“Who?”

I jumped out of the chair as Papa’s voice echoed.

“C-Cain. W-where is Cain?” I mumbled, my mouth trembling.

“Who is Cain?” Theodore asked, that haunting smile fixed on his face.

I walked backward, feeling Papa and Theodore’s gaze following my every step.

“C-Cain, you-you know, Cain! Short brown hair, same eyes, twice our age, always grumpy, awakened a month ago. You-you know him!” I blurted out, my thoughts jumbled and frantic, before turning to Papa.

“Papa, you always tell embarrassing stories about him when he’s mean to us about the time he was our age.” Papa stayed silent, yet his smile spoke louder than words.

Turning to Theodore, I screamed, fear taking the better of me.

“You, Theodore! Just last night, you told me how mean he was to you when you found Gentian!”

Bumping into the wall behind me, I received no response from either of them.

“Stop smiling like that!” I yelled, running to peek outside the window.

I hoped—prayed that Cain was outside, sitting uncomfortably or punching the air, but no one was there. Racing to the second floor to check his room, I opened the door and fell back.

Not only was Cain gone, but all his stuff had vanished, too. The room was completely empty, the bed perfectly made as if it had never been touched, and the books Cain used to bring with him were nowhere to be found.

My eyes widened, and I rushed to check every room, clinging to the desperate belief that this was all just an ugly joke. Door after door, I was met with the same result.

Cain wasn’t here.

My hand reached for my chest for the third time, clenching hard yet feeling as if something crucial was missing from my palm.

Suddenly, a whisper made my ears twitch. It was so low I could barely make it out. Spinning toward its direction, a glimpse of Cain’s figure disappeared around the corner.

My heart pounded as I dashed for the door, but in my hurry, I slipped and fell just before reaching it. Crawling the rest of the distance, I peeked through the door, only to find an empty hallway.

Cain’s whisper sounded a little louder this time but still too faint to be understood, coming from the bottom of the staircase.

Running back down to the ground floor, other than Papa and Theodore, no one was there.

“I just heard him. Where is he?” I shouted, my head turning in all directions.

“Lyon, you are worrying me. Are you sure you’re okay?” Papa asked the concern in his voice stopping my frantic turns to look back at him. The smile was nowhere to be found. Instead, his eyebrows were touching in worry.

“No, I mean, yes, I’m fine. Did you not hear the whisper?” I asked with shaky breaths.

“W-what whispers? Lyon, you’re scaring me.” Theodore said, tears gathering in his eyes, ready to fall.

Papa took Theodore in a hug, and for a split second, they looked exactly like how I had found them burning in flames.

I screamed and fell back, hitting the door as I did so.

“Okay, that’s it. We’re visiting Orion. Something is definitely wrong with you today.” Papa said while cradling Theodore.

Curling into a ball, I pulled my hair, feeling like I was going crazy. Once I heard Papa say that Theodore had found me in my room yesterday, I knew something was wrong. I remembered clearly running away when I caught on to Papa’s lie, and from that point on, the pieces of the nightmare clicked into place, but did all that really happen? If so, what about Cain? Was I hearing things? Was Cain even real, or was he a part of the nightmare?

Just then, the whisper sounded again, this time loud enough to be heard. “…fault…”

I gasped and turned to the door, struggling to find the handle. The moment I did, I slipped, and as the door opened, the sunlight beamed directly into my eyes. For a fleeting moment, Cain’s figure illuminated through the light, however, a second later, when the light disappeared from my eyes, his figure hid behind a distant building.

“C-Cain!” I called for him, awkwardly trying to run behind him while still struggling to stand back up.

Papa called for me, but the pounding in my heart and my shaky breaths wouldn’t let his words reach my ears.

Racing for the building, each second felt like an entire minute. For each step, the distance seemed to grow, and my heart pounded louder. Not even halfway there, my breath turned raspy, and sweat trickled down my skin. Almost slipping to the turn, my feet dragged against the ground.

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“…your fault…” Cain’s whisper became even clearer than before.

Once again, in the far distance, close to the plaza, his figure vanished behind another building.

I didn’t give myself the time to catch my breath.

As I passed through the villagers, people would stop what they were doing and turn to me, their gazes fixed. The more they looked, the more twisted their stares became, the fire behind their eyes burning with hatred.

“It’s your fault.”

Upon reaching the next location, Cain’s voice sounded, and his figure reappeared behind another building again, and again, and a little later, again.

“It’s your fault.”

“It’s your fault!”

“It’s your fault!”

Each time it did, its volume would get louder. The once indiscernible whisper turned into a loud, echoing scream in my ears.

I was led through the entire village: first the plaza, then past Mr. Rorick’s blacksmith shop, followed by Mr. Orion’s house. The last time I saw him, he was heading outside the village, towards the forest.

With each new location, the surroundings transformed. Buildings seemed to melt away, and the bright light of day grew ever more intense. The fire behind the villagers’ eyes grew beyond them—their figures changed, their color darkened, and a fiery aura surrounded them as they pointed fingers at me, silently repeating Cain’s words.

What was even going on? Was I awake? Was I inside a living nightmare? I didn’t know.

I didn’t know what was happening anymore. I couldn’t even understand it, much less put it into words. So I didn’t try to. Instead, I put every thought—every emotion to focus on one thing alone. Finding Cain. It was the only thing holding everything inside me together.

I jumped into the forest without a second thought. Here, a set of footprints led somewhere deeper, and similar to every other time, Cain appeared just at the edge of a distant leaf.

The forest, unlike the village, was dark. Very dark. The branches didn’t leave room for any sunbeams to pass through, but this simple explanation also seemed wrong. Yes, it was more like the trees had transformed into the night sky, but with no stars adorned, only the blank dark remained.

And under the dark, only Cain shined in the distance.

Reaching the leaf didn’t take long. I had gone past through the same path multiple times, after all. It was the same path I took every day for an entire month. Before the leaf, a low hum reached, and in the next moment, I swept the leaf away, freezing in place.

Cain was there, curled into a ball, crying with an intensity I had never seen before.

“Cain!” I called out, reaching to touch him, but as I did, my hand went right through him.

“Cain! Cain!” I yelled, but he didn’t listen—he couldn’t listen.

The humming intensified, and suddenly, a figure made of pure wind reached and lifted him in a hug before heading deeper into the forest.

I tried reaching behind them, but despite running, I could never catch up. I could only watch as they faded into the dark forest, the wind spirit caressing Cain’s hair as it sang him a lullaby.

Winds in the night,

Softly they blow,

Whispering tales,

Of journeys, we know.

Sleep, little boy,

Sleep and forget it all

Let the wind guide you

On the night’s stroll…

The melodious voice faded, unable to be heard anymore.

Suddenly, the darkness behind me lit in a white shine I wished I had never laid my eyes upon.

Turning, there was no forest and no village either. Instead, there was only one building. A very tall building, half of it was destroyed-eaten by fire, with the other half barely standing.

I entered it the same way I had the last time I saw it, from the open side, and immediately went for the staircase. Once on the second floor, I passed through the same debris until I was in front of the room, one final obstacle remaining.

The door.

I stood there, motionless. Knowing what was to the other side did not make it an easier choice. If I opened it, I could see them again and say one final goodbye, but if I didn’t, I wouldn’t have to watch them burn, and I could remember them as they were.

The building shook violently, and the choice was made for me when the door fell on its own.

There, at the end of the half-destroyed room, they were sitting in the same hug, with the same smile engulfed in flames. It was hard to even accept it, yet something was different.

I couldn’t notice it from the distance, but as I walked closer, it became clear.

The surrounding fire didn’t have a light. No, beyond that, they were on fire, but they weren’t burning. Their bodies remained the same.

A shine, however, was present in the room. It just wasn’t coming from them.

Turning slowly, a mirror was behind me, and inside that mirror were two reflections. Papa with Theodore, and me. The mirror didn’t reflect the fire, but its shine was there, illuminating Papa and Theodore as their skin slowly darkened and shrunken, while my reflection showed me what I was missing. It was my pendant, cracks slowly forming around it until it broke.

When it did, I felt something shatter inside me, and then it was me—the real me that was slowly changing.

My reflection stared back as my skin paled, and my hair turned gray. My vision blurred, images of things that hadn’t happened yet flashing in and out, until finally, my tattoo turned purple, almost red.

Two different Lyons were staring at each other for what felt like an eternity until a droplet fell on my nose. Then another one, and another was quick to follow, and in the span of a heartbeat it was raining, but it wasn’t water. It was blood.

My vision flickered. Two thin, illusory red lines appeared, reaching out from Papa’s and Theodore’s bodies, extending high beyond the night itself, meeting countless other lines in the infinite heights above. All of them dripped with blood as they converged on the moon, reddening its color, and at the center of this intertwined eerie web, a lone figure was chained in place, bound by the crimson threads.

The figure was indiscernible, for every time my eyes would identify it as something, it would change-transform into something else. It felt abstract, like a dream, like a nightmare, with no beginning nor an end, stretching infinitely, eternally.

Reality bend to it, and a human like hand stretched out towards the world.

The threads trembled and the whole world howled in an indescribable wail, shaking existence as it was.

Suddenly everything turning dark.

The next moment, stinging pain spread throughout my body, and a melody could be heard. It was sad, and slow, steady, and simple. And, most of all, warm.

A light in the dark.

I found it difficult to move, feeling like I was being held in place. Worse than that, I couldn’t breathe—trying to, but unable to.

Suffocating, the melody continued, its tone shifting, increasing in volume and speed. The light turned brighter and brighter and brighter until-

My eyes snapped open.

The melody stopped, but a moment later, a soft voice sounded.

“Good morning, dear.”