In the grey rain and suffocating darkness, a single red droplet fell and disappeared without a splash.

We all saw it. It was impossible to miss. It was the only colour in this bleak world, and when we turned to look, it was already gone.

The rain played a dirge that drowned out all sound. There were no screams, no desperate words, no swears, no running, no clutching and banging against the eroding safety raids to be heard — this was not a place, not a world that would allow those noises to be heard.

Sewn mouths and deaf ears. Sinking to the bottom, their latest victim.

This is your last warning. If you’re around by then, you’re stuck with us ‘till the end.

An innocent wish. Hands stained black with ink and tar.

Don’t follow me. Please.

My head spun. My imaginary heart twisted and snapped.

Let’s fast forward and glimpse the future.

A negligible loss, in the grand scheme of things. There were no end to the hired swords, and the showrunners had plenty of cash to spare. The job would continue. The world would go on. Those few who witnessed and remembered would bear a blemish in their hearts, yet they too would one day more on.

Broken things would be replaced. Those who step out of line will be punished.

It can’t be helped. That’s the way people are. For the greater good. There are any number of justifications and lines of thought that allow one to make sense of the world around them.

In time, these first few days in the outside world would be buried in the sands, overwritten by happier memories and brighter days.

It would be just another sorrow that I would have to embrace.

But.

What choice did I have?

There and then, I didn’t want to accept it. I couldn’t accept it.

It doesn’t hurt and I’m not alone. It’s the least that I could ask for.

I wasn’t there for Owl when she needed somebody. Anybody. Out of those who passed her by, I was the most guilty of all.

I saw that which she never shared with anybody else. A glimpse of her heart.

This was a logical conclusion created and executed by the world. A result of karma.

When I first encountered one of these dead ends, I had a feeling that I missed something. As it turns out, it was a certain hope that blinded me.

I foolishly believed that everything would turn out fine in the end if I did my best.

Where does change begin? Where does change end?

This time, I pray you can create your own future.

By ignoring these questions, you will never reach your desires.

In the grey rain, I remembered.

The strength to stand up to yourself and overcome.

To face reality, whatever it may be, and smile in spite of it all.

To take action before it’s too late.

There was still so much that I didn’t know. Still so much to learn. I was powerless against the challenges and trials that lie ahead, but here — here was somewhere I could fight back in earnest.

Somebody grabbed me when I leapt after her. Tapio built in a convenient feature; I hit the eject switch and launched my core into absolute darkness.

My glass container cracked when it hit the water. I reinforced the inside and outer surface with a layer of wind and carried out a new height of foolishness.

In the darkest depths where no light reaches flows an invisible current, a thread from the surface and the core of the planet. Only a bumbling fool would have the audacity to swim against it and deny natural order, and that was precisely what I intended to do.

I didn’t understand how Lyra had the strength to defeat her former self, even if victory came at the price of her very existence. Only with additional exposure to the outside world did I begin to understand her heart.

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She spent her entire life going with the flow, too scared to brave unknown waters. But without fear, there can be no bravery; without fools willing to deviate and crawl through a lonely hell, there can be no hope for the future.

That foolishness, that hope, borrowed as they may be, were bright enough to stake everything on.

Pale tendrils erupted from my core and broke through the glass protecting me, reaching for Owl. I latched on and focused on her broken meridians, ignoring the tragedy unfolding before me.

There was only one way to save her that I knew of, a solution learned from Grimm and Lyra. Despite taking multiple lethal wounds in a row, something allowed them to continue fighting and regenerating.

If I could induce a similar evolution, then she could keep living on.

I pulled her Ether from the water and injected it back into her, burning my own to replace what was permanently lost. From there, it was a matter of restarting her mind and forcing what was left of her Stigmata to evolve.

It would be a violation of her sanctity and dignity as a human being. To continue a story already ended. To expose the parts of the heart that should never be seen. But to hell with all of that — it wouldn’t end here. I wouldn’t let it.

Better to ask for forgiveness than pray for salvation.

And so, sacrificing fragments of my consciousness, I began the reconstruction.

A proper story starts at the beginning. Premise, setting, exposition, plot: an accessible story will take you by the hand and show you a clean picture and path, literary champagne cascading down tower glasses for easy enjoyment. Pick up one and admire the handiwork, the flavours, the texture, the beauty in a refined masterpiece. For some, the real tragedy is that it can only be experienced for the first time once; there is profound realization in finding an elegant painting that appeals to the senses and intellect, or perhaps a beautiful song that could move the coldest heart.

What remained was anything but.

Rewind the tape and let it burn once more.

A thing, more rot than man, departed on its last walk with a handful of bullets and an unwanted companion following behind.

There was a hero, once. She thought, if possible, perhaps she’d be happy if she walked the same path.

The first kill was with a sledgehammer. She threw up in his skull, emptying a stomach filled only with raw acid and the mush made from chewing a single piece of mouldy bread.

It couldn’t deny the voice, as it knew everything. It simply asked her to give in.

Days passed like grinding gears, fulfilling the duties of a machine, oiled with blood.

Her mind shouldn’t have been able to think so deeply. What was happening to her?

She was the eldest, despite being born to a twin. She was the colder of the two, but she loved her sister very much.

The first meal she bought was a crate of salvaged MREs from a black market contractor. She never forgot their smiles and tears of joy.

They never expected the child to do the deed. It always made the job easy.

In ensuring nobody was left behind, she was the only one trapped in the gears.

The girl who tried to become a machine couldn’t handle the stress of a machine’s work. The mechanic reached out and offered a solution.

The hero could only save one. Her last words were a smile.

Her brothers and sisters were all that were left. There was no one left to protect them.

Instead of burning out, the thing chose to leave like a human would. Like a human should.

Days of hunger. Days of starving. Days of watching others suffer.

So they thought.

Desires swelling from within. In the distance, the ghost of dreams long crushed.

At the mechanic’s behest, she killed. Maimed. Butchered. All in the name of a borrowed justice.

Behind it all, a desperate wish.

In a warm room filled with sunlight and the scent of freshly baked apple pie, two girls tinkered with their family’s trade. Tweezers for gears, a chisel for filing; the twins worked together in order to make ends meet in the place of their aging parents. They decided that their story would not be one of bloody succession and tragedy; theirs was a love that life couldn’t tear apart.

Was it wrong to wish for everybody’s happiness? To hope nobody was left behind?

All she wanted was a little more time to make her dreams into facts.

Her memories, emotions, and experience were all there for the taking. Had I simply embraced this tragedy and taken everything for myself, I would have instantly gained the freedom to do as I wish in this world. Yet in this world, I was the only one who heard her wish.

To add to my growing horror, I realized that her instability was entirely my fault.

Every time I tried to heal or comfort her, the Ether I carried, whether injected or by radiation, caused her Stigmata to mutate further, slowly pushing towards a physical manifestation. On the brink of its evolution, that damned woman — the same hellspawn that once tormented me and Lyra — reached out to Owl and spoke to her. Instead of falling to the woman’s words, she returned to where it all began and disappeared without a trace.

In the ultimate violation of the human spirit, I stitched her unwilling spirit back together the only way I knew how. Yet there wasn’t enough left of Owl to hold a conversation — the cost of reversing this tragedy would be much greater than a few words spoken at the perfect moment.

It would be another experiment: I could only hope to emulate what I’ve already seen. But just as she followed her life to its end, I was prepared to take whatever means necessary to ensure that she would find a better ending.

Preparing to slit my throat, I prayed that she would forgive me for whatever came of this heresy.

We came back onshore in a steel net salvaged from the ruins, pulled by the tag-team of Elias and Nina.

“She’s alive!” I heard Nina say, muffled by the miasma. “She’s… alive. No...”

I was blind, nearly deaf, and too weak to do anything. I had certainly accomplished something, yet I wasn’t sure how much of myself I gave up to do it.

“We’ll need to take a detour before we head back,” Elias said. “Follow me, I know of an Arts that can create a boat.”

Something beside me twitched. My mind had yet to recover, yet I felt proud for doing something right.

“I’m not sure if we can even return to Hadron if Owl’s like this,” Nina said, in a quiet and urgent tone. “Is that even…? I…”

“Say no more. We’ll find out and figure out a solution.”

An indeterminate amount of time passed. Several times Owl began to stir, and several times they injected a mysterious serum that quelled her struggle. They even covered me with some sort of bag that blocked out all my vision.

It was only when we reached the shore and saw for myself did I realize the reason for their reactions.

Owl didn’t come back right, and neither did I.