June 9
Location: Sector 4 perimeter, industrial ring
Status: 2nd stage, unstable
Feeling: Distant. Heavier today. Mind full of Buzz.
_____
There's a kind of fog in Sector 4 that doesn't move.
It doesn't sweep or curl like it does elsewhere. It just… sits. Stagnant. Still. Like the breath of something long dead. Oveileon stands beneath a broken streetlamp, watching it rise off the cracked pavement like smoke from a memory.
This part of Veritus wasn't built for the living anymore. Not really. The silence here is thicker. The air feels bruised.
He'd come looking for the signal the girl mentioned. Not a transmission. A place — one she'd marked without naming. Sector 4 was once a hub for transport and low-grade processing. But Now? It's a tomb for steel bones and forgotten machines. Still, something pulses beneath it all. A rhythm. Subterranean. As if the city remembers more than it lets on.
He moves between skeletal rail towers, following the subtle throb in his palm where the Wraithmark warms — not from danger, but proximity.
To what, he's not sure.
Every step feels heavier today. Not from exhaustion — from the grief he hasn't earned.
There's no wind, but the fog parts suddenly.
And there it is.
A building slumped against the hillside like it gave up halfway through standing. No sign. No doors. Just a jagged tear in the metal siding. Inside the building, darkness pools — not deep, just wide. Like the world forgot to fill it.
He slips in sideways, his coat catching on rusted corners.
The space smells like iron and burned paper. Ashes cling to the floor like dust. There's a lot of it. In the center, there's a table. Scorched, but intact. On it, fragments — broken glass, old cloth, what looks like part of a locket. He steps closer and sees something written on the table's surface.
Carved into it, as if by nail or knife:
"Names are harder to erase when someone remembers the sound of them."
The words snag at something inside him. Not pain exactly. But recognition.
He sits.
Not because he's tired — because something in this place asks him to. Like a weight waiting to settle.
And in the quiet, his mind starts slipping sideways.
______
It begins like all the memories he doesn't own — quick flashes, stolen warmth.
A woman laughing. A man running. A child spinning, arms out, the city around him golden and young.
But this one lasts.
A corridor. Some Flickering lights. He's smaller, maybe younger. Running barefoot across concrete. He hears voices call from somewhere behind.
"You can't keep him here. It's not working."
A second voice: "It's better than letting him disappear. We owe him that."
Something cold presses into his hands.
Is it a charm? A key? Can't understand.
His own breath echoes in the space like it's someone else's.
Then it shifts again.
A chair. Restraints. A light in his eyes.
"Say it again," a voice demands. "Say your name."
He tries. Nothing comes.
They push harder. "Say it."
And still — silence.
The flash ends abruptly, too quick, like a reel torn from the projector.
He stumbles back to himself gasping, hand pressed against the cold edge of the table. There's blood on his palm — not much, but enough to prove something real happened. The Wraithmark on his hand pulses once, dimly. A warning. Or maybe a memory.
Behind him, footsteps.
He turns fast — too fast — and nearly knocks the chair over.
A figure stands at the entrance. Lean frame. Patchy beard. Sharp, lined face. But he's not a stranger.
"Didn't think you'd make it this far," the man says.
Oveileon stiffens. "You're not the Keeper."
"No," the man smirks. "I'm the one the Keeper doesn't talk about."
He steps into the dim, a flicker of violet under his collar revealing a branded mark, seared across the flesh like someone tried to erase it — and failed.
"They called me Locke," he says. "Back then. When we still had names that meant anything."
Oveileon's hand twitches near the edge of the table. "Why are you here?"
"Because you're starting to remember." He taps the side of his temple. "And that's a problem for some very important people."
"Then why aren't you stopping me?"
Locke's smile thins. "Who says I'm not?"
A tension settles between them — brittle and cold. Intense. Oveileon doesn't know whether to run or sit back down.
"Look," Locke says, taking a slow breath. "I'm not here to kill you. Yet. But the more of yourself you claw back, the closer you get to breaking whatever's left of the Seal. That girl, the Keeper, the others who still walk the old paths — they're all part of it. Whether they know or not."
"Then tell me what it is."
Locke laughs — not cruelly, just tired. "EvenIf I did, you'd forget it before you left this room.
That's how deep it's burned in."
He moves past Oveileon and reaches into the debris, lifting a small device — square, cracked, humming faintly.
"This used to be a name-catcher," Locke says. "You spoke into it before they erased you. It held your voice like an anchor. Now it's just static. All those names… gone."
Oveileon stares at the object. "What do you want from me then?"
"Not me. Them." Locke looks back toward the fogged doorway. "But if I were you… I'd find out why your name was buried so deep. And who helped dig the grave."
And with that, he turns and walks out.
______
Later, back at the flat, Oveileon doesn't write in the journal.
He just sits.
The pendant lies near the windowsill again — never quite where he left it. The city groans outside, restless in its forgetting.
He doesn't light the candle. Doesn't boil tea.
Just holds the voice recorder in one hand, thumb grazing the button. Thinking.
Finally, he presses it.
A crackle. Then nothing.
Just static.
Then —
A whisper, faint, like it came from the bottom of a well:
"If you find this… remember me. Even if I forget."
The voice is his. Younger.
He shuts the device, eyes stinging.
Tomorrow, he'll search again.
But tonight, he sits with the silence.
Because some names don't come back all at once.
Some have to be earned.