Chapter 274 — The Edge
Nobody talked about the hill for the first hour.
That was how Brook knew everyone was thinking about it.
The road continued through ordinary country.
Grass on both sides.
A few scattered trees.
A narrow stream that eventually disappeared beneath a wooden bridge.
The sun moved slowly overhead.
Nothing else happened.
No attack.
No strange voice.
No Heaven.
No Hell.
No figure waiting at the end of the road.
Just walking.
Brook almost preferred the battles.
At least a battle announced itself.
The road didn't.
He kept looking back.
Every time, the country looked normal.
The hill was gone.
Completely.
There wasn't even a dip in the land where it had stood.
The first time Brook had looked back, he'd expected rubble.
The second time, he'd expected grass.
The third time, he'd expected something else.
By the fourth, he had stopped expecting anything.
Henry walked beside him.
"You're going to hurt your neck."
Brook didn't look at him.
"I'm fine."
Henry sighed.
"You really need another answer."
Brook glanced over.
"To what?"
"Everything."
Brook looked forward again.
"I don't have one."
"Then say that."
Brook thought about it.
"I don't know."
Henry smiled.
"See?"
"What?"
"Much better."
Brook shook his head.
Charon appeared beside Henry's face.
"Growth."
"Don't encourage him."
"Too late."
Sera walked a few steps behind them.
She had been quiet since the hill disappeared.
Brook looked back at her.
"You okay?"
Sera looked up.
"Yes."
Brook waited.
She noticed.
"No."
"Better."
"I hate that you're learning."
"I'm not."
"You are."
She tucked the notebook under her arm.
"I keep thinking about the circles."
Brook's expression hardened.
"Me too."
"Six."
"Yeah."
"Same as the patrol."
"We don't know that."
"No."
Sera looked at the road.
"But you think it."
Brook didn't answer.
She nodded.
"Me too."
Ahead, the road split.
One path went left through a wooded section.
The other went right toward a long stretch of open ground.
Rick studied both.
"The left road is older."
Shoyo looked at the right.
"There's water that way."
Tala crouched.
She touched the dirt at the fork.
"Left."
Everyone looked at her.
"Why?"
"The ground is less disturbed."
Rick nodded.
"Then left."
Henry looked toward the right.
"I'm sure the murder road is going to be disappointed."
Charon frowned.
"You call every road that."
"Because every road deserves suspicion."
They turned left.
The trees thickened.
The road became uneven.
Roots pushed through the dirt.
Branches hung low.
Brook ducked beneath one.
Gabriel caught another before it struck Sera.
"Thank you," she said.
Gabriel nodded.
"You're welcome."
Henry watched them.
"That's nice."
Sera looked at him.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"Don't."
Henry raised both hands.
"I said nothing."
Charon whispered,
"He absolutely meant something."
Henry ignored him.
They continued.
The woods eventually opened.
Brook saw the edge.
He stopped so suddenly that Henry nearly walked into him.
"What?"
Brook pointed.
Ahead was a drop.
Not a cliff.
Not a mountain.
A long, steep descent into a valley.
The road ended near the edge.
Beyond it, the ground fell away for hundreds of feet before flattening into another stretch of forest.
There was an old stone barrier running along the edge.
Most of it had collapsed.
A few stones remained upright.
The road itself had been eaten away.
Brook walked closer.
Crowley called behind him.
"Don't."
Brook stopped.
He looked back.
Crowley was standing beneath the trees.
His face had gone hard.
"Why?"
Crowley pointed.
At the edge.
Brook looked.
There was a narrow strip of grass extending beyond the broken barrier.
A little too far.
It looked stable.
But it wasn't connected to anything.
The ground beneath it was gone.
A thin shelf of earth remained suspended over the drop.
Henry stared.
"Oh."
Charon disappeared immediately.
Henry blinked.
"Where'd you go?"
No answer.
Henry touched his head.
"Charon?"
Nothing.
"Charon."
Silence.
Henry frowned.
"Seriously?"
Rick walked toward the edge.
Charon's voice finally came from Henry's mouth.
"No."
Rick stopped.
"What?"
"No."
Henry looked confused.
"What's wrong?"
"I don't like that."
"Like what?"
"The edge."
Henry glanced at it.
"You don't like heights?"
"I don't like that edge."
Charon sounded different.
There was no joke in his voice.
Henry's expression changed.
"Why?"
"Because I remember one."
Brook turned.
"What does that mean?"
Charon didn't answer.
Henry stepped closer to the edge.
Charon immediately shouted through him.
"Don't."
Henry stopped.
"Okay."
The others looked at him.
Henry raised his hands.
"I'm listening."
Brook approached carefully.
He studied the ground.
The edge was strange.
Not because it was unstable.
Because the break was too clean.
The earth simply stopped.
Grass grew to the very last inch.
Then nothing.
No exposed roots.
No crumbling dirt.
No stones at the bottom.
Brook stared down.
He couldn't see the valley floor clearly from here.
Too far.
But he could see the forest.
And something else.
A pale line.
A road.
Brook squinted.
"There."
Gabriel came beside him.
"What?"
"Road."
Gabriel looked down.
There was indeed an old road beneath the trees.
It ran straight through the valley.
Brook followed it with his eyes.
It disappeared beneath a cluster of trees.
Then reappeared.
Then vanished again.
Sera joined them.
"Could be an old route."
Rick nodded.
"Probably pre-Wall."
Brook looked at the broken edge.
"Why does the road end here?"
"Because the bridge is gone."
Rick pointed.
Far across the valley, barely visible through the trees, were two stone pillars.
A bridge had once connected them.
Now there was nothing between.
Henry looked down.
"That's a long way."
Charon spoke again.
"Back."
Henry stepped backward.
"Okay."
Brook looked at him.
"You're actually scared."
Henry stared at the edge.
"Yes."
Brook blinked.
Henry shrugged.
"I'm not complicated."
Charon added,
"Neither am I."
Henry looked annoyed.
"You are literally inside me."
"Exactly."
Brook almost smiled.
Then the edge moved.
Not physically.
His eyes simply lost their understanding of it.
For one second, the suspended strip of grass seemed farther away.
Then closer.
Then gone.
Brook blinked.
It returned.
He stepped back.
"What?"
Gabriel looked at him.
"What did you see?"
"The edge."
"I know."
"No."
Brook stared at the broken ground.
"It moved."
Rick came closer.
"Don't go near it."
Brook nodded.
He didn't.
Tala stood several feet away.
She was pale.
Brook looked at her.
"You feel something?"
Tala nodded.
"What?"
"The ground doesn't continue."
Brook frowned.
"It's a cliff."
"No."
She shook her head.
"That's not what I mean."
She knelt.
Her hand hovered above the dirt.
"The earth remembers the valley."
Brook waited.
"But not the edge."
Shoyo looked at her.
"Meaning?"
Tala lowered her hand.
"I don't know."
Brook looked toward Crowley.
Crowley was staring at the broken road.
His eyes were narrowed.
Brook walked over.
"You know."
Crowley didn't look at him.
"I know an edge when I see one."
"That's not what I asked."
"No."
Brook stood beside him.
"Does it remind you of something?"
Crowley was silent.
Henry and Charon had moved well away from the drop.
Sera sat on a stone and began writing.
Brook looked down.
"What are you writing?"
"The hill."
"It vanished."
"I know."
"Then why write it?"
Sera didn't stop.
"Because it happened."
Brook stared at her.
She turned the notebook slightly.
On the page were six circles.
Six small marks.
Then a rough outline of the missing hill.
Underneath it:
No bodies.
Brook read it.
Then looked at her.
"You think writing it keeps it from disappearing."
Sera's pen stopped.
"I think if I don't write it down, one day I'll wonder if I imagined it."
Brook nodded.
"That makes sense."
She continued writing.
Henry looked over.
"Can you write down that I'm brave?"
Sera didn't look up.
"No."
"Why?"
"Because it would be a lie."
Charon said,
"Thank you."
Henry put a hand over his chest.
"Betrayed by my own mind."
They laughed.
A small laugh.
It lasted only a moment.
Then the ground trembled.
Everyone stopped.
Not like before.
This time the tremor came from the edge.
A few loose stones rolled.
Brook moved backward.
The suspended strip of grass cracked.
A line appeared across it.
Then another.
Henry grabbed Sera's arm.
"Move."
They moved.
The shelf broke.
There was no collapse.
No roar.
No avalanche.
The earth simply vanished.
The grass disappeared.
The dirt disappeared.
The stones disappeared.
One moment it was there.
The next—
nothing.
The valley remained untouched.
The forest remained untouched.
The old road remained.
The edge had moved several feet backward.
Brook stared.
No debris.
No dust.
No sound.
Charon's voice came quietly.
"That's not right."
Nobody corrected him.
Brook stepped closer to the new edge.
Crowley grabbed his coat.
"No."
Brook stopped.
Crowley released him.
Brook looked at the place where the ground had been.
"You knew."
Crowley shook his head.
"I suspected."
"Of what?"
Crowley looked at him.
"That you shouldn't stand near it."
Brook stared.
"That isn't enough."
"No."
Crowley looked toward the valley.
"But it's what I have."
Brook's anger rose.
"You always have something."
Crowley met his eyes.
"And you always want it now."
"Yes."
Crowley nodded.
"I know."
Brook looked away.
The group began moving back through the trees.
Nobody argued.
Nobody wanted to stay near the edge.
Henry walked beside Brook.
For once, he wasn't talking.
After several minutes, Brook said,
"You okay?"
Henry nodded.
"Yeah."
"Really?"
"No."
Brook glanced at him.
Henry shrugged.
"I don't like things that disappear."
Brook looked forward.
"Neither do I."
Charon appeared briefly.
"Good."
Henry sighed.
"Don't make this emotional."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"I'm terrified."
Henry looked at him.
"You're always terrified."
"Yes."
Charon smiled.
"And I keep showing up."
Henry went quiet.
Brook heard it.
He looked at Henry.
Henry looked away.
Nobody said anything.
The trees thinned.
They returned to the road.
The edge was behind them.
But Brook couldn't stop thinking about it.
A hill had disappeared.
Then the edge had disappeared.
Not fallen.
Not broken.
Disappeared.
Six people had vanished.
Six places had remained.
Then those places vanished too.
The shape was becoming harder to ignore.
Brook touched the scrap inside his coat.
B-01.
RETURN.
He didn't take it out.
Crowley noticed his hand.
"Don't."
Brook looked at him.
"I wasn't going to."
Crowley nodded.
"Good."
Brook looked back at the road.
"Do you think the patrol saw it?"
Crowley was silent.
Brook waited.
Finally Crowley said,
"Maybe."
"Before they disappeared?"
"Maybe."
"Would they have gone near it?"
"I don't know."
Brook looked toward the trees.
Henry answered instead.
"I probably would've."
Brook glanced at him.
Henry shrugged.
"If nobody told me not to."
Charon appeared.
"I would've told you."
"You're a coward."
"Yes."
"You admit it?"
"Of course."
Henry smiled faintly.
"But you would still come with me."
Charon was quiet.
Then:
"Yes."
Brook looked away.
The road stretched ahead.
Ordinary.
Quiet.
Safe-looking.
He didn't trust it.
None of them did anymore.
They walked until the trees disappeared behind them.
Only then did Brook look back.
The edge was still there.
The valley was still there.
The road was still there.
Nothing had vanished.
Yet.
Brook turned forward.
Crowley walked behind him.
And Charon, for the rest of the afternoon, did not go near another edge.
End of Chapter 274