venom is.”

“You’re bleeding out.”

“You’re burning up.”

“You can’t even sit straight.”

The two glared at each other, both crouched on the blood-slick stone floor, each pushing the vial toward the other like it carried a curse and not of a cure. They were too alike for their own good; stubborn, principled, worn thin and stitched up by gut instinct more than logic. Neither was willing to be the one saved. Neither could stand to see the other suffer.

“I can still move,” Seth argued, even though his limbs were sluggish, every motion trailing behind thought. “I’ll carry you out if I have to. Just drink it.”

“No, you can’t,” Suzuri said, blunt. “Your pupils are pinpoints. You’re slurring.”

“I’m not—”

“You are.” Her voice was flat, resolute. “And you’re the only one who knows these tunnels. The maps. The traps. If you go down, I’m lost.”

He stared at her then, really stared. Her face had lost its color. Her eyes were ringed in shadow, her hands shaking despite the iron grip she kept on herself. She was running out of time too. But she still had a point.

“…You know,” Seth sighed with a tired half-smirk, “we're really bad at letting the other get hurt.”

Suzuri’s eyes softened, but the tension in her face didn’t fade. “Cut from the same stubborn tree, it seems,” she murmured.

The silence hung between them for one more heartbeat. Then, her shoulders lowered with a strange calm. She nodded once, conceding. “Fine,” she murmured.

She uncorked the vial with a decisive twist and brought it to her mouth.

Relief eased his chest. Finally. His vision was fuzzy, focus narrowing to the rhythmic ache of his pulse and the way his breath rattled deep in his lungs. His body was too heavy, too hot. The venom had threaded deep. Still, he caught the motion of her pulling the vial away, empty.

“Atta girl…” he whispered, the smallest smile flickering across his face before his eyes drifted shut. His body sagged back, spent, but steadied. She’d taken it. That was all he needed.

He felt her hand brushing his jaw, gently drawing it upward.

Confused, he blinked open, hazy and unfocused, just in time to see her lean close. Much too close.

And then, before he could speak her name, her lips were already on his.

Seth froze, every thought short-circuited.

Warmth bloomed against his mouth from the press of her lips, his stunned self barely proceeding what was happening. She tilted her head, gently parting his lips with hers.

And then he felt it.

A rush of liquid.

Thick, bitter, laced with a metallic tinge.

His stomach dropped.

Suzuri was giving the potion to him.

Seth made a sound, half protest, half groan, and pushed weakly at her shoulders. His instincts screamed to stop her, to break the contact, to tell her she needed the remedy more. But her hand slid to the back of his neck as she leaned in harder, anchoring him there with an intensity that disarmed him. It wasn’t forceful. Not exactly. Just firm enough to tell him she wasn’t going to let him go. Not until she finished what she started. Not until he accepted it.

Her last ounce of strength was going into this, into him, the realization of it landing heavier than any blow.

And he… let it happen.

Not in defeat, but in silent resignation, his resolve crumbling under the fierce, reckless selflessness that drove the act. His hands, meant to push, curled into the fabric at her sides as his eyes fluttered shut.

And he swallowed.

When Suzuri drew back with a hum of approval, the parting felt too slow. Too sudden. Their breaths mingled in the narrow space between them; ragged, shallow, warm. With a swipe of her thumb, she wiped away the remnants of moist from her lips. Her eyes didn’t meet his. They hovered somewhere near his collarbone, bracing herself for his reaction to her choice: A choice she wouldn’t take back.

Seth blinked, slow and heavy, like someone surfacing from deep water. The burn in his chest had dulled, and his shoulder no longer screamed. He could feel the potion spreading through him, numbing the worst of the pain.

But words wouldn’t come.

He could still feel her shape on him. The softness. The heat. And the fire it lit somewhere deep in his chest.

His hands lingered uselessly at her waist. He wanted to say something. To touch her. To pull her close again; not because he needed to, but because he wanted to. To thank her. To scold her. To beg her to never do that again… or maybe to do it again when it wasn’t about survival.

But the words remained stuck at the base of his throat.

“You weren’t going to take it,” Suzuri whispered. “So I had to make sure you did.”

He stared at her, still dazed. “That…” he rasped, “That is cheating.”

“I call it improvising,” she retorted, smiling weakly.

She leaned away, her eyelids fluttering and her arms slackening. Her body, spent from blood loss and adrenaline, was losing the battle.

He caught her before she could fall completely.

“…You’re going to be the death of me,” he muttered, letting her head rest against his shoulder as he looked toward the long tunnel stretching out before them.

He had to drag them both out of this.

So they could argue properly again.

Notes:

Whew, that was my biggest chapter yet. I wanted to explore the concept of a Hero as a vessel: forced to contain a power so immense it drives them berserk.

Chapter 5: Like an anchor in the middle of the ocean

Summary:

Aftermath of the incident, and change of POV in the middle. Lot of inner dialogues.

Seth didn’t waste time.

The warmth from the potion still burned in his veins, giving him just enough strength to move without much pain.

He laid her down gently for a moment and stripped off a length of rope and a stick from his pack. His fingers worked fast, looping, knotting, securing it tight just above the torn flesh on her arm. She barely stirred. Blood soaked into his palms, slick, hot, but the flow slowed under the pressure of the makeshift tourniquet.

He exhaled through his teeth. “Hold on,” he murmured, slinging her weight over his shoulder with a grunt, her arm secured tightly to his chest. “Just a little longer.”

The cave swallowed them in damp silence as he made his way out. Shadows flitted across the walls, but he didn’t look back. Every step was careful, measured. The narrow tunnel twisted upward, and the world beyond burned bright as he emerged into daylight. The forest air hit his lungs like ice after fire.

He didn’t stop.

One thought filled his head and drowned out the rest: Get her back. Get her safe.

Down the slope. Across the ravine. The path was familiar by now. Trees blurred past in streaks of green and gold, birds scattering as his boots thudded hard against the ground. His breath came sharp. His body screamed. But she was unconscious, pressed against him, her forehead against his shoulder, and that was all that mattered.

The cabin came into view, just a shadow between the trees, but it guided him like a lighthouse. He elbowed the door open and crossed the threshold, straight into the heart of their fragile little haven.

He laid the woman on the mattress, breath ragged, and searched the rest of his belongings, scattering supplies onto the floor. Needle. Thread. Alcohol. Cloth. The rope had darkened with blood. He grabbed the cleanest rag and pressed it to her wound to stanch what was left of the bleeding.

Only when he sat beside her, needle in hand, he did pause.

Her skin had gone pale beneath the sweat. Her jaw slackened. Still breathing, still here, but far too close to the edge.

“You reckless idiot,” he muttered, half under his breath. “You should've taken it.”

He cleaned the wound with practiced motions, biting the inside of his cheek as Suzuri groaned in pain, even unconscious. No anesthetic. No luxury of time. Just the raw, sting of alcohol on freshly opened flesh.

Then the needle.

It pierced skin, and he forced himself not to shudder. One stitch. Another. His breath matched the rhythm, slow and mechanical. In, out. Pull tight. Knot. Again. He worked like a machine, but his thoughts spiraled, looping back to the cavern. The defiance. The resignation.

Damn her. And thank her. And damn her again.

He wiped the final thread clean and cut it loose. The gash looked brutal, but clean. Survivable. He bandaged it tightly, then cleaned the rest of the filth from her face, hair, neck, collarbone, and arms at a slower pace now.

Only then did the silence hit him.

The room was still. The light under the door had shifted. Afternoon now, maybe late. He couldn’t tell anymore.

His limbs gave out all at once. He sank beside her, easing onto the edge of the makeshift bed. For a moment, he simply looked at her. Watched her chest rise and fall. Watched her fingers twitch slightly in her sleep.

Then he lay down.

The mattress dipped beneath his weight. He reached for her, gently easing her body against his, draping a protective arm around her back and pulling her close. She didn’t wake. But her body curled toward the warmth instinctively, her breath catching in his shirt.

He let his eyes close.

Just for a moment.

The pain hadn’t gone, not entirely. But it was muffled. Bearable. His shoulder pulsed dully in time with his heartbeat, and somewhere in the distance, a crow called once and was silent.

Seth let his hand rest at her waist.

This was too close. But for now, for this moment, it was the only place he wanted to be.

Less than two days. That was all it had taken for Suzuri to carve her way into him. She was still a living mystery, and yet, parts of him were already undone.

It was going to destroy him, he knew. And that scared him more than anything.

 

---

 

The first thing she felt was the bandage.

Thick, running from just under her elbow to her wrist, snug but not constricting. The second thing was the painful pull beneath it, tight threads tugging at her flesh with every move, nerves throbbing in protest. Sutures. Neatly done. Crude, but effective.

The third thing was the lack of blood on her skin and the faint scent of alcohol on it.

Suzuri slowly blinked up at the ceiling, amber light bleeding through the cabin door. The sun was sinking; its final rays stretched long across the floor like wandering fingers. Dust flecks drifted lazily in the golden hush. She didn’t move at first. Just listened. Her own heartbeat. The crackle of torches. And his breath, low, steady, close enough that she could feel the rise and fall of his chest where their bodies touched.

Seth.

The name settled on her mind, familiar and comforting. Then came the flood: scattered fragments, broken impressions from just hours ago.

The cave. His voice, ragged and strained beneath the weight of venom. The chittering of too many legs. The memory of the chain in her grip.

And then: violence.

The fight itself… it was a blur. Not a sequence of actions, not even pictures. Just a mindless urge, destructive and foreign: Kill.

She could not remember how she had moved. Only that she had. Striking, spinning, slashing, as if some dormant instinct had forced its way into her brain and took over it.

It hadn’t been her.

So, what if she lost control again?

What if, next time, the target her blade sought was not a monster?

The woman breathed in, breathed out. Forced her thoughts into order. Dissected them, compartmentalized, rationalized: A comforting process as she couldn’t afford to become afraid of herself.

Carefully, she propped herself up with her good arm, turning her head to the side where Seth laid.

Right. She had also tricked him.

No… she’d used a trick. A means to an end, that was all it was.

He was fast asleep, body curled protectively, arm now half-slipped from around her waist, lips parted in uneven breaths. He looked… in pain. Even unconscious, a furrow lingered in his brow, like he was fighting off the poison.

Suzuri frowned, reaching out with cautious fingers, brushing back the hair clinging to his forehead.

His skin was still warm. No. Too warm.

She leaned closer, inspecting the side of his neck through his collar. His pulse was steady but slightly rapid. The bite mark darkened his skin with angry red and blue blotches, untreated and glistening under cold sweats.

“You absolute fool,” she sighed. “You should’ve at least taken care of yourself.”

The woman pulled herself upright with caution, cradling her bad arm to her chest and watching the man beside her. He didn’t stir. Sweat clung to his neck and brow, and his breathing had grown shallower. Whatever venom had lingered in his system hadn’t been fully purged by the potion, his body fighting a war beneath the surface.

She managed to rise, knees trembling under her weight from the lack of blood. But she could still walk. The rag he’d used to clean her lay discarded on the floor, stained and crusted with dried blood. She picked it up with two fingers, grabbed an empty bowl, and unlatched the cabin door with her good hand.

The outside air struck her like a wake-up slap, cooler now, dusk crawling across the canopy, bathing the forest in bruised purples and muted golds. She moved carefully, breath fogging faintly in the chill. Each step jarred her arm, but she kept walking down the familiar path until she reached the river.

The water was cold. Blessedly cold.

She dipped the cloth first and watched the crimson swirl away in ribbons. Then, she thoroughly washed her hair and began wiping at the dried streaks that curved across the tops of her breasts, down toward her sternum; places Seth hadn’t reached. His touch had ended at the edge of the neckline, awkwardly scrubbed just below her collarbone like a line he refused to cross.

That made her chuckle.

Once finished, she filled the bowl with water and started the slow trek back. Seth was exactly as she had left him: Sprawled across the bedding and barely conscious.

This sight of him, so weakened, twisted something in her chest.

She knelt beside him and reached for the buttons of his shirt. One by one, they slipped open. The fabric peeled away from his fevered skin, damp with sweat. Heat radiated from his body like a furnace.

Her arm flared with pain as she reached for the bottle of alcohol. She paused only for a heartbeat, then ignored it. The cork gave with a pop as she tugged it free with her teeth; the sting of spirits coiled up her nose and made her eyes water.

She took the rag, soaked it in the liquid and pressed it to the swollen bite on his shoulder,

He jerked beneath her touch, a low groan escaping through clenched teeth. His breath hitched; his fingers twitched.

“Sorry… I know,” she murmured, wincing in unison with him.

She dipped the cloth into the bowl, squeezing it out, then dragged it gently across his brow. Water trickled down the line of his temple; she followed it to his neck, then lower still, cooling the sweat-slick skin of his chest.

Then, she summoned the trusty salve into her palm, alongside a broad leaf, and gently layered the paste over the wound and pressed the leaf into place. At this rate, it was just a matter of time before he got covered in them.

Suzuri sat back, rinsing the cloth again and laying it over his forehead. Her eyes drifted down his toned form. He looked vulnerable somehow, without his shirt on. The woman let the tip of her fingers trace the old scars carved on his skin, observing the way his muscles flexed under her touch.

It was too much. That weight. That longing. That ache of needing someone in a world stripped bare.

Seth was the only solid thing in a world that felt like water beneath her feet. When she had first opened her eyes in this forest, there had been no name in her head but her own. No memories. No answers. Just a man with tired eyes, and a cloak big enough to cover her shame. But this feeling? This abnormal pull toward him, the way her body eased in his presence, the way she needed his stability just to feel grounded… It wasn’t fair. Not to him. Not to herself.

Their relationship wasn’t healthy.

It was dependency.

And then there was the other thing.

She knew he was hiding something.

There were cracks in Seth that he tried not to show. Subtle things. The distant look in his eyes when he thought she wasn’t watching, like he was remembering something awful that he tried so hard to forget. Or the crafted walls of someone steeling himself for an impending farewell.

Suzuri noticed all of that.

The wet cloth on his forehead shifted slightly as he stirred.

A twitch of his fingers. A grunt. Then a sharp inhale. Seth’s eyes blinked open slowly, unfocused at first, then narrowing with the sluggish weight of fever.

“…Suzuri?”

His voice was sandpaper and smoke. Cracked at the edges. His gaze found her slowly, unfocused, bleary, but softening the instant it settled.

“You’re awake,” he rasped, trying to sit up.

She pressed her good hand to his chest, gentle but firm. “Easy there, you need to lay down.”

“I—” he winced as his body protested. “The potion…”

“Didn’t clear everything. You’re still burning up,” she finished for him. “You didn’t even disinfect the bite.”

“I had other priorities,” he said, trying for levity, but it came out tired and thin.

Her brow knit. “Cleaning me wasn’t a priority.”

He went quiet at that.

“You looked like you were in pain,” she continued, softer now. “I’m glad you’re back.”

Seth groaned, hand rising to shield his eyes. “You should’ve rested.”

“And you should’ve taken care of yourself,” she shot back, shaking her head in disbelief.

Seth huffed a weak laugh. “That’s fair.”

Suzuri washed the rag again before slapping it on his face for good measure, the cloth making a wet smack against his cheeks.

Seth let out a low, surprised grunt, one eye scrunching shut as water dribbled down on it.

“What the—”

“You annoying, stubborn piece of work,” she interrupted him, letting the build up frustration get the best of her. “Why do you have to argue with me every time I try to help you out?”

Seth peeled the rag off with a sluggish hand, blinking at her like she’d just thrown a fish at him. “I’m not arguing,” he croaked stupidly.

“Oh, come on,” she huffed. “Even half-dead, you can’t bring yourself to pipe down. Hell, the only time I managed to shut you up, I had to—”

She stopped herself before saying something stupid out of anger. Bringing back the kiss wasn’t a good idea, even if it proved her point.

The silence that followed felt like a misstep on a fragile rope bridge, taut with tension.

But Seth didn’t bite back.

Instead, he eased his head to the side, resting it against his arm as he looked at her. His eyes were still cloudy with fever, but the sharpness that always lived behind them flickered through. Not judgment. Not discomfort.

Just… quiet understanding.

And then he smiled.

Not the tight, closed-mouth curve she was used to. This one was lazy. Crooked. Sleepy. And full of malice.

“Didn’t exactly hate that, you know,” he murmured. “Guess getting poisoned can have its perks.”

Her brain stuttered.

“…Are you for real?”

He hummed. “Thought I always imagined my first kiss would be under slightly different circumstances: Less pain. Fewer corpses.”

Suzuri covered her face with her hand. There was too much going on here for her to process. “Just stop talking already, you’re drunk on fever and clearly spewing nonsense,” she muttered into her palm.

He chuckled; actually chuckled, and the sound, rasped and low, buzzed through her bones like the aftershock of a strike.

“I’m not drunk,” he smirked, closing his eyes again and letting his head fall back with an exaggerated sigh. “Just mildly on fire and functioning on the last two brain cells who hadn’t grilled yet.”

She snorted. Couldn’t help it this time. “You’re impossible,” she whispered, removing her hand and watching him with narrowed eyes.

His fever had made him looser, sillier and less guarded than the sharp, composed survivalist she’d met in the clearing.

Maybe this version, stripped of control, honest to a fault, and weirdly smug, was closer to who he used to be. Before the world rotted. Before he became the Guide.

“Still… You should really get more rest,” Seth murmured after a moment, his voice settling into something lower, more earnest. “Your arm… you lost a lot of blood.”

She glanced at it. The dull ache had returned, pulsing like a warning drum beneath the bandage, but it was tolerable. What wasn’t tolerable was the look he was giving her now; gentle, almost pleading.

With a sigh, she got to her feet, moved around the bedroll, and picked up his cloak from where it had been draped over a chair. She shook it out with one hand and returned to his side. The fire in his skin hadn’t waned, so she didn’t dare cover him. Instead, she lied down beside him and threw the heavy garment around her own shoulders, tucking it over her legs like a blanket.

Seth stirred again, eyes cracking open just enough to watch her get comfortable beside him. His gaze lingered on her for a breath longer than necessary before drifting shut again, a flicker of peace relaxing his brow.

“I think I like you more like this,” she said softly, more to herself than to him.

One of his brows twitched. “Half-dead and sweaty?”

She laughed under her breath. “Playful. Teasing. Like you’re not trying to hold the whole world on your shoulders.”

He didn’t answer at first, just breathed. “It’s not that I want to hold it. I just… don’t want anyone else to be crushed under it.”

Her throat caught at that. It sounded like a confession. A quiet truth slipped from cracked lips.

“…Seth.”

His gaze flickered open, barely. But there was warmth in it. And sadness. Maybe even gratitude.

She didn’t finish her thought. Didn’t have to.

Instead, she shifted closer. The cold had returned in whispers, sneaking in around the doorframe and through the floorboards. But his presence beside her radiated heat; too much for him, not enough for her. Without thinking, she let their legs brush, let his warmth bleed into her through that point of contact.

He didn't pull away.

“You know…, you remind me of the ocean,” he murmured after a while, words slurring slightly.

“The ocean?” she repeated, her voice hushed with something between confusion and curiosity.

“There is something vast and mysterious about you. You’re calm on the surface. Measured. Quiet. You watch more than you speak, but that doesn’t mean you’re still. There’s always something moving beneath. A depth big enough to swallow someone whole.”

Seth shifted slightly, pulling in a breath that sounded like it cost him.

“A small event can turn you into a destructive force that flattens everything in its wake. Unpredictable. Captivating. Vanishing as quick as it came. And yet, I’d still stand at the shore just to watch you rise.”

Silence.

What the hell was she supposed to say to that?

She stared at him, heartbeat suddenly uneven. “That’s… a lot.”

He let out a low sound, half chuckle, half sigh. “I told you I was on fire.”

She shook her head, fighting a smile that tugged its way up despite her best efforts. “You better be careful not to drown, then.”

Seth’s lip twitched into a faint smile. “Maybe. But you forget something.”

“What?”

“I chose to dive.”

His words hit her harder than they should’ve. Simple. Honest. A quiet truth that settled over her like a tide rolling in. It wasn’t fever anymore. It was genuine.

The silence that followed curled around her like mist, not suffocating but thick with unspoken things. She couldn’t tell if her heart was fluttering or sinking, if she wanted to curl into him or bolt for the forest just to find space to think things through.

Then his hand shifted.

Not far. Just enough to find hers. His fingers, calloused and burning hot from the fever, curled around her cooler ones. Not tight. Not demanding. Just there. He threaded them together with a softness that betrayed how much he needed the contact.

An anchor.

Slowly, she let herself drift back to sleep.

Chapter 6: The walls we build

Summary:

Seth finally recovers from his fever, only to find how Suzuri transformed their environment during the days he was out. Lot of communication, closeness, and shared moments.

Seth stood outside the cabin for the first time in days, arms crossed loosely over his chest, eyes fixed on the sky. Clouds moved lazily, but the wind had a bite. Early spring, perhaps. Though seasons had long since blurred. The fever was gone now, leaving behind a dull headache and a lingering sense of mortification.

He’d said things. Poetic things. Unfiltered things. To her.

He sighed and ran a hand through his messy hair. Gods… His memory was patchy, but the echoes of his voice, slurred and embarrassingly teasing and sentimental, lingered. Something about the ocean. About not hating what she did with the potion.

He let his head fall against his hands. “Brilliant. Real smart, Seth,” he groaned into his palm.

Suzuri hadn’t mentioned it directly, not in the days since he’d started walking again, eating again, and doing more than sleeping in fever sweats. But every now and then, he caught a glance from her. A knowing one. Not mocking; she wasn’t like that. It was worse. It was gentle.

He rubbed the back of his neck and turned to survey the clearing.

The place had changed.

Pillars of carved stone rose in line from the earth in the middle of the clearing, each measured and equally spaced. A spiral staircase curled upward, reinforced with braced beams and wide enough for multiple individuals to pass. She hadn’t said anything, but it was clear she had begun the skeleton of something bigger.

The old campfire ring was still there, but now it was flanked by a stone furnace, its smooth, chiseled mouth blackened from regular use. Nearby sat a crude but functional anvil, shaped from salvaged lead and mounted on a tree stump. Neatly stacked bars of copper and tin gleamed faintly in a wooden crate she’d fashioned from leftover planks.

Something on the side of the cabin caught his attention when he passed across it, stopping short as he saw what she’d done.

There, sketched onto the wood in charcoal, was a massive town blueprint. Lines met at right angles, framed by arches, with tiers and platforms mapped out in flawless symmetry. Each section was labeled in her neat, compact handwriting; storage, forge, garden, common hall, watchpoint… A bridge town, raised above the ground, spanning horizontally like a wide, elevated highway of civilization. Practical. Defensible. Aesthetic. And just like her.

Seth was left speechless, blinking slowly in awe.

“Looking good, right?” came a soft voice behind him.

The Guide startled and turned. Suzuri was leaning lightly against the post of the unfinished stair rail, arms crossed, sleeves rolled up. She looked… better. Pale, still, but steady. Clean, composed, alert. As always. Her green eyes held his for a beat longer than he could handle.

“Didn’t expect you to be an architect,” he murmured, turning his attention back to the plan.

A faint twitch tugged the edge of her mouth. “I didn’t either. But I needed to get this out of my head somehow, so… here we are.”

Silence stretched as something else passed between them. Heavier. Tense. Different from before.

He cleared his throat. “About… what I said, when I was—”

“You were feverish,” she interrupted, shaking her head. “Most of what you said probably doesn’t count.”

“…Probably?”

Suzuri hesitated an instant, deep in thought. “You said many things. Some were nonsense. Some were…” She trailed off, a pause hanging in the air. “Anyway, I’m glad to see you doing better. That’s all that matters.”

She turned to face him fully, chin lifting slightly as she nodded toward the trees. “Come with me. I want to show you something.”

Seth raised a brow, questioning but curious, and followed. His legs protested with every step, still sluggish from days of lying still, but the ache was nothing compared to the burning fever that had welded his bones together.

They passed beneath a canopy of shifting leaves, down a path Suzuri had cleared by hand. Branches had been trimmed, the underbrush pushed aside, forming a discreet trail through the woods. Eventually, the trees thinned and opened into a hollow ringed by mossy stones, shaded by trees older than memory. In the heart of it stood a wooden structure: Four walls of panel screens, no roof, and in the center… a bath.

Seth blinked. Then blinked again.

The tub was carved from pale stone, smoothed and polished in a way that looked both elegant and primitive. It rested on a platform of packed earth and slate, with steam rising gently from the surface. Something fragrant floated with it, fresh, clean, sharp. Mint?

“You built a bathhouse?” His voice landed somewhere between awe and disbelief.

Suzuri turned her head, not quite meeting his eyes. “I thought you might want something warm. Something that felt… nice. After everything.”

He stepped closer, fingertips grazing the smooth rim of the tub. The heat in the air struck him like a physical force, and he inhaled the scent again. Yes, mint and maybe crushed herbs. It was absurdly comforting.

“What about the water?” he asked quietly.

“It comes out hot,” she crouched beside the metal faucet and turned its handle. The stream flowed easily, steam rising. “No plumbing. No firewood. Just magic.”

Seth let out a small, incredulous laugh, “Another Terrarian shenanigan, huh.”

Suzuri didn’t argue. Instead, she gestured to a nearby bench, where a woven basket held folded fabric in clean, muted colors. “I also made spare clothes for both of us. Based them on what we had, but… less shredded.”

He looked at her, and the words in his throat caught. There was no trace of pride in her expression, no performative modesty, no expectation of praise. Just that same calm, practical way of caring she always displayed. But the gesture hit him like a punch to the chest.

“Thank you,” he said, a bit rough around the edges. “I… guess I’ll take that bath.”

She nodded, Seth noticing the way her shoulders relaxed. “I’ll give you some privacy. I’ll be right past the panel, taking notes.” As she walked past him, she prodded on his arm with a gentle smile. “Feel free to take your time.”

Suzuri disappeared behind the far screen without another word. Seth exhaled like he’d been holding his breath all morning. He undressed with cautious fingers, peeling away layers stiff with sweat and grime. His joints protested, skin tight over half-healed wounds, but he kept moving.

And then he lowered himself into the tub.

It was like stepping into another world, a sense of comfort so surreal he barely processed it. The heat wrapped around his frame like a cocoon, cradling every bruise, pulled tendon, and coaxing the cold out from his bones. His head tilted back as a guttural sound escaped him, half groan, half whisper of profanity. The warmth seeped into his tissues, melted the stiffness from his shoulders, numbed the spider’s lingering bite, and even softened the tightness in the scarred lines along his body.

A soft laugh came from behind the screen. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

His eyes closed as he sank until only his head remained above water. “Didn’t realize how bad I needed this until now.”

“I figured,” she replied. “And for what it’s worth, you were terrifying to look at mid-fever.”

Seth snorted. “Thanks for the flattering honesty.”

There was a gentle rustle of paper shifting, followed by the sound of a pencil moving. He imagined her sitting cross-legged with her hair messily braided to the side, face serene and thoughtful as she documented the world.

Then her voice came again, softer this time. “You must have hated it.”

His eyes opened slowly. “What?”

“Being stuck in bed. Helpless. Watching everything happen without being able to move.” Another quiet turn of a page. “I would’ve gone mad.”

He let his head rest against the tub’s edge, eyes on the ceiling of trees above. “Yeah. It was hell. Watching you build, plan, make progress… while I was laid up like some pathetic corpse in the corner.”

No answer came. Just the steady scratch of pencil on parchment.

“I’m supposed to be your Guide,” he said after a moment. “The one with the answers. The one who keeps you alive. And then I got taken out by a spider before I could even put together a decent meal.”

Still, no laughter. No teasing.

“You think I care about that?” she asked quietly.

Water rippled as he hesitated, fingers drifting along its steamy surface.

“I—” he faltered, the words tasting bitter on his tongue. “You've accomplished so much on your own in just a few days that I'm starting to think you would be better off without a dead-weight.”

The sound of pencil on paper ceased.

“If that’s how you think I see you, I’m very disappointed.”

Seth froze, half-submerged.

“I don’t care what you’re supposed to be. I don’t care about titles, or roles, or destiny. You could be a fisherman. A blacksmith. A guy who makes bad jokes and manage to burn soup. That doesn’t change anything.”

The silence stretched, full and still. He didn’t move.

“I know I can be… intense,” she continued. “I throw myself into tasks because stillness makes my thoughts too loud. But I notice things. I see what you’ve done for me. You’ve been patient. Protective without being oppressive. You’re careful. Smart. Thoughtful. Honest, even when it’s hard.”

There was a soft creak as she leaned against the other side of the screen.

“So yeah… I think you’re really cool,” she added. “Even if you don’t see it. At least I do.”

Seth pressed a wet hand to his face, dragging it back through his hair. Her words were doing terrible things to his composure.

“I meant it,” she goes on. “You don’t have to feel responsible for me. That’s not what this is. This… whatever strange dynamic that we have, it works. It may be messy and a bit chaotic sometimes, but I still like it. I like you in it.”

Then, quieter, almost vulnerable:

“You’re my partner, Seth. And that’s all I need.”

The word struck like an arrow through still water, its impact silent but vast. It echoed in him, settled deep. Partner.

He didn’t respond. Couldn’t. Not right away.

Then, after what felt like a long, slow breath of silence, Suzuri spoke again with disarming casualness.

“And for the record… I didn’t hate it either.”

A beat.

Then the realization hit him. Hard.

Seth’s face ignited.

Ears burning and neck blooming red, he could barely form a coherent thought, the bath suddenly doubling in heat. He sank lower, burying his mouth beneath one hand, as if it could stop the embarrassed sound trying to claw its way out of his chest.

She hadn’t said what it was.

She didn’t need to.

“… You’re evil,” he mumbled into his palm, voice muffled.

A lighthearted chuckle answered him. “That’s on you for spewing nonsense.”

He could feel the satisfaction radiating from her side of the screen, like a silent smirk stitched into the fabric of the moment. That exact, precision in her tone: Measured, teasing, effortlessly composed. Unfair.

Seth exhaled hard, dragging both hands down his face before slumping back with a splash. He found himself grinning despite the chaos in his thoughts, small and helpless against it. He felt ridiculous. Exposed. Flustered like some awkward teenager fumbling through a crush.

But still grinning.

And gods help him.

For he was completely and utterly doomed.

 

---

 

By the time Seth stepped out of the bathhouse, the day already passed its zenith. Warmth sank into his skin, mingling with the residual heat from the water that still clung to him, leaving a faint flush along his exposed collarbones. The new clothes fit snugly, clean linen brushing against freshly scrubbed skin that now drifted a minty scent.

He felt like a reborn man. Clean, yes, but it was more than that. Something intangible had been shed in the water’s depths.

Running a hand through his damp hair, he shook free a few droplets that scattered along the dusty path like glass beads. Ahead, beneath the shade of the canvas screen, Suzuri sat with her legs tucked to the side, a cork-bound notebook spread across her lap. Her head lifted at the sound of his footsteps.

Her gaze flicked up, paused, and slowly traveled downward, taking in the version of him that had emerged on the other side of illness.

“Not bad,” she said, giving him a slow nod of approval.

Seth chuckled and dropped beside her, the wood creaking under their weight. “Don’t start. You’re making me self-conscious.”

For a moment, they sat in comfortable quiet. The midday cicadas buzzed lazily in the trees, and Seth leaned back, hands behind him, staring up at the branches.

“You know…” he said after a moment, low and casual, “I’m starting to think this whole bath-and-talk thing was another of your schemes.”

“Hm?” Suzuri raised an eyebrow, innocent.

“A set-up to get me to crack open and spill everything. You planned it, didn’t you?”

Her lips twitched as she turned her gaze to the clouds in the distance. “And here I thought I was being subtle.”

Seth gave her a sideways look, amused. “You really are something else.”

A quiet hum escaped her throat in reply, and she shifted slightly, the cork-bound notebook she made when he was still bedridden sliding on her lap. Seth’s eyes fell to the rough paper filled with charcoal sketches and scribbled notes.

“How’s it coming along?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder.

“A bit messy,” she admitted. “But it helps.”

He studied the pages. There were sketches of the cabin and partial maps of the terrain. Lopsided mushrooms with question marks beside them. Charcoal lines ranging from wild and jagged to soft and deliberate. Words wound between the images in a tight, sinuous hand, some nearly lost in the shadows between lines. There were lists; supplies, tasks, odd dreams, and fragmented thoughts that stopped mid-sentence.

It wasn’t organized. It wasn’t neat. But it was alive.

“You’re documenting everything?” he asked, the reverence in his voice unintentional.

“Trying to,” she said softly, eyes fixed on the pages. “In case my memory fails me again. This way… I’ll have something to come back to.”

Something in his chest twisted at that. He had no response. Not one that felt right. His memories, though sometimes heavy, belonged to him. Hers were fragile things, constantly at risk of slipping through her fingers. This need to pin them down, to give them permanence, made him see it all anew.

He moved to speak, but a droplet slid from his hair and landed with a soft splat on the page. The charcoal bled instantly, the careful lines unraveling into a spidery blur.

“Ah—damn it,” he muttered, jerking back.

But Suzuri didn’t let him retreat. Her hand reached for the towel draped around his shoulders. And instead of tossing it at his face like she had before, she leaned in and began rubbing his hair dry in slow, circular motions. Her fingers moved through the towel, kneading gently at his scalp.

“Why didn’t you dry your hair properly?” she muttered, sighing like someone pretending to be annoyed.

He went perfectly still, caught off guard as her fingers traced from temple to crown. The warmth of her touch, the softness of the towel, the rhythm of her fingers… It was soothing in a way that tingled his nerves from the back of his neck down to his spine. And when she pressed right into that one specific spot at the nape of his head, his eyes fluttered half-closed, a delicious shiver rolling through him.

It was absurd how good it felt, the groan slipping from his lips before he could catch it.

“You’re spoiling me today,” he murmured, leaning instinctively into her hands like some starved man.

Suzuri settled the towel aside to comb his drying strands between her fingers. “Guess that makes you a brat, then.”

He fell silent.

Brat.

Something in the way she said it, that casual lilt folded between familiarity and mischief, made something coil inside him. Tight. Awake.

Before he could untangle the feeling, the wind stirred. Leaves whispered across the flagstones and stirred the edges of her notebook. A loose page lifted and slipped from her lap with a quiet fwip. It skittered across the worn wood and landed open-side-up, just near his knee.

He reached down to retrieve it.

And froze.

It wasn’t one of her usual scribbles. No messy blueprints. No tidy diagrams. No survival notes or crude sketches of mushrooms.

It was a drawing.

Of him.

The drawing was rough around the edges, charcoal bleeding slightly from where her thumb must have pressed too hard, but the moment it captured was unmistakable: the first time he’d taught her how to use the bow. His stance was etched in confident lines; the set of his shoulders, the taut bend in his arm as he drew the string, the subtle forward lean that came from perfect balance. She hadn’t fussed over every detail. His face, turned in profile, was barely sketched. No precise eyes. No defined mouth. But somehow, she’d caught it.

That quiet focus he fell into when the world narrowed to the curve of the arc and the pull of the string. The rising anticipation just before the release.

The background was almost an afterthought, suggested in a few simple sweeps of charcoal; the silhouettes of trees hinted with smudges and shadows, the jagged horizon barely sketched in. But that only made the figure stand out more.

Suzuri wasn’t aiming for realism or idealism. She was capturing something else entirely.

Essence.

“I didn’t know you could draw like this,” Seth murmured. He hadn’t thought anything of it back then, just doing what he’d done a thousand times before. But here, in black and white, it felt different, nothing like the sophisticated studies he saw in books.

Suzuri didn’t answer immediately.

He looked up.

She was staring at the page, or rather, at where it had landed. Her expression had gone quiet. Thoughtful. Like she was still half inside that moment.

“It’s a bit… difficult to explain,” she said at last, unsure. “Sometimes there are moments that feel… different. Like time’s holding its breath. And I just want to crystallize these atmospheres so I can experience them again.”

Her eyes dropped. One hand tightened a little around the edge of the towel resting in her lap.

“That day, it wasn’t about the demonstration. Not really. I think it was the way the light hit the clearing. And how everything got suddenly still. You were so focused, it was like…” Her words tangled for a beat. “Like watching someone belong.”

She shook her head quickly, and he noticed the faintest tint of red warming the tips of her ears.

“Sorry. That sounds ridiculous now that I said it out loud.”

“It doesn’t. If anything, it sounds human.”

Her gaze flicked up to meet his.

“You have the sensibility of an artist,” Seth continued. “By seeing the things other people would miss.”

That earned him a small, crooked smile. The kind that softened her whole face. “I’m not an artist,” she murmured. “I’m just observant, that’s all.”

A pause.

“Anyway…” Suzuri cleared her throat and sat up straighter, brushing charcoal dust off her hands. “There’s one more thing I wanted to show you.”

“Oh?” He raised an eyebrow, sensing the subtle shift in her tone.

Instead of answering, Suzuri rested both hands in her lap, palms open. A beat later, something manifested into her hands with a metallic sound: her chain weapon.

Or rather… what it had become.

Seth’s breath caught.

Her chained blade had evolved into something far more refined. The metal shimmered with a sharper hue, newly forged and polished into a crescent shape that curved like a sliver of moonlight. At the opposite end of the reinforced chain, a second blade had been added: Pointier, narrower, and designed to pierce, not just slash, unlike its twin.

But what struck him most was how balanced it looked. Not just in weight, but in function.

“Shaped the crescent for better momentum on the swing,” Suzuri said, watching his reaction closely. “Re-smelted the metal. Better quality. More durable. Then I figured… why stop at one blade?” A grin tugged at her lips. “So I made it versatile,” she continued, slipping into something almost businesslike. “One’s meant for slashing, the other for penetration. And with the reshaped hilt, I can also wield either end in my hands for close combat. Depends on the situation.”

As to prove her words, she gave the chain a deft twist, and one of the blades snapped into her grip like an obedient wolf on a leash.

Seth stared, impressed not just by the weapon, but by the thought that went into every element.

“It’s… incredible,” he murmured, taking a closer look. “Glad to be on your good side. That thing looks like it could harvest wheat and heads.”

“Good. I was hoping to test it on zombies tonight.”

He shook his head in disbelief. “How did you even manage all that? On your own?”

Suzuri paused. The smile lingered, but her gaze shifted down, thoughtful. “I didn’t. Not at first.”

She ran her thumb along the inner curve of the crescent blade.

“I messed up a lot,” she admitted. “I tried shaping bars that were not hot enough, or heated the metal unheavenly. I also forgot the normalizing process once. But… it’s a good thing failed work can still be remelted most of the time.”

Her fingers drummed lightly against her knee.

“And I didn’t have to guess on the metals,” she added, glancing sideways at him. “You’d labeled each one. Told me their properties. What to blend for durability, what to avoid for weight. That saved me hours, maybe days.”

Seth blinked. He hadn’t realized she’d remembered so much from his fevered ramblings about metallurgy. Or that she’d listened that closely.

Then Suzuri stood, stretching her arms overhead with a soft groan. “Come on partner. We’ve got two homes to build.”

Seth blinked, startled. “Wait, today?”

Suzuri gave him a crooked smile. “Of course. Why would I have planned all this bath-and-talk thing for, then?”

He should have known. Now she was dragging him back into the grind.

“You tricked me. Again,” he said flatly.

“That's right.”

He cursed under his breath, but a reluctant grin tugged at the corner of his mouth as they made their way to the raised foundation of stone bricks she’d mapped out. And then, without another word, they got to work.

 

---

 

The sun drifted lower with each task they crossed off, tapering shadows pooling over the budding skeleton of a town.

Two houses. One day. Gods.

Stone by stone, Suzuri started the next evolution of their raised town: a pair of elevated dwellings joined by a wide walkway, lifted far above the earth to evade whatever still lurked below. Her Terrarian’s abilities made the process fluid, almost effortless. Where another might struggle with crude masonry, she coaxed the bricks into shape as if they were pliant clay. Each movement of her hands shaped the surroundings, eyes darting from the foundation's rough chalk outlines to the pages of her notebook, chasing a vision that only she fully understood. Every line, every placement was calculated, polished with the same precision she gave to her blades.

Nearby, Seth matched her pace in quieter ways. He wasn’t laying stone, but crafting the life that would live within it. Wood shaved away beneath his fingers as he carved chairs, tables, cabinets, beds… furniture built to last, to belong. His tools sang out in steady rhythm: the rasp of sanding, the knock of a mallet, the soft creak of joints fitting together with stubborn harmony. Where Suzuri built shelter, he gave it soul.

They spoke little. They didn’t need to. Their rhythm was one of silent accord, like gears meshing in the same machine. When she paused, flushed and winded, he handed her the canteen without glancing up. When he scowled at a misaligned bench leg, she crouched beside him and helped correct it. No commentary needed.

By the time the second house stood complete, the sky had flared into a tapestry of amber and blood. The sun, grazing the horizon, lit the rooftops built to collect water in fire.

Beautiful twin homes, identical in the curve of their archways and the tilt of their lantern brackets, faced one another across the raised path that would soon become the town’s main walkway. The doors opened on hinges that swung smooth and easy, a promise of regular use. Corners met with tight seams. The beams overhead bore the mark of hands that knew what survival demanded.

They’d done it. Two houses, real houses, in a day.

Suzuri was seated on the edge of the raised stone path, legs dangling, a half-finished sketch in her lap and a charcoal stick twirling absently in her fingers.

Seth approached in silence and sank down beside her with a low, exhausted groan. His joints popped in protest. “I still don’t know how the hell we pulled that off.”

“Great teamwork, perhaps,” Suzuri replied, not looking up, just flicking her eyes toward him with a lopsided smile.

He let out a short, humorless breath. “Felt more like disguised tyranny, if you ask me.”

That got a snort from her. “So dramatic.”

Seth leaned back on his palms and stared out toward the forest's rim. From this height, the view was something else: a sea of trees drenched in golden light, their shadows stretched like ink across the dirt. Just beyond the thinning edge of foliage, barely visible behind a tangle of brambles and vine-choked undergrowth, was the cabin.

His eyes followed its worn contours, lingering on the dark outline of the roof. So much had happened within those walls. Too much, too fast. The quiet meals. The turnaround of patching each other's wounds in the morning. The half-bantered remarks. The strange, wandering conversations at night when neither of them could sleep. They were routines born out of necessity, yet they had started to feel like something… domestic. Something that made him forget it was only temporary.

His chest tightened.

“You thought about which one you want?” Suzuri asked, nudging her chin toward the newly finished houses nearby.

They were perfectly identical in design. Yet, the one on the right seemed to catch the light just so, and from that angle, you could still see the cabin.

“That one,” he said, pointing to it. “Better view.”

She nodded. “The other can go to the merchant then, when they’ll show up.”

He turned slightly to look at her, caught off guard. “But what about you? I thought you’d—”

“I’ll stay in the cabin,” she said, cutting him off gently, twirling the charcoal again. “At least for now. I’m outside more often than not, and everything I use is already in there. Doesn’t make much sense to move yet.”

A crease formed between his brows. “You’ve… actually thought about where you’ll live long-term, haven’t you?”

Suzuri didn’t answer right away. She stared at her sketch, then at the sky. The sun had slipped a little lower. The colors were deepening.

“Honestly, not at all,” she said at last. “But I’m not in a rush. Maybe I’ll go for the watchtower once it’s built, since I like heights.”

That made him wince. “That vertical coffin?” He remembered it from her blueprint. “Come on Suzuri, it’s barely wider than a pantry.”

“Then I guess I’ll be cozy,” she said with an amused hum.

Seth’s mouth twitched, but the smile didn’t quite make it.

He watched as she stood, stretching out her and shaking off sleep. She took a final glance at her sketch before closing the notebook and tucking it under one arm.

“Time to test that blade,” she said, almost to herself.

“Oh right,” he started, remembering something. “Watch out for flying eyeballs: it’s not just zombies at night.”

That got her attention.

She blinked. “The what?”

“Demon Eyes.” He pointed up at the sky. “Bigger than a head, blue iris, pretty fast. They come after dark too.

Suzuri squinted in a combination of disbelief and disgust. “…Lovely.”

The wind tugged at the hem of her long robe as she stepped dangerously closer to the edge of the platform. Then, with no further warning, she jumped off.

Seth lunged forward, heart dropping like a stone.

“What the f—”

But before she could so much as fall past the platform’s edge, her wings unfurled with a soft snap. She glided, catching the last rays of sun like a moth swirling around firelight. Her descent curved in a smooth arc toward the slope below. She landed near the cabin without stumbling, already retrieving her weapon in one hand.

Seth’s heart was still somewhere around his throat. “Ever heard of using stairs like a normal human being?!”

From far below, her laughter floated up like smoke, waving to him despite having her back turned. “Good night to you too!”

Seth muttered a curse under his breath.

Crazy woman.

With a quiet breath, he turned back toward the house he’d claimed as his own.

Its interior held a faint warmth; flickering candlelight brushed against wood, a worn scent of old smoke and newer dust. It should have been comforting.

And yet…

Something in his chest shifted. Not sharply. Not loud. Just that low, persistent throb when nothing feels quite right.

All day, the truth had been circling him; a shadow just out of reach. Now that night had fallen, it finally came to roost: they weren’t sharing the same walls anymore.

He hadn’t expected that to feel like loss.

But maybe that was the lesson. Maybe that was what needed to be faced.

The more they wove into each other’s lives, the harder it became to spot the boundaries. Where safety blurred into reliance. Where partnership bled into something closer to need. She was still new to this world, unsteady, full of promise, and colored by a past she couldn’t remember. And he was… him. A man stitched together by habit, solitude, and the stubborn will to survive.

It had been far too easy to let the nearness patch over the emptiness. To find comfort in her quiet, in the way she filled the silence without trying. To forget, even for a little while, that they were still two strangers walking a crumbling line.

He dropped onto the bed, the springs creaking beneath him.

This town she was building, it would draw people. Wanderers. Traders. Maybe even those with similar purpose. And with them, she might find others to hold on to. To trust. To anchor her to more than just his shadow.

If she could find her rhythm with someone else, something else, then maybe, just maybe, he could step back. Reclaim the distance. Restore the quiet he used to believe he needed.

Maybe then things would return to how they were supposed to be.

Even if he wasn’t sure he wanted them to.

Chapter 7: What cannot be said

Summary:

The Blood Moon is here; tension ensues.

Days passed.

Seth and Suzuri had returned to their work like twin clock hands, sweeping through time on separate rhythms; independent yet tethered, orbiting the same center. She spent her hours in stone and silence, clearing debris, exploring depths, and expanding the skeleton of the town that lived inside her mind. Seth, by contrast, stayed indoors; his world had narrowed to a single room filled with steam, glass, and ink.

The house he now called home had become more laboratory than living space. Wood groaned beneath the clutter of flasks, scattered labels, frayed bundles of herbs, and a chipped mortar stained with mushroom pulp. Glass vials lined the shelves, their contents shimmering faintly in the low light. Something green hissed quietly in the corner where his alchemy table boiled, a steady exhalation of vapor curling up and vanishing into the rafters. The air inside turned strong: a mix of crushed daybloom syrup, damp dirt, and the acrid sting of blinkroot.

At the center of it all stood Seth, hunched over his workbench with the posture of someone who forgot the rest of the world existed. His sleeves were rolled back, forearms smudged with ink and oil, as his hands moved in rhythmic loops, recording notes in his journal.

He felt the clearest here. Not just capable, certain.

His strength had always been chemistry. Despite being the all-rounder sort, which involved craftsmanship, fighting, exploration, and reluctant philosophy, it was science that truly captivated him. Reactions respected the rules. Ingredients obeyed laws. Equation did not involve any betrayal; even failures could be identified. And in this crumbling world, full of rot and things long lost, chemistry remained the last place he could trust the outcome.

Seth leaned closer to the alembic, watching as a thick gray liquid lightened into a hazy rose. He tilted the beaker just slightly, catching the moment when the hue turned iridescent, perfect, then decanted it into a round-bottom vial and set it down beside a neat line of others: Ironskin, Regeneration, and Swiftness. All labeled. Each entry, with doses and durations, is recorded in the right column of his ledger. He’d even sampled all of them on himself, not out of recklessness, but because he refused to hand Suzuri anything unproven.

She trusted him too much for that.

Lately, though, his notes had started shifting. The structure remained, the careful handwriting, the chemical ratios, but something new had taken root. A series of entries, marked by small red circles at the page corners. In the margin: EXPERIMENTAL.

A1: Dampened neural excitement by 16%. Temporary. Induced fatigue.

A2: Slowed reflex loop. Unviable for combat.

A3: Reduced adrenaline spikes. Nausea.

He’d begun calling them the Anchor series: stabilizers, theoretically. Potions designed not to empower, but to contain. Nothing in the Guide’s Codex spoke of such a thing.

Suzuri hadn’t known what she looked like during the spider attack. But he still remembered the blankness in her eyes and the sharpness of her movements. Her body had become a weapon wielded by something not quite human. She hadn’t reacted to pain. Hadn’t hesitated. Had killed until there was nothing left to kill.

However, Seth didn't know the main factor the trance originated from: it could be magical, neurological, or worse, which complicated things. But he intended to find a way to anchor her before it happened again.

He caught himself pausing at an unexpected sound outside, some reflexive part of him expecting the familiar rhythm of booted footsteps or a knock at the door that never came. Quiet no longer felt peaceful anymore. His ears remained tuned to the distance. Every time wind rattled a shutter or a bird took off too suddenly, he listened, hoping, absurdly, even when he meant to stay focused. Even when he meant to keep his distance.

He told himself it was necessity. That the more isolated he became, the easier it was to keep things in check. That his withdrawal was for her own good. That indifference meant protection.

But he wasn’t indifferent.

Seth reread the same paragraph four times without absorbing it.

He shoved his stool back with a sigh and crossed to the corner, where a half-filled bucket of cloudy river water sat, crusted with sediment. He had no trouble with water purification; what vexed him were the reagents he couldn’t conjure or distill. Fish, mostly. So many potions, so stupidly many potions required fish.

Fishing, of all things.

He hated it. The endless waiting. The inconsistent yields. The silence of it. He’d tried, twice, to sit at the river with a crafted rod and a crate of worms, but the line tangled, the bait ended up eaten before he could react, and he’d nearly speared himself out of spite. It wasn’t that he lacked the patience. Patience, he had. It was the pointlessness that got to him.

That and the damned fish slipping through his hands like wet soap.

Seth rubbed his temples, a foolish attempt to repel the embarrassing memories, then stepped outside.

He squinted at the sunlight, lips pressing into a tight line before he let out a slow breath and let his shoulders drop. No sign of Suzuri around: she probably spent the whole night inside the Caverns again.

His gaze drifted forward to the more recent addition to the landscape: the merchant’s shop.

Howard.

With someone else in the picture, it had been easier for him to retreat; he could now afford to vanish a little and hide behind works.

The merchant had arrived a few days ago, drawn by whatever invisible signal Suzuri had unknowingly put into the air. She had said it first.

“I think someone’s nearby,” she’d murmured the evening before his appearance, frowning toward the tree line. Her tone had been too calm for it to be fear, more like observation. Seth hadn’t felt anything, but she’d insisted. The next morning, the merchant was there, whistling and hauling a wagon full of wares like he’d been heading here for weeks.

Now, his shop stood across from Seth’s place: a rectangular stall canopied in patched canvas constructed right in front of Howard’s own home. Wooden crates formed makeshift counters, stocked with an eclectic sprawl of wares: ropes, tools, iron lanterns, a suspiciously labeled jar of “withered miracle root,” and a stack of hats no one had asked for.

The old man sat behind it all, polishing something: a silver buckle, maybe, with a stained cloth and the sort of concentration that suggested the task was either deeply important or a complete waste of time. He wore a long, brown, sun-faded coat with deep pockets and a beret that drooped to one side like a half-deflated balloon. His beard reached down to his chest, white and scraggly, but his eyes were alert beneath shaggy brows, sharp like whetted flint.

Seth descended the steps of his porch.

“Morning, lad,” Howard called, not looking up. His voice had the tone of cracked wood: warm, weathered, and always seeming halfway into a sales pitch. “You look like a man who's either cured a plague or caught one.”

“Neither,” Seth sighed. In terms of remarks about his appearance, he began to notice a pattern. “Just had to make sure the world still existed.”

“Figures,” Howard snorted. “Is your girl still out?”

Seth blinked. The phrasing wasn't unfamiliar. Howard used it several times already to mess with him, with a kind of amused, knowing weight.

“Yes. But she’ll be back soon, probably.” He leaned on the edge of the stall, glancing at the assortment. “You’ve reorganized.”

“Aesthetics matter, my friend. Presentation, presentation.” He tapped the side of the sign. “Even in the apocalypse. That’s rule number six.”

“You have actual rules?”

“Of course not,” Howard said cheerfully. “But if I repeat something twice, it becomes one.”

Seth smiled faintly. The merchant's voice carried the tone of long familiarity, even though they’d known each other for less than a few days. That was his rhythm: talk like you belonged, and eventually, you would.

Howard finally glanced up from the buckle and gave Seth a once-over. “You know, I hadn’t expected the Terrarian to look like that, given the old prophecies. Expected them to be more…”

“All muscle and scream?” Seth finished for him as he trailed off.

“Something like that,” Howard agreed, resuming his polishing, “but we got an old soul trapped in the body of a scrawny youngster instead.”

Seth tilted his head. “Would you have preferred the other way around?”

Howard grinned through his beard. “Maybe it would’ve made my first encounter less… jarring.” He leaned back on his stool, the wood creaking. “She looked at me like she could see the back of my skull. Scared the socks out of me: I damn near apologized for existing.”

Seth let out a dry chuckle. “Yeah. The stare.” He exhaled through his nose, half in amusement, half in quiet solidarity. “She doesn’t mean anything by it; that’s just her thinking face when she’s trying to figure out what to say and how. She edits every word twice in her head before it leaves her mouth. And sometimes? She just remains silent, probably not satisfied enough with how it turned out in her head.”

Howard made a thoughtful noise, running his cloth over the metal in small, circular swipes. “Not a bad trait, really. World could do with more folks who don’t speak until their words are worth hearing.” His gaze trailed toward the end of the elevated road, letting silence settle in.

A breeze stirred the canvas around them, tugging gently at the edge of the stall. Neither man spoke. The moment stretched, not uncomfortable, but thoughtful; the kind of quiet that asked nothing and answered everything.

Then, without lifting his gaze, Howard spoke again. His voice dipped, quieter now, tinged with something weightier than his usual humor.

“Lad, do you trust her with all that power?”

The question drifted out, easy and casual on the surface, but Seth heard the coil beneath: tight and waiting.

He followed the merchant’s stare out toward the empty horizon but didn’t answer right away.

Did he trust her?

Suzuri wasn’t just someone he believed in; somewhere along the way, she had become the foundation of that belief. She doubted herself in ways most people never bothered to; she tried, constantly, without complaint. And that, more than anything, made him want to trust her.

But belief wasn’t certainty.

And trust wasn’t that simple.

Not after what he’d seen in the Cavern. Not after watching her vanish into something more brutal than human: unblinking, unfeeling, devastating. Not after the way she’d avoided speaking of it since, wearing silence like armor.

Seth’s fingers curled along the edge of the stall, nails grazing the grain of the wood.

“If you’re asking whether I think she’ll end up some tyrant or demigod drunk on power,” he said slowly, “then no. That’s not who she is.”

Howard adjusted his beret with a mild grunt. “You sound certain.”

“I want to be.” Seth’s jaw tightened. “She’s not reckless. She’s deliberate. She carries this role like it’s a burden. And she questions everything: every step, every decision, even her own existence. Maybe more than she should.”

The merchant nodded, arms folded now. Listening.

“That kind of hesitation usually means conscience. That matters,” Seth added. “She doesn’t want power. She just… accepts it because it’s already there, figuring she might as well make good use of it. That… humbles me, honestly.”

He paused, letting the words settle.

“But it’s not the corruption I’m worried about; it’s the collapse. She’d rather implode under the weight of it all rather than let anyone see the cracks.”

Howard leaned forward slightly, interest flickering in his eyes.

But Seth said no more. He didn’t speak of the trance, didn’t mention the sharp edge in her voice afterward or how she’d asked if it had been her fault, as if the massacre had come from her rather than through her.

It wasn’t Howard’s to know.

Still, the question lingered. Howard had only given it shape; the Guide had asked it of himself many times, only never aloud.

Could he trust her? Truly?

Seth scraped a breath from his throat and gave the merchant a sideways glance, forcing a sardonic smile.

“You’re not the first to ask. I asked myself. Back when she first appeared in that clearing.”

Howard’s grin returned, half-wry. “And?”

“I chose to help her.”

“And now?”

“…Still choosing to.”

Howard snorted. “You Guides. Always taking in strays.”

Not long after that, the breeze changed direction. A low rustle of wind stirred the edges of Seth’s shirt, followed by the faintest thud on stone.

He turned instinctively.

Suzuri had returned, standing at the far end of the bridge, her silhouette framed by the translucent wings.

Seth felt her gaze before he saw it. That strange, precise sensation, like warm static across his shoulders. He didn’t look directly at her. He didn’t need to; he knew all too well the tingling hint of her gaze tracing over his state: measuring, checking on him. And despite the wordless and brief contact, it sparked that familiar flutter just beneath his ribs.

She approached. The heavy rhythm of her steps was the only indication of the weight of her armor, the lead set they had forged together that she could turn invisible to the eye when she wore it.

The woman stopped just short of the stall.

“Welcome back,” Seth said, stepping away from the counter. “No injuries, I assume?”

Suzuri shook her head and offered him a smile. “Nothing serious. But I think I found something worth looking at.”

Then, after giving Howard a polite nod as well, she held her hand to Seth: between her fingers, a heart-shaped red crystal, its core glowing and pulsing.

Seth stepped forward and accepted it, tilting it in the sunlight. His brow lifted. “A Life Crystal,” he murmured. “That’s a rare find. It increases your vitality permanently if consumed.”

“That explains the urge,” she murmured, brow furrowing. “The moment I touched it, I wanted to… eat it.” She looked at him, perfectly serious. Then, without hesitation or flourish, she swallowed the Life Crystal whole.

The glow vanished down her throat, and a second later, her shoulders slackened as if something subtle had shifted inside her.

Her eyes widened briefly, and she coughed once, grimacing. “… That tastes like rust and damp dirt.”

Seth blinked. “You ate a crystallized mana-laced rock.”

Suzuri gave him a puzzled look. “But you said to consume it.”

Howard let out a bark of laughter behind them.

Seth watched her with a faint shake of his head, hiding his grin. “Or, you could’ve let me finish explaining. Next time, you can just crush it in your palm for it to take effect.”

“Oh.”

The Guide looked up, noticing how she always brought her discoveries to him: the herbs, the ores, the unfamiliar goods… Even when she didn’t need to, she asked him. Something about being needed in that way settled a part of him he hadn’t known was restless, bringing in its wake a dangerous kind of warmth.

“It’s… nice that you always come to me for this kind of thing,” he said before he could stop it. “Guess I still have a purpose beyond mixing things that smell like rot.”

Suzuri stared at him for a moment, expression unreadable in that way that always made him nervous. He was already regretting his words.

“I like when you ramble about things,” she replied at last, giving him a small smile. “Not just what they are, but what they mean, with their purpose. You're always so passionate when you explain; I'd hate to miss that.”

The back of his neck tickled with the threat of a blush.

“I—” he began, faltered, then scrubbed a hand through his hair, frayed from heat and long hours. “That’s… good to know.”

He cleared his throat, casting his gaze toward the treeline before turning to Suzuri, trying and failing to look casual. “So,” he said, a touch too abruptly, “Did you even sleep last night?”

“Not quite,” she replied without offense. “Hard to keep track of time underground.”

Seth studied her more closely now. Her posture was straighter than most, but her shoulders sagged just a fraction; her hair was damp with effort, her fingers smudged with dirt and dust. She always remained quiet about her limits, but he could see the fatigue wrapped around her like a second skin.

“You should sleep,” he said, gentler than before. “No more scouting today.”

Her gaze met his. A flicker passed between them: acknowledgment, resistance, and then finally, assent.

She inclined her head. “All right.”

Suzuri offered a small parting glance, impassible save for the faint warmth beneath it, before heading back for the cabin. But she paused a few steps later, her back half turned.

“Maybe you could join me for a talk later? It’s been a while.”

Seth hesitated. The words touched something in him. But the answer still came too fast, too practiced. “I’ll see if I can.”

She didn’t push, just nodded and turned away. The sound of her boots faded slowly, then disappeared altogether.

Seth exhaled through his nose, one hand dragging back through his hair. “She’s too tired to realize she’s exhausted.”

Howard, who had remained mercifully silent during the exchange, resumed polishing his mystery object with exaggerated innocence, though the corners of his mouth twitched with unspoken delight.

“Don’t,” Seth warned, not bothering to turn.

“I said nothing.”

“You were about to.”

Howard grunted. “You’re in deep, aren’t you?”

Seth didn’t answer immediately. His eyes were still on the empty path, his hand still resting on the stall’s edge. “… Is it that obvious?”

Howard’s polishing slowed. “No, son. Not to most. You’re too careful with your words. Always a half-beat behind your thoughts, like you’re making sure nothing slips past.” He folded his cloth with practiced movements, then looked up. “But I’m an old merchant. I’ve made a life of selling stuff to people by reading and getting to know them.”

“I didn’t plan to… feel anything.”

“No one ever does,” Howard said. “But you’re caring. She’s lucky for that.”

Seth frowned faintly. “I wouldn’t think of it that way.”

“Doesn’t matter. People don’t always see how valuable it is to be the one someone trusts. Especially when they’re still trying to figure things out.”

Seth closed his eyes for a moment, letting that sink in.

Howard stood, stretching his back until it cracked. “Anyway. That’s my unsolicited wisdom for the day. Next time, I’ll charge you for that.”

Seth gave him a sideways glance. “Duly noted.”

After a polite parting with the merchant, he eventually retreated to his own house, not out of comfort, but necessity. Everything inside waited for his attention: there were potions to finish, reagents to catalog, and a newly prepared bundle of obsidian shards he needed to test for properties. But his thoughts still refused to stay put.

There remained much to finish. But nothing in him reached for it.

His hands hovered near the workbench, then dropped. Suzuri’s voice had followed him back inside, trailing his heels as if stuck to his own shadow.

“You're always so passionate when you explain; I'd hate to miss that.”

The words slipped through his thoughts with unwelcome tenderness, lodging behind his ribs, maddening.

Yet hers were not the only words still echoing.

“Lad, do you trust her with all that power?”

Seth had answered with certainty, or at least, with the tone of certainty. But in the stillness now, it felt rehearsed. Or worse: hollow. Too clean. Too quick. His words had leaned too heavily on conviction, as if the one he tried to convince wasn’t Howard but himself.

He sighed, resting his elbows on the table and pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes until sparks bloomed. The chair creaked beneath him. Across the room, a coil of mist lifted from a heated flask and dispersed into the rafters. He let it go unattended.

Seth returned his attention to his notes regarding the Anchor series. Stabilizers, he had written. At least, that had been the stated reason. Now, the curve of his handwriting pulled at him with another meaning. One he had not wanted to admit until Howard's voice gave it form.

They were not only care. They were precaution.

He hadn’t brewed a single useful potion after that. Eventually, evening had arrived without ceremony. The light outside had deepened into something sour, rust veined with scarlet. Seth turned to the window. The trees no longer whispered; they strained and rattled, their branches twitching against a wind that moved without rhythm.

When he stepped outside, the sky had already begun to stain everything with the color of flesh and wounds, the world tilting gently toward madness.

Seth’s breath hitched. “—Shit.”

A Blood Moon.

From the elevated walkway of the town, he could see them already: silhouettes stirring in the forest shadows, no longer slouching or wandering, but crawling forward with purpose, drawn to life. Zombies, more animated than before, hunched like beasts on broken limbs. Among them, bloodshot Demon Eyes bobbed above the grass, twitching erratically through the underbrush. Even the rabbits, twisted and wrong, thumped with jaws slightly agape, as if they had remembered what teeth were for.

Seth turned on his heel and made a beeline for the shop, urgency tightening his stride.

“Howard,” Seth called, low and clipped. “Lock up. Now.”

The old merchant was just finishing securing a crate with thick twine, his expression unreadable beneath the brim of his drooping beret. But he’d gone still, frozen, like a man who already knew what was coming. He glanced at the sky, the red light dancing in his pupils.

“…So it’s going to be one of those nights.”

Seth nodded once. “Bar your door with weight. Planks, stone, anything that doesn’t break easily.” He hesitated, then added, “And stay alone: don’t let anyone in until dawn, no matter what.”

The old man gave a low grunt. “You think I’m the type to tear someone apart?”

“It’s not about what I think,” Seth said, already turning away. “It’s about what it does to us.”

Howard’s voice followed him, softer. “And what about your girl, though?”

Seth paused mid-step. He didn’t turn around.

“She stays with me.”

A pause stretched out between them, taut and brittle.

Howard exhaled through his nose. “Not a bright idea.”

“I know.” Seth didn’t turn back. “But the cabin will never hold if she remains inside.”

Howard studied him. Then, without further comment, he gave a short nod and ducked into his stall, drawing the canvas flap shut behind him with a heavy rustle. Locks clicked. Boards scraped.

Seth didn’t wait.

The blood moon had not yet reached its apex, but its influence already bled into the edges of the world. Bodies of water turned red. The air carried the rot-thick stench of the undead, closer than before. Even insects had gone quiet.

He glanced over the clearing and immediately cursed under his breath, skipping some steps in his haste as he rushed down the stairs.

The monsters had come fast.

More than a dozen roamed the grove below. Not shuffling, not meandering, searching. He saw them sniff at tree trunks, claw at stones, and follow footprints. They should not have been this sharp. They should not have gathered this quickly.

Except tonight, they could.

Seth kept low and skirted the clearing’s edge, weaving between brush and root, breath tight in his chest. A Demon Eye passed overhead, trailing a lazy, jagged path across the sky. He waited until it twitched toward a squirrel carcass before slipping from cover and rushing to the cabin.

The door creaked when he pushed it open.

Suzuri lay where she had collapsed on the bed: half-curled, limbs heavy from sleep, boots still on.

The Guide took a step forward, then another, and knelt next to her quietly. For a moment, he just watched: her breath slow, her brow furrowed even in sleep, her hair fanned across the sheet. He hated what he was about to do, but he couldn’t ignore the sounds outside getting closer.

“…Suzuri,” he whispered, touching her shoulder. “Wake up.”

She stirred. Not abruptly, but with a kind of reluctant returning, eyes cracking open beneath shadowed lashes. “…Is something wrong?”

“It’s a Blood Moon tonight.”

Suzuri blinked. The words took a beat to settle in her, then cleared the haze from her eyes in an instant. She sat up.

“You mentioned that before,” she murmured with a voice stiff from sleep. “Our first night. Something about them getting smarter.”

Seth nodded. “We need to go; the cabin isn’t safe enough. But…,” he paused, gazing out the window at the numerous monsters that had already begun to approach the cabin. A nervous bead of sweat ran down his cheek. “…I may have attracted a bunch of them on my way here. It will be difficult to reach the stairs now.”

“Indeed,” Suzuri agreed, following his gaze and frowning at the spectacle. “But we don’t necessarily need them.”

“…Pardon?”

She turned to him, lifting her arms as if preparing for a sparring stance. “Hold on.”

Seth looked at her hands, then her eyes, connecting dots together. “…Don’t you dare—”

Suzuri took a step forward, and in a decisive last move, she lifted him up, hooking one arm beneath his legs and supporting his back with the other.

“Wait, wait, what—?”

Before Seth could protest any further, the cabin’s door swung open, her wings flared into being, and she leapt.

The wind tore at his ears, his stomach dropped, and the most undignified noise he had ever made, halfway between a strangled crow and a squeaky hinge, came out of his throat. His arms shot around her neck by instinct, hands clutching a fistful of her robe. For a wild moment, only blurred shapes and colors surrounded him.

Then, once they got high enough, the descent began. Needless to say, it was worse.

“Oh my god—oh my god—”

His chest compressed, muscles tensing. His heart thrashed, too fast to count, too loud to hear as gravity reclaimed them.

Suzuri landed hard despite having slowed most of the fall with her wings, her boots slamming against the stone with a reverberating thud, knees bending to absorb the weight. She staggered for a bit as she struggled with their combined weight but found her footing back again.

Seth, by contrast, remained boneless in her arms, his face still buried somewhere between the collar of her robe and the hollow of her throat.

She adjusted her grip, and he heard her murmur near his ear. “Are you alright? Your squeal was quite impressive.”

He dragged a hand down his face, heat rushing up his face faster than any potion could burn. “I hate thrill.”

“I can see that.”

That earned her a pointed glare, which probably had the sharpness of a wet leaf. “Stars above, just warn me next time.”

Suzuri’s arms didn’t loosen yet, not until his boots properly touched the stone under them and he found his balance, or tried to. Seth’s legs gave out for a second. He pitched sideways.

She steadied him with a hand on his elbow without a word.

He waved her off and gritted his teeth, breath shallow. The pounding in his chest refused to settle. His muscles still twitched from the adrenaline, his body trailing behind his mind like a frayed shadow.

Gods, how much he despised being seen like that.

Once inside his home, the door locked and braced behind them, Seth exhaled hard and pressed his back to the wall. The house, two stories high and built with stone, usually felt secure. Tonight, it felt too small. The red light slipped through the shuttered windows and soaked the air.

Suzuri moved across the room in silence, but Seth caught the shift immediately. Her aura, once calm and quiet, had taken on an edge. Tension leaked through her frame, looser movements betraying the slip of her carefully crafted composure she always held on to with an iron fist. Her expression hadn’t changed much, but her eyes burned a little too bright in the low light, the green blurring into gold where the red haze of the moon caught her irises.

Seth walked to the table, fingers brushing aside a half-finished potion vial. “The Blood Moon doesn’t just affect monsters.”

She turned to him, frowning.

Seth continued, pulling the shutters tighter. “It affects us too, or what’s left. That’s why we isolate during the event. Not just to avoid danger, but to protect others from ourselves.”

Suzuri listened, arms folded loosely.

“People change under it, turning into some kind of second self. Unfiltered. Raw. The Blood Moon force us to vent all the pressure we build over the time through that. A release valve of sorts. For some, it can be harmless, like crying eight hours straight. For others… not so much. Guiltless impulses, ugly truths… And the more you bury, the stronger it claws back up. Even the calm ones.” He paused at that. “No, especially the calm ones.”

Her lips parted a little.

She caught the meaning. He saw it in the way her gaze dropped for a moment.

“No one’s ever managed to sleep through a Blood Moon,” he added after a beat, watching her reaction. “So don’t try. Just… wait it out.”

Her brow furrowed slightly. “But… maybe I should go outside for a while. You’ll have more room. Might be easier for both of us.”

“No,” he said, sharper than intended. “You’re still too tired. If something happens out there and you’re already washed out—” he trailed off, jaw clenched. “It’s better if you’re here and not spent.”

She didn’t argue, not really. But her eyes narrowed, and her mouth pulled into a quiet line. “There are no other options, uh?”

“I’m afraid not.”

So it begins.

The hours crawled, awkward and slow.

At first, they clung to opposite ends of the room. She settled by the firepit, cross-legged, her chain weapon coiled at her feet as she sharpened the blade in a steady rhythm. He busied himself at the workbench, though his tincture bled with the wrong hues, and the flame beneath the crucible flared too high, too low, never quite right. He did not correct it.

It’s been a while since they ended together like this.

He told himself to remain productive, but his attention slid again and again to the way her frame caught the fireglow, to the subtle shifting of her collarbone beneath the drape of her robe, to the rise and fall of her chest with each breath. And when he managed to keep his eyes forward, the feeling of her gaze pressed between his shoulder blades: intense and searching, carving its way through cloth and flesh, coiling low in his gut.

He didn’t need to look for confirmation.

Outside, the dead clawed at the stone walls, scrabbling with no rhythm. Sometimes, a moan bloomed from the dark: long, wet, and uneven, as if something tried to remember how to speak. Fingers scraped the iron-reinforced door with maddening insistence, a ceaseless murmur of nails and hunger. The hinges trembled with each slam, though they held.

Inside, silence grew brittle.

Eventually, it cracked. A tossed remark, dry and barbed. A breath of laughter that didn’t quite reach the eyes. Observations meant to distract; small, clumsy ropes thrown across the widening distance. They tried to play normal, to fill the gaps before the weight of that blood-colored sky scraped too much of their restraint away.

But it wasn’t enough.

He knew he was changing under its influence. It didn’t twist him into rage the way it might others. No. It hollowed him out instead, stripping his care from the inside, leaving him brittle and icy. His heart ached so constantly from the weight of his duty, from yearning, from wanting something he could never have, that the numbness the event brought him almost felt like mercy.

“Seth.”

He hadn’t heard her approach. Only when her shadow draped over the workbench did he realize she was standing there: silent, still, watching.

His gaze lifted. Her eyes were fixed on the open notebook, the page covered in his handwriting, the tests and the formulas for the Anchor series laid bare in ink.

Too late to shut it.

“I’ve been wondering lately…” she began, low. “If I’ve been doing a good job. As the Terrarian.”

He sat straighter, caught off guard; not by the question itself, but by the crack beneath it.

“I mean,” she went on, “after what happened in the cave, I kept wondering if that… state… was part of the role, and that maybe being the Terrarian meant learning to live with… whatever that was.”

Her breath escaped in a slow exhale. At last, she looked at him, and he could see the vulnerability in her eyes. “But that’s not the case, is it?”

“Suzuri—”

“I understand what you’re trying to do,” she cut in, smiling faintly. But the smile curved downward, sagging under the weight of sorrow. “I’m afraid of myself too.”

The room constricted. Her words slid into him, not sharp, but dull and quiet.

“Still, those notes…” she murmured, eyes flicking back to the journal. “They made me feel like something you have to fix. A potential threat that might need to be contained.”

Seth tried to speak, but the words were clay in his throat. Howard’s voice echoed back in his skull, muddying what he might have said. Every thought churned into static.

Her expression faltered as she translated his silence. Her head bowed slightly, a shadow of pain darkening her face. “Sorry. I know I’m being too sensitive. It’s just… louder tonight.”

Suzuri ran a hand through her hair, eyes closed. “But the thing is, I always feel like this. I’m just usually doing a better job at ignoring it.”

That struck deep, threading into places he hadn’t even realized were open. He’d mistaken her stillness for resilience. He hadn’t seen just how much she tried to hold herself together until now, until it threatened to crumble.

Seth shifted his weight, leg bouncing under the bench. He could clearly see where this conversation was heading. “Suzuri… now is not the time for big talks. We’re not ourselves under a Blood Moon.”

“It’s been a while since I wanted to discuss about this, though,” she persisted, pressing forward. “But you’ve always been slipping away. So I thought maybe I had done something wrong. Maybe I was being too much.”

“It’s not that,” he said, forcing the words through his tightening throat. “It’s not just the two of us anymore. Howard is here now. More will come.”

Suzuri blinked, stunned. “So more people means I don’t get to speak to you anymore?”

“That’s not what I meant.” His sigh was barely audible.

“Howard looks at me like I might snap his neck the moment he displeases me. And I know the next people will do the same. But that’s not the point. I choose who I trust. Who I open up to.”

Seth wanted to say he longed for her to reach out to him. That he ached for it. And heck, that he wanted to have her all for himself for that matter, unable to bear the idea of her closer with others than with him.

But he still stood his ground. He had to.

“It might take time for them to get to know you. That’s all.”

The words tasted bitter; they clung to his tongue like rust.

“…Why are you doing this?”

It wasn’t a question; it was a plea.

His fists curled tight enough for the skin to sting, the tremor in her voice crushing the fragile resolve in him.

“You can’t understand.”

“Because you won’t let me!” she snapped, crossing the distance between them. “You shut me out before I even get a chance!”

“I’m trying to protect you!”

“I don’t need that!” Her voice rose, fraying but fierce. “I just… I need you.”

The sound of it. The shape of that word. It hit him square in the chest and cracked everything open.

He rose abruptly, palm slamming the workbench and sending bottles rattling. “You think I wanted this? That I wanted to care this damned much about you!? I didn’t! But if I stay close, if I make you start to care as well, you’ll hesitate. And that hesitation will cost everything!”

Suzuri let out a sharp, bitter scoff. “Might be too late to warn me about that.”

Seth froze. Lips parted. A scream caught in the shape of a confession. He could feel it there, hovering, heavy on the tip of his tongue. But he knew what it would do. Knew how it would unravel the fragile bond between them.

But the Blood Moon pressed down, and he couldn’t hold back anymore.

“I just wish you weren’t the Terrarian.”

The words tore free, too fast, landing like a wound torn open.

Her face stilled, then shattered. Shock morphed into something uglier. Her lips parted, but no sound came. Her gaze hollowed, stripped of its warmth. Pain. Rage. Disbelief. It all ignited in one look.

He wanted to explain. That he meant he wished someone else had been picked, like some foolish idiot who is all about strength as he expected the Terrarian would be, instead of some painfully captivating humane individual like her. Maybe then, he could carry out his fate without remorse.

But her voice struck first.

“I’m giving everything my everything in this. I fight, I build, I bleed for this place. For you. And I’m still not enough!?”

He couldn’t answer.

She grabbed an empty vial and hurled it across the room. It shattered against the wall behind him, a broken fragment slicing his cheek.

He couldn’t flinch.

“You coward,” she hissed. “Say something!”

He couldn’t talk.

She stormed forward, grabbed his collar, and slammed him into the wall. The impact rang through his bones.

“Come on,” she urged, close now. Her breath grazed his skin. “Fight back. Give me one of your clever explanations so I can accept them and try to do better, anything I can hold on to!”

He couldn’t.

He deserved this. All of it. And maybe, just maybe, if she came to hate him, she’d be able to face what will come.

But his body betrayed him: breath catching, nerves alight, skin prickling where her warmth met his. Goosebumps rose in a silent, shameful wave. Every inch of him was painfully aware of her: the way her heartbeat pounded through the space between them; the way her touch scraped against something buried in him he could never quite cage.

The shame burned hot, folding into the hollows of his chest. Seth clenched his jaw, shut his eyes, and tried to will it away, but desire and guilt are poor listeners.

He hated the part of him that responded to her proximity like this. Despised the shivers crawling up his spine. Resented the way his heart faltered when her hand let go of his collar to rest on his chest.

The weight of her body held him firm against the stone, yet he could feel her tremble.

Not with rage.

With fear.

Something inside him softened, cracked

With the kind of care one uses to tend a wound that hasn’t stopped bleeding, he raised his hand. It hovered for a heartbeat before it found and cupped her cheek, reverent.

Not to stop her. Not to push her away.

Just contact. Gentle. A single, aching gesture.

She stilled. Her arms dropped, releasing him at once.

“…Why?” she whispered, eyes burning with unshed tears as she leaned into his touch. “I just want to understand…”

“I’m sorry.”

It was all he had left.

She turned away, walking to the door. Her hand paused on the knob; shoulders tensed. For a moment, he thought she might look back. That the silence might crack and give them one last chance.

But the gulf between them had widened too far.

“I’ll go kill a few monsters,” she murmured. “I’ll be careful.”

And she left.

She never looked back.

Seth slid to the floor, spine pressed to cold stone. Blood clung to his cheek, drying slow. He buried his face in his hands.

“…Damn it.”

Notes:

Angst tag had been added because there's nothing more angsty than not wanting to hurt someone but failing miserably and making things worse.
Also, the Guide's life sucks.

But no worries, it will get better.

Someday.

Eventually.

Chapter 8: To love and to wound

Summary:

An evil presence is watching you.

"All those frown lines before thirty? How tragic.” Lisa deplored, tying the bandage firm around his palm. Smoke curled lazily from the cigarette between her lips as she grinned at him. “Such a waste of a pretty face.”

Seth rolled his eyes as he pulled his hand back, flexing the stiff fingers against the sting: the preparation he spilled had cost him half a vial and the skin of his palm. He should have been more careful.

The product Lisa applied smelled sharp through the bandages, laced with alcohol and smoke; the second clung to her hair, her sleeves, even her laugh when it broke loose. She leaned back on the stool, balancing on its rear legs with the easy slouch of someone who had long stopped caring about appearances, pulling the cigarette from her mouth to tap the ash into an empty glass vial. “You ever practice smiling? Or do you think brooding makes you cool?”

He didn’t rise to the bait; he rarely did, though the nurse seemed determined to dig until she struck something. She had arrived a week ago, with her bag of medicines and a voice roughened by drink and smoke. Unlike Howard, who spoke with the deliberate courtesy of an old merchant, Lisa sprawled into places; she filled a room, laughed too loud, and teased without hesitation. She claimed the newly built stone house for herself, lined the walls with bottles, and turned the whole living room into her clinic.

“You know, my job is to patch up people,” she continued, unbothered by his silence, before pressing a finger against his forehead. “… And healing doesn’t end at the flesh; there’s poison inside too.” Her eyes narrowed with mischief. “So tell me, pretty boy: you plan on sulking until the bags under your eyes turn into luggage, or do you want actual help with whatever’s eating you? Let me guess: everything’s to do with that Terrarian girl you keep walking on eggshells around.”

His jaw tightened. “It’s none of your business.”

“No, but it’s hard to ignore how the air turns uncomfortable every time you happen to be in the same room; gives me goosebumps.” Lisa flicked her wrist with disgust as though brushing the thought away. “Not my business, unless you make it mine.”

Seth almost smiled; almost. Lisa had that effect, tugging at his composure with her brazen ease. Suzuri’s silence pressed in one direction, all depth and restraint, while Lisa prodded the opposite way, stripping down walls with laughter and mockery.

“You’re relentless,” he said quietly.

“That’s the job,” she answered, shrugging. “Mend the cuts, set back the bones, stitch the skin. And when some fool walks around looking half-dead inside, I poke until they stop hiding it. Lucky for you, my oath means I don’t spill patient secrets. Even if they’re good ones.”

Seth exhaled, the sound closer to defeat than relief. His burned hand pulsed beneath the bandages, yet the ache inside his chest dwarfed it. For days he had swallowed words, hidden them beneath vials and parchment. Here, finally, stood someone who could hear them and let them vanish into smoke.

“Nothing is going to leave this room,” he declared, more command than question.

Her chair thudded back on all four legs, and Lisa leaned forward, elbows on her thighs, tone softening though her eyes stayed sharp. “Look. I drink too much, I smoke too much, and I talk too much. But one thing I don’t do is betray a patient. Everything you tell me stays sealed. Oath or no oath, I don’t get my kicks by spilling someone else’s confidences. Cross my black little heart and hope to die.”

Seth met her gaze. The weight of his truth pressed against his throat, heavy as stone, yet something in her shameless boldness gave him ground to stand on.

“Tell me first, what do you know of the Terrarian prophecy, exactly?”

Lisa blinked, thrown by the sudden shift. “The prophecy?” She dragged the cigarette from her lips and squinted at him as if to make sure he hadn’t just asked her whether the moon was made of cheese. “Well… everyone knows the same thing, don’t they? A Terrarian appears out of nowhere to fight off the baddies, dig up cool treasures, build things, and save our sorry asses. But they’re not alone. The world gives them a Guide too, a sort of… chosen partner.” She waved her cigarette, scattering ash onto the floorboards. “Someone to point them toward the right caves and warn them which mushrooms won’t kill them. You, in this case. That’s all I know.”

Seth didn’t speak at first. His silence stretched taut, enough to dim the grin tugging at Lisa’s mouth. This time, he was the one leaning forward, his eyes locked on hers, burning away her levity.

“That’s only half the truth,” he said. “The part everyone is told. The kind of story made to be written in stone for taverns and bedtime tales.”

Lisa frowned, smoke curling between them. “Go on.”

Seth took a sharp breath to steel his resolve, his hands fidgeting in one another.

“The Guide’s true name isn’t Guide at all. It’s… the Offering. That’s what we’re called among ourselves.”

Her cigarette slipped, hanging loose between her fingers. “The hell kind of title is that?”

Seth’s expression didn’t waver. “We don’t live to see the end. Our purpose isn’t to guide them forever; it’s to die by their hand. One day, when she’s ready to face what will come next, Suzuri will have to offer me to the Guardian of the World, the one that holds back this world’s marrow, to call it forth. Only then can she defeat it.”

Lisa stared. The stool creaked under her as she leaned back, as though the weight of his words demanded more space around her. “You’re telling me… your big role in all this… is to get murdered by her? And that’s supposed to be holy design?”

He didn’t answer. His stillness gave her all she needed.

She gave a short, humorless laugh and dragged a hand through her hair. “Well, shit. No wonder you look like the whole funeral every damn day. If I knew I was on borrowed time, I’d drink twice as hard.” Her tone shifted, rough but steady, carrying more weight than she usually allowed. “That’s cruel. That’s beyond cruel. They tell the rest of us the Terrarian saves the world with their Guide at their side, and you Guides are just… cannon fodder.” Her gaze lingered on him, sharper now, stripped of play. “And you’ve been carrying that all this time, keeping her in the dark, letting her think you’re just here to babysit and give advice. God, Seth.”

He flinched faintly, averting his gaze. “She doesn’t need to know.”

Lisa ground the cigarette into the tray until the ember died with a hiss. “Doesn’t need to know? She’s the one meant to swing the blade. She deserves the truth: her role is too big for that.”

His jaw clenched, his fingers tightening on his bandaged palm. “And if I tell her, what do you think will happen? She’ll never go along with it, and it wouldn’t be my life alone on the line; it would be the whole world’s neck. I can’t force her to carry such a weight; I have to make things easier to bear.”

Lisa tilted her head, eyes narrowing. “So your brilliant plan is to make her hate you? Push her so far she’ll be glad to bury you? That’s twisted, even for you.”

He didn’t deny it.

Her look sharpened; she leaned in, elbows pressing to her knees, the sharp scent of tobacco still hanging around her. “You ever thought about what it feels like on the other side after that? Picture her standing over your corpse, choking on all the ‘what ifs,’ replaying every moment where, maybe, she could have done something. You think grief is bad, then try remorse. Try living with a silence that never shuts up because it’s filled with all the things you never said. You think you’ll make it easier for her? You won’t. You’ll only make it worse. And you won’t die clean either: you'll go knowing you left her with that poison. You’ll leave this world feeling like shit because it’ll be too late to be honest.”

Her words hit deeper than he wanted them to. He sat back, shoulders pressed into the chair, staring at the stone wall. For a long moment, no sounds dared to break the air. She was right; he hadn’t thought that far. But still…

“Whatever I decide to do, it’s not going to end well.”

“It won’t. That’s why you have to choose the path you’ll regret less.”

Lisa studied him in silence, her words settling in him for a moment.

“You two look like you’ve walked through some shit together already. Feels like things weren’t always like this between you.”

Seth’s hand curled tighter. He didn’t answer, his mind too busy remembering the hurt in her face after what he told her during the Blood Moon. Things have never been the same after that night, and the scar she left on his cheek only served as a reminder of his failure every morning.

“Then why,” she pressed, softer still, “let yourself get entangled if you knew the ending all along?”

He closed his eyes for a heartbeat, as if dragging the word up cost him more than admitting his true role had. “Because I was lonely.”

Lisa froze, faltering. Something shifted in her eyes, like an old scar tugged open. “Yeah…,” she muttered, the grin sliding back but without its usual bite. “I’ve made countless mistakes for that reason too.”

Loneliness had been his essence: the silence of forests, the hunger of nights, the endless watching of a dying world. And then came the prophecy, the first crack of purpose in a hollow existence. He had accepted the truth of his role without question; death would come, and he would meet it head-on if it meant the world survived. The Offering. Even the word carried finality, like a nail already hammered into the coffin.

“I’m the kind of guy who never had something to lose,” he continued. “That’s why this role, knowing that I was necessary, that my sacrifice would mean something, gave me purpose. But that was until…,” he trailed off, unable to finish.

Lisa’s voice slipped in. “Until you met her. Until you fell in love. Until you, a man who thought he had nothing more to lose suddenly finds himself with everything.”

Seth pressed his bandaged hand against his knee, jaw tight. He couldn’t say the word aloud; love felt too fragile in his mouth. But Lisa had already spoken it for him, and the truth lay between them like a wound cut open to the air.

“She frightens me.”

The nurse tilted her head.

“Not because of what she can do,” he went on. “What frightens me is how kind she remains, even in this place. She can endure injuries with barely a sound, yet she apologizes for every mistake as if she owed the world for existing. She looks at me like I’m more than what I am. Like I matter beyond what fate demands. And that… that terrifies me more than the night itself.”

His words slowed, thick with weight. “Because when she looks at me that way, I almost believe it. And if I believe it, I forget what I’m meant for. I forget that one day, she’ll be the one who has to strike me down. And I can’t afford to forget.”

He pressed the heel of his good hand against his brow, breathing out sharply. “Every day, I tell myself the distance keeps her safe. That it keeps the balance intact. But she keeps breaking through. With every smile she gives me, every stubborn word she throws back in my face, I feel it, like a rope pulling tighter. And I know that when the moment comes, it won’t be just my life I’m giving. It will be her heart too. That’s what the world demands.”

Seth closed his eyes. Suzuri’s face rose behind the lids: her quiet persistence, the fire that burned when she thought herself weak, the way she always looked back at him no matter how far ahead she ran. A weight pressed into his chest, familiar and unbearable.

“She’ll never forgive me,” he whispered.

Lisa gave a slow, wicked grin. “Well, duh. If you keep hiding, that’s it. Hurts to see her wandering around looking like a lost puppy who has just been kicked out by its only family. And if you don’t try your luck with her soon…” She shrugged, eyes glinting. “I will. God knows she’d look better tangled in my sheets than you do in your own sulking.”

For the first time in days, Seth felt the corner of his mouth twitch. Not quite a full smile yet, but something near it. Lisa hummed.

“See? Told you, pretty boy. Smiling definitely suits you better.”

The grin lingered on Lisa’s mouth when the air changed.

Not the draft of a window left ajar, not the murmur of wind through the trees outside. This cut deeper, invisible claws scratching along his skin. The hair on his forearm bristled, his throat constricted, and his chest filled with the undeniable weight of being watched. A gaze too vast, too malignant, pressed against him from the dark sky.

Seth stilled.

Lisa’s chatter died with the sudden gravity in his face. For one long heartbeat, silence strangled the room. Then her stool screeched back, and she stood, gaze locked on his.

“Shit,” she muttered, sharp and sober now.

He pushed up to his feet, heart hammering. “Gather what you can: bandages, anything to keep someone standing when they shouldn’t be.”

Lisa already moved, sweeping bottles and poultices into her satchel with the speed of someone who had been through worse nights than most lived. Their gazes crossed once more: no jokes this time, only grim acknowledgment.

Seth bolted out the door.

Outside, the night carried no stars, only a vast curtain of shadow stretching endlessly overhead. The usual chorus of frogs, night birds, and wind through the branches had drained away, replaced by the oppressive silence of something huge approaching. His boots struck the stone as he rushed toward his house. Inside, his hands flew across shelves and crates: rows of vials clinked as he seized potions, stuffing them into a leather pouch. Regeneration, swiftness, iron skin. He fastened the pouch to his belt, grabbed his trusty bow from its mount, and slipped on the quiver loaded with arrows. The familiar weight steadied his pulse, drew his breath even again.

The Guide returned.

He could indulge in torment later.

For now, it was time to fight.

He found Suzuri in the clearing, motionless, her signature weapon already unwound and coiled around her fingers with idle tension. She did not look at him. Her eyes clung to the treeline, where the forest shadows swelled and parted: a single vast eye glared through, its surface throbbing with crimson veins, each pulse sending a shiver down his spine.

The Eye of Cthulhu had arrived. A cold, clammy presence that makes even breathing difficult.

Seth strode to her side, pressing glass vials into her palm. “Iron skin first. Keep your distance; don’t let it force you in. It will spawn lesser servants; I’ll handle those. Your target is the main threat.”

Suzuri didn’t argue, never did when danger pressed this close. She bit the cork loose, swallowed the potion in a sharp tilt of her head, and exhaled through her nose, steadying herself.

“Final warning,” Seth continued, low and taut. “Once weakened, the eye sheds: flesh peels back into a maw, and it will throw itself at you with everything it has left.”

Her nod came quick. She shifted her weight to run.

But his hand closed around hers, halting her in a rare moment of hesitation.

For the first time since that night, he allowed himself to meet her gaze. “Just… be careful. Nothing you’ve faced until now compares to this.”

Her fingers sealed around his with a reassuring squeeze; no words for a moment, only the warmth of her hold. “Stay safe.”

She broke from him first, flaring forward. The clearing shuddered as the Eye descended, its bulk drowning out what little light clung to the forest canopy. Suzuri stood at the center, chain weapon dangling slack against the grass, as the monstrosity loomed above her.

Seth melted back into the treeline. His bow was already raised, string taut. Shadows rippled at the Eye’s flanks: small, twisted things, its servants, tearing free from its iris and pupil. He loosed without hesitation. Each arrow pierced through chittering flesh, sending the creatures tumbling into the dirt one by one. He kept moving, never in the same place twice, his arrows always from unseen angles.

The first charge came without warning.

She dove aside at the last instant, the air ripping in its wake as the monstrous orb tore through the space she had just occupied. The earth split where its bulk scraped the ground, roots torn free, bark shredded from trunks as if by a colossal blade. She rolled, wings unfurling to catch her momentum, vaulting upward in a spray of dirt and torn grass.

The chain hissed as she hurled the crescent end wide, aiming to slash across the eye’s glistening surface. Curved steel rang against its perfectly rounded body, sliding off with no wound following. Suzuri’s jaw clenched as she recalled the blade, already twisting mid-air to avoid the second charge. The thing was fast, far faster than its size should allow.

From the shadowed treeline, Seth kept nocking arrows, movements calm and efficient. This was his war: unseen, steady, carving paths for her in silence.

Lisa crouched beside him. He hadn’t noticed her arrival until then, hidden behind the same wall of bushes, her satchel open, syringes lined and ready. She tracked Suzuri’s every move like a battlefield medic, waiting for the instant she would be needed. Seth wanted to order her back, away from the peril, but the resolve in her face silenced the words before they left him.

“She has to win this,” she whispered.

“She will,” Seth retorted, never taking his eyes from Suzuri. Another arrow flew, cutting down a servant that had curved behind her flank. “But it won’t be clean.”

His fear grew with every close call. She had not yet lost herself again, not yet, but her rhythm staggered under the Eye’s relentless pace. She was seconds away from falling into that pit inside her, where fury burned and self-control shattered. If that happened here, the clearing would end in blood: hers or everyone else’s.

Lisa remained low, clutching a medicine box in one hand, her lips moving around a curse every time Suzuri brushed death too closely.

Suzuri gritted her teeth as the Eye’s next dive clipped her wing, the sheer pressure of its passage spinning her sideways. Her shoulder slammed against a trunk, bark splintering under the force. She gasped, one knee buckling, but the weapon in her hand never faltered, knuckles turning white as she held onto it like a lifeline.

Sweat streaked her brow. Her strikes came quick, but the rhythm of battle remained elusive. The Eye’s pattern was relentless, an endless sweep of charges and sudden halts, each movement as smooth and curved as its form. It offered no sharp angles, no handholds, no softness to pierce.

Her blades sang, but each cut kept skidding harmlessly against its curve.

She needed more than power. She needed the pattern.

Her gaze sharpened as she darted upward again, wings beating hard, her body slicing through the canopy until her boots landed on top of a tree. From here, she watched it. Each charge started with a twitch, each halt followed by a faint shudder as if the bulk of its mass resisted stopping. Three charges in total before it tries to loom over her while spawning servants. Predictable, if she could time it well.

The chain whirled around her wrist, metal singing through the air. With a sharp throw, the pointed blade buried deep into the trunk of a massive oak at the clearing’s edge. Bark split, sap bleeding, the steel locked firm. Suzuri yanked once to test its hold.

The Eye turned, crimson veins pulsing brighter, and hurled itself toward her with enough force to split stone.

She waited. Heart hammering.

At the last possible breath, she kicked off into its path, her chain wrapping taut around the anchored trunk. She spun into a blur, turning the motion in a vicious arc, the Eye’s bulk grazing inches from her boots as she whipped around its flank.

Momentum carried her straight toward its back.

With a cry, she loosed the crescent blade. It spun wide and curved, then bit not into its polished surface but sliced across the thick, ropy optical nerves that wiggled behind it like tentacles.

The sound was obscene, a wet rupture as thick, dark fluid burst forth. The monster convulsed, reeling from the strike, its screech rattling through bone and leaves alike. Suzuri landed hard, rolling across the earth before she yanked the blade free and struck again, another arc, another pull around the trunk, another slash at the same tender point.

“Got you,” Suzuri hissed, already recalling her blade, using the other end to pierce its body and hold onto the chain to not get ejected a second time. She swung again. And again. Each strike arced at the same point, relentless, carving into the weakness she had found. She lashed out, more brutal, more reckless than her usual self.

The Eye faltered under the barrage, its movements turning erratic. But it still fought, using wild charges to force Suzuri into desperate evasions. More than once, the monstrosity collided against trees when she landed on it, trying to crush her in the process, and more than once she ducked seconds before being flattened beneath its mass. Blood streaked her sleeve from a shallow cut made by a tree branch, her breath ragged.

But she found it: the pattern, the rhythm, the way to turn its predictability into a flaw. Yet Seth still clenched his jaw, because the more she pressed, the closer came the second phase he had warned her of.

She anchored, swung, struck. Anchored, swung, struck again and again. With each cut, its fluid rained across the clearing, spattering Suzuri’s arms, wings, and face. Her teeth bared, eyes blazing with a fire that was dangerously close to the edge he feared. But she held. Still held.

Then, with a final, hideous wail, the Eye stilled mid-flight to start spinning on itself at high speed. The outer flesh split, and crimson tore wide into a vast, fanged maw.

Seth’s stomach dropped.

Phase two had begun.

Notes:

My corrector hates the way Lisa speaks.

Chapter 9: As we struggle

Summary:

Things go wrong.

The forest shuddered with the Eye’s transformation.

Flesh tore like fabric in a storm, peeling back to reveal a cavernous maw lined with jagged fangs, each tooth long and sharp as a blade. Its scream, no longer shrill, had become guttural and wet: the voice of something made only to devour.

Seth’s throat tightened. The servants were gone, and so was his sole task. This stage belonged only to her now.

With barely enough time to slip aside as it dove at her in a frenzy of teeth and speed, the first snap of its jaws missed Suzuri’s leg by the width of a breath. She rolled on the dirt before catching herself with her wings, only to be forced into a sharp leap as the thing twisted mid-flight and hurled forward with primal hunger. Its fanged mouth slammed down right where she had stood just a second ago.

The ground cratered. Splinters and soil flew skyward.

Suzuri anchored her chain into a trunk once more, teeth gritted. She spun wide, blade flashing through the air as she aimed for the same target as before: the tender nerves in its back.

But this time, the monster saw that coming.

It spun in a blink, the maw snapping shut over the weapon in mid-swing, steel screeching against teeth. With a crack like bone breaking, the crescent shattered under the pressure, sending fragments flying under Suzuri’s hopeless gaze. She jerked back and landed, breath ragged, the chain falling on the ground, its weight gone. Only the piercing point at the other end remained.

Seth’s gut turned to ice. “Damn it,” he hissed under his breath, clutching his bow.

Suzuri staggered back two steps, eyes darting. Her hand flicked upward, and in its place appeared a staff, one he had never seen her wield before, slim and capped with an amber gem that hummed faintly in the dark. She leveled it at the creature, lips set, ready to strike.

But nothing came.

No light, no flame, no arcane surge. Just silence.

The staff stayed inert in her hand.

“What—?” Lisa whispered, crouched tense beside him.

Seth’s stomach turned cold as the truth slammed into him. “She must have no mana,” he concluded aloud, voice rough. He had never tested her affinity with magic before; she had taken to her weapon with such grit, he had never thought to see if she could channel psychic abilities at all. His gut twisted at his oversight. That staff was as useless in her hands as a broken stick.

Suzuri’s rhythm, the careful thread she had been weaving to keep from losing focus, shattered with the disbelief. She faltered a beat too long, eyes wide, just as the monstrosity surged again. It lunged low, jaws gaping, and she twisted too late: its maw closed on her right shoulder with a wet crunch, teeth sinking deep into flesh.

Her scream tore through the clearing.

Seth moved without thought, arrow loosed straight into the socket of its jaw, trying to force it back. It reeled, not wounded but irritated, tossing Suzuri aside like a rag doll. She crashed through undergrowth, rolled across dirt and stones, and came up clutching her shoulder, blood spilling between her fingers. Her right arm hung useless, limp against her side.

“Potion, now!” Seth bellowed, helpless.

Suzuri, shaking, materialized a potion from her inventory with trembling fingers. She bit the cork free, swallowing down the glowing liquid with crimson staining her lips as the bleeding slowed to sluggish trickles. Her face was pale, drenched in sweat, but she pushed herself upright. The wound sealed enough to staunch the flow, but the arm remained limp, her breath coming in harsh, uneven gasps.

Beside Seth, Lisa’s hand flew to her mouth. Her pupils darted, words bursting out in a rush. “The stars…! This morning, she asked me about the falling stars! Said she had four. I told her it was something about mana, but I didn’t know more!”

Seth’s hand froze mid-draw, eyes narrowing. “Four…?”

Lisa nodded.

“She needs five,” Seth muttered, the realization cold and brutal. “Five to awaken mana. She’s one short.”

His pulse thundered in his ears. Suzuri was cornered: half her weapon shattered, her right shoulder ruined, and her scepter useless. Still, the Eye circled, its vast maw dripping with her blood, hungering for the final strike. Seth shifted his grip on the bow, every sense sharpened to a point.

If she fell now, everything ended.

That’s when a ray of light caught his attention.

A single star tore the night open, trailing a golden dust. It sparkled across the sky and fell, hissing through branches until it struck earth in the very center of the clearing. Light exploded outward, harsh and blinding, illuminating the Eye from below like a grotesque lantern.

Seth’s breath stopped short.

A fallen star. The final piece.

He didn’t think; he ran. His boots tore through brush, and his heart thundered in his ears. The Eye twisted in midair at his reckless charge, its jaw snapping toward him. Suzuri had been hidden, forcing it to chase shadows, but his sprint through the open grass painted a clear target.

Yet, he didn’t stop.

The star smoldered in a shallow crater, pulsing faintly like a heart torn from the sky. Seth slid to his knees, snatched it up, and tied it fast to the shaft of an arrow. His hands moved without error, quick as any potion-brewing, despite the adrenaline coursing through every fiber of his being.

He rose, nocked the arrow, and drew the string taut. His voice cut through the clearing. “Suzuri! Fuse them! Consume it!”

The arrow streaked through the dark and landed perfectly. She caught it one-handed with her good arm, fingers clenching around the glowing shard.

But the Eye was already plummeting, drawn to him now, hunger boiling in its howl. Seth barely had time to raise his bow again before a blur shot across his vision.

Suzuri.

She broke from cover and dashed between him and the monster. Using the momentum, her left arm swung wide, hand clenched on the spiked blade of her chain like a knuckle duster. Her fist landed with such brutal force the sound carried like a tree snapping in half. Bone cracked, audible even over the thing’s screech as her forearm bowed grotesquely under the impact, her shoulder snapping free of its socket with a sickening pop. Now, both her arms dangled at her sides, limp and useless.

Seth’s stomach twisted in horror. “Suzuri…”

But she didn’t answer.

Instead she turned, stepped back until her left shoulder pressed against the trunk of a nearby tree, and with a sharp twist slammed her body into it. The pop of bone sliding back into its socket cracked through the clearing. Her face didn’t even flinch. No scream, no cry. Only emptiness, as if even pain no longer existed.

She had lost control again.

Seth staggered back into the treeline, breath ragged, forcing himself to vanish once more into the shadows. His pulse rattled in his ears, his vision still burning with the image of Suzuri’s shoulder wrenching itself back into place. Lisa crouched beside him, wide-eyed.

“What the hell did I just see?” she hissed. “No human being should be able to go their merry way after that. Heck, nobody is supposed to be able to throw a punch like that in the first place!”

He didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His gaze clung to Suzuri’s figure as she straightened from the tree, moving with that same hollow presence he had seen in the cavern, when fury had hollowed her out and left nothing human in its place. Her steps were unhurried now, calm to the point of terror, a slow, deliberate stride toward the monstrosity.

Lisa grabbed his arm, whispering harshly. “Seth. Talk to me. What the actual fuck is going on?”

He shook her grip off, bow steady in his hands, voice a taut whisper. “Focus on the fight. Explanations later.”

The air around Suzuri shifted, heavy and foreign. She walked straight into the monster’s path, her body slack and her expression unreadable as her chain trailed menacingly behind her.

The Eye bellowed, its scream shuddering through the branches.

When it hurled itself at her, she didn’t evade. She leapt, wings spreading wide, and landed atop its bulk in one unbroken motion. Her scepter appeared again in her hands, though she didn’t hold it the expected way: instead, she reversed it in her grip and drove the ember end downward, piercing the ragged hole she had carved before with her chain’s point. The wood groaned under the strain, disappearing into the creature’s flesh as she forced it deeper, her whole body rigid with effort as she pushed with both arms, blood cascading down her wrists from her injury.

“Goddammit, Seth!” Lisa cursed, her disbelief growing. “I’m no mage, but even I know that’s not how it works! Have you ever taught her anything at all!?”

He shook his head, as stunned as her. “I thought it was… basic knowledge.” Then again, Suzuri had swallowed a life crystal like it was food, and pretty much everything about her either breaks the rules or is downright weird. The Guide sighed. “She never does things the way she’s supposed to.” And he should have known better.

The Eye convulsed under the pain, spinning and trying to shake her off, but Suzuri clung to the embedded scepter, her body braced low like a predator forcing its jaws deeper into prey. Viscous ichor poured around her wrists, soaking her chest, streaking her face emptied of everything else.

Her left hand unclenched, and light bloomed from her palm as she gathered the five fallen stars. They fused, their glow condensing, hardening into a single crystal that pulsed with raw mana. Then, with a single clench of her fist, she crushed it. The glow shattered into fragments, bleeding into her skin until her veins blazed with a faint, otherworldly shimmer.

The staff answered, light racing along its length.

The monster started to convulse. Its large body spasmed, screeching in agony, light coming out from its mouth when it opened.

That’s when Seth realized what she was doing.

It bulged and split as the surge within its body only grew stronger, rays of light escaping from its flesh slowly tearing apart.

The Eye froze midair, its bulk swelling and swelling until…

It burst.

Flesh ruptured outward in a storm of gore, raining viscera and black ichor across the clearing. Chunks slapped against the earth, viscous strings draping from branches. The scream ended not with a cry but with a wet implosion that turned upside down Seth’s stomach.

Silence returned, broken only by the hiss of blood steaming where it rained down across the grass, across Seth’s shirt, and across Lisa’s pale hands.

Suzuri dropped to the ground amid the carnage, wings disappearing, arms dangling at her sides, clothes soaked and dripping.

Seth lowered his bow, chest tight with something he could not name. Relief, horror, awe, disgust.

Lisa stared, livid as bone, lips parted in a way that mirrored his own shock.

Neither had expected such raw brutality.

But it had worked.

Lisa broke the silence first, her voice dry as tinder. “Well… I’ll be damned. But hey, ten out of ten for creativity, I guess.”

Seth almost answered, but the words burned away the instant his eyes found Suzuri. She staggered forward a step, then another, her knees folding. He broke from cover before she hit the ground.

Her body sagged into his arms, soaked with blood, too much of it her own. Her breath came ragged, her face pale beneath the mess streaking her skin.

“Easy there, tiger,” he murmured, though his heart hammered so hard the word came out ragged. One hand braced the back of her head, and the other clutched tight around her waist to keep her upright. She was trembling, but her eyes, wide and glassy, still flickered with that emptied, feral light.

That was when a voice cut through the clearing.

“Well, damn. Looks like I missed my chance to pull a few bullets into that bastard myself.”

Seth’s head jerked up. A man stood at the far edge of the clearing, half-shadowed, tall, wearing a dark green coat and a heavy golden chain catching the starlight. He walked with no hurry, boots crunching against the scattered gore, eyes glinting with a too-sharp interest as they passed over Suzuri in his arms.

Seth eased her against the ground and rose, bow in hand, string already drawn. His tone was cold, sharp as flint. “Who are you? And what do you want?”

The stranger’s grin widened, white teeth flashing beneath the shadow. “Relax, I’m just a man with an eye for opportunity.” He said as his hand drifted to his belt, taking and aiming something back at him.

Metal glinted under the moonlight.

A gun.

Seth’s pulse hammered, bowstring taut, every muscle ready.

But Suzuri moved first.

Her gaze snapped onto the weapon like a predator’s on prey. Even half-collapsed, her body surged forward, the chain recalled to her hand. She lunged at the man with lethal intent, every inch of her reading the gun as a threat to eliminate.

“Wait—!” Seth barked, but it was already too late.

Lisa darted forward, syringe already in hand, as she probably anticipated any complication with Suzuri’s feral state.

The needle plunged into the girl’s neck in one clean jab.

Suzuri froze mid-strike, weapon trembling inches from the stranger’s chest. Her eyes blazed once, teeth clenched, then her body slackened as the sedative spread. She collapsed into Lisa’s arms, her breath harsh but already slowing under the pull of the drug.

The man hadn’t moved at all. “Sure is a feisty one, isn’t she?” He said, lifting Suzuri’s chin in his palm as if analyzing some ware.

Seth stepped up, slapping his hand off her face. “Now,” he said, his voice low with venom. “You tell me exactly who you are.”

The man’s grin didn’t falter, even with Seth’s bowstring drawn a hair from his throat. He spread his hands slowly, as if offering no threat, though the pistol still gleamed at his belt.

“Easy, friend. Name’s Dante,” he said, voice smooth, almost easygoing. “I trade in arms: guns, ammo, and toys for people who like making noise. Felt a pull dragging me there, so here I am.” His gaze flickered between Suzuri’s limp form and the bloody clearing. “Though I’m late for the party, I see.”

Seth’s eyes narrowed. The same pull. Another one. But this time his gut churned with unease. Howard had brought supplies, Lisa had brought medicine, and Dante brought guns with the gleam of someone who enjoyed using them. Something about this shady guy definitely rubbed him the wrong way.

“Priority’s her,” Lisa cut in, hefting Suzuri against her shoulder with surprising strength. “I’ll take her to my place to get her stitched and steady. You two can compare your stupid male egos in the meantime if you'd like, but I’m out.”

Seth hesitated, bow still drawn, then lowered it with a sharp exhale. His instincts screamed not to let Dante out of his sight, but Suzuri came first. Always.

“You’re right.” He leaned in, murmuring low to Lisa so only she could hear, “Keep her close. Don’t let him touch her again.”

Lisa’s lips curved in a knowing smirk. “Careful, darling: your possessiveness is showing,” she nudged him, keeping her tone down as well. She glanced once at Dante, distrust plain. “You, stay out of my way.”

“A true professional never keeps two lovely ladies waiting,” the arms dealer replied, stepping back with a flourish of his hand that gave Seth goosebumps. “But don't you worry, sweethearts, I’ll make sure to stop by once in a while.”

Seth gave the irritating man a look, but he only smiled in return, though it didn’t reach his eyes.

 

---

 

Seth lingered outside Lisa’s home, pacing, then forcing himself still against the wall, leg bouncing stubbornly. Every minute felt too long. The cigarette smoke drifted before he saw her step out, shoulders slouched, eyes ringed in exhaustion. She flicked ash into the stone, lifted the cigarette back to her lips, and blew out a slow stream.

“She’s stable,” the nurse said at last. “Both arms wrecked, right shoulder torn open, left full of fractures. The strong stuff I’ve got will patch her up in no time, though for now, her body’s wrung out like an old rag. I still don’t know what you’ve fed her, but that girl’s running on something no human should.”

Relief washed over him so hard it hurt. His knees nearly gave, but he held himself straight.

Lisa’s gaze sharpened on him, smoke curling around her face. “Which brings me back to you, Seth.” She jabbed the cigarette toward him, ember glowing. “You’ve got some explaining to do. About her and whatever the heck I witnessed. I’m the nurse, for fuck’s sake: how am I supposed to save your stupid asses if I don’t know shit?”

Seth dragged a hand down his face, fingers trembling despite his best effort to steady them. The smoke from Lisa’s cigarette stung his throat, but he welcomed it: something harsh, grounding.

He told her what happened back then, in the cavern, with the spiders and the absolute carnage Suzuri left in her wake.

Lisa leaned her back against the stone wall beside him, listening to his story. Once he finished, she flicked the cigarette butt to the ground and crushed it beneath her boot. “Tell me something, Seth. Why do you think the human body feels pain?”

He frowned at the shift in tone, unsure if it was rhetorical. “To warn us… when something’s wrong?”

Her lips twisted in a humorless smile. “That’s the easy answer. But it’s more than that. Pain isn’t just an alarm; it’s a leash. A shackle. It forces the body to stop before pushing past the point of no return, as if saying: enough. That’s the limit.”

Lisa’s eyes gleamed, sharp even in exhaustion. “But that girl in there? When she flips that switch, there’s no leash. No shackle. No limit. She can put her own shoulder back into place like it’s nothing. She can throw a punch so hard her bones snap, and she’ll keep going, because nothing is telling her to stop. That until she drops dead from blood loss or something.”

Her hand lifted, fingers twitching faintly as if imagining the force of it. “That isn’t strength. That’s suicide.”

Seth’s jaw locked. He knew she was right. He had seen Suzuri hurl herself against monsters with nothing left in her tank, seen the way she didn’t hesitate to burn herself to ash if it meant getting rid of the threat.

Lisa’s voice dropped, flat as a medical verdict. “At this rate, Seth, she’ll tear herself apart long before anything else does.”

The silence that followed pressed heavy between them.

Lisa lit another cigarette, the flame flaring against her tired face. She drew deep, then exhaled slow, smoke rolling upward like a veil. “The good thing is, I’m starting to see a pattern. She reacted three times: back in the cavern when you got bit, tonight when that floating freak came for your throat, and again when pistol-boy flashed his toy at you.” She gave him a sidelong glance. “Don’t you notice anything already?”

Seth blinked, replaying each moment in his head: every time, Suzuri had gone feral the instant the threat turned against him. “You’re saying—”

“Ding ding!” She cut in. “Yup, you’re the trigger. Which means, spoiler alert, that it can be easily fixed if you stop being so reckless in the first place.”

He almost laughed, a short, bitter sound. “That’s easier said than done. Besides, we can’t say for sure it’s only me; it could be the other residents too.”

Lisa scoffed, smoke spilling from her lips. “Please. Howard barely leaves his stall, and I doubt I’d inspire that kind of berserker devotion.” She tapped ash against the stone. “And until we figure out how to keep her from flipping that switch, you better stop painting a bullseye on yourself every time something happens.”

Seth said nothing. He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes for half a heartbeat, only to open them at the sound of boots thumping over stone.

Dante.

The man strode into the dim torchlight like he belonged, that ever-present grin curled across his face. His dark green coat still bore flecks of gore from the clearing, and the heavy chain at his throat glimmered like he’d stepped out of another world entirely.

“Well, well,” Dante said, his voice smooth as oiled leather. “Quiet little town you’ve got here. Cozy spot. I’ll admit, though, I’m not sure if I can say the same about your welcoming committee.” His eyes flicked to Lisa’s cigarette. “Mind if I bum one?”

Lisa rolled her eyes but offered the pack with a flick of her wrist. He plucked one, lit it, and took a long drag, exhaling smoke that mingled with hers in the night air.

Seth’s jaw tightened. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, relax, friend.” Dante spread his arms, cigarette dangling between his fingers. “I just want to be the proud owner of one of these lovely little cottages.” His grin sharpened. “Though it seems the fourth one’s still under construction. Shame. Guess I’ll be the stray mutt with nowhere to curl up.”

The words hit like a blow Seth had already braced for. The same pull. Another resident. It was inevitable, maybe, but the thought of Dante’s smooth grin, pistol on his hip, and eyes that lingered too long, settling here, left a sour taste in his mouth. Everything about him screamed problems to come.

Lisa tipped her head, studying him openly. “So you’re saying you’re one of us now.”

“Not just saying.” Dante tapped ash to the ground. “I can feel it. Like being reeled in by an invisible hook.” His eyes glinted toward the dark window where Suzuri slept. “Pulled straight to her.”

Seth stiffened.

Lisa caught the shift and stepped in before the tension snapped. “Well, lucky for you, Mr. Arms Dealer, I happen not to be a fan of letting people sleep in the dirt and have a spare bed. So you can crash at my place until your fancy little house gets built.”

Seth turned to her, disbelief flashing across his face. “You can’t be serious.”

“Dead serious,” she replied, lips curving into a smirk that didn’t quite hide the calculation in her eyes. “The guy’s got firepower. Which, like it or not, makes him useful. Besides…” Her gaze flicked over Dante: broad shoulders, sharp smile, confident posture, handsome face, and she exhaled smoke through a half-laugh. “…he’s easy enough to look at. Might make the cigarettes taste less bitter.”

Dante chuckled low, taking it as easy as breathing. “Flattered, sweetheart. Though I warn you, I snore like a dying engine.”

Lisa waved it off. “In my field of work, you quickly learn to sleep through worse.”

Seth stared at her, incredulous. “Lisa—”

She jabbed the cigarette in his direction. “Don’t give me that look. You’ll be too busy watching over our local mad mascot over here to keep an eye on him. And Howard’s too old for watchdog duty. That leaves me.”

Dante spread his arms again, all mock innocence. “See? The lady’s got it all figured out.”

Seth’s gut burned with unease, but the truth was ironclad: Suzuri needed him at her side, and someone had to deal with Dante. Lisa was right.

Still, the thought of that man lingering so close set his teeth on edge.

Dante flicked the last of his ash to the dirt and crushed it beneath his boot. “Well then. I’ll let you two brood in peace.” He tipped his chin at Lisa with a smile too sharp to be charming. “See you later, sweetheart.”

He turned without hurry, boots thudding against stone as he vanished into the shadows, leaving only the sour tang of smoke in his wake.

Seth waited until the sound of his footsteps faded before he exhaled, slow and rough. “Lisa… are you really sure about this?” His voice edged low, carrying the weight of his unease.

She tilted her head back, blew out a ribbon of smoke, and gave him a tired grin. “What can I say? I’ve got a weakness for handsome faces. You can’t blame me for that.”

His frown deepened, suspicion plain.

She caught it instantly and barked out a laugh, harsh and short. “Don’t twist your guts over it. I’m not gonna do anything. Would be a waste, anyway.” Her smile was thin, her voice dry as she tapped ash from the end. “What’s the point of a fine young man like that wasting his time on a woman way past her prime?”

The words hung in the night air, half joke, half something heavier.

Whatever.

Seth was just too damn tired at this point.