The forest opened with a quiet reverence, trees parting like curtains before a half-buried structure. Stone spires jutted out at sharp angles, cracked by time but not collapsed—defiant, even in decay. Moss and ivy crawled along the facade, clinging like something afraid to let go.
A low whistle cut through the stillness. “Creepy name for a monastery.” Towan sniffed the air, his boots crunching over dead leaves as he stepped forward.
Elliot didn’t look up from the archway, his voice dry as the dust on the stones. “You say that like you’re surprised it looks cursed.”
“Nah, I’m impressed.” Towan’s grin flashed, but his voice dropped as his eyes traced the jagged silhouette against the sky. “Most ruins just feel abandoned. This one feels… lonely.”
They halted before a heavy door, its wood splintered and bowed under centuries of weight, hanging by rusted hinges that screamed at the slightest breeze. Faded glyphs clung to the archway—not carved, but scarred into the stone. The lines pulsed at the edges of vision, a flicker of light that vanished when stared at directly. Like catching echoes from another time.
Elliot reached out, tracing a glyph with his fingertip. A faint shimmer clung to his skin, iridescent as spider silk, before fading. “These wards weren’t designed to keep things out.”
Towan shouldered past him, the cheer in his voice too sharp to be real. “Cool, so we’re not breaking in. We’re walking into something that wanted company.”
The door groaned open with the weight of old wood and something deeper—regret, maybe, or resignation.
Inside, the air hung thick—not stale, not dusty, but still. As if the building had held its breath the moment they crossed the threshold. Tattered banners sagged from the rafters like flayed skin, their symbols devoured by soot and time. Stained-glass windows splintered light across the stone floor in jagged, colored shards—except for a few panes, pristine among the wreckage. Too intact. Too perfect.
“This place is wrong.” Elliot’s whisper clung to the walls, barely louder than the scuff of his boots.
Towan didn’t answer at first. His fingers brushed the edge of a banner, and the fabric crumbled at his touch. “Yeah…” His voice was low, almost reverent. “But it’s the right kind of wrong.”
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They moved deeper, footsteps tapping hollow echoes between the stones. Every third step, Towan hesitated—a tug at the edge of his memory, a turn of his foot that felt too natural, a hallway that unfolded exactly where he expected it.
(I’ve been here before.)
(No… not me. But someone like me.)
The thought slithered away as they passed a corridor of shattered doors. Stone dummies—training constructs for Essentia combat—stood frozen in grotesque poses: one charred black, its surface still radiating phantom heat; another half-melted, as if the air itself had turned to liquid fire. But no bodies. No bones. Just the lingering violence of a battle no one had stayed to finish.
Towan frowned at the crumbling walls. "What was this place? A temple? A dojo?" His fingers trailed along the rough stone, dislodging flecks of ancient mortar.
Elliot didn't look up from the inscriptions. "More like a training hall." He crouched, brushing aside thick moss with the side of his hand. The revealed carving stood out sharply against weathered stone. "Look."
The words emerged like secrets finally spoken aloud:
"Control is not silence. It is listening."
"To feel your Essentia is not to wield it, but to be heard by it."
Towan's laugh came out half-strangled. "Is it just me, or does that sound like something Leon would say right before throwing me into a lake?" The joke fell flat in the heavy air.
Elliot remained silent, his body rigid. His gaze had locked onto something in the next chamber.
Beyond the archway stood a long mirror, its surface cracked clean down the middle like a lightning strike. The glass warped reflections subtly - the kind of distortion you'd miss unless you were searching for it.
Towan moved into its view.
His reflection blinked first.
A cold wave crashed down his spine. Every muscle locked in place, his breath trapped somewhere between his lungs and throat. The Towan in the mirror smiled just a fraction too wide.
Towan's voice came out strangled. "...Did you see—"
"Yeah." Elliot's jaw clenched before the question finished. "I saw it."
The reflection snapped into place, perfect synchronization now. Towan stared at his own face—same sharp cheekbones, same worn jacket. But for that fractured moment, the man in the glass had carried decades in the lines around his eyes, scars he'd never earned, a weariness his years couldn't explain.
A dry swallow clicked in Towan's throat. "I think I hate this place."
Elliot's hand found his elbow, grip tight enough to bruise. "We're not alone here." The words hung in the air like the scent of ozone before lightning.
They edged past the mirror in lockstep, each shallow breath loud in the tomb-still chamber. The glass surface trembled faintly, as if disturbed by footsteps they hadn't taken yet.
Behind them, their reflections lingered.
Two figures stood framed in cracked glass long after the living had moved on—heads tilted in perfect unison, eyes tracking targets that had already left the room. Watching. Waiting. Remembering.