The wind had no song today.
Yi Wu stood barefoot at the edge of the stone cliff, the same jagged outcrop where sky met stone like a scar. Beneath him, the pine-drenched valley spread outward in silence, draped in the mist that never lifted. The trees did not whisper. Even the birds had forgotten how to cry.
He felt no hunger. No thirst. Only the weight of stillness pressing into the space behind his ribs.
Down below, the mountain path trembled—not with sound, but with the memory of it. A procession crept up the slope: crooked figures bearing bundles wrapped in red silk, trailing incense smoke like funeral flags caught in a storm that hadn't arrived. They walked in silence, their heads bowed not in grief but in routine. Men, women, and children, each face blank, as if peeled of all feeling.
From the ridge above, Yi Wu watched them like a ghost watches the living.
The red silk glinted faintly with something thick and dark underneath.
Not silk. Flesh.
Not bundles. Corpses.
Bodies.
Some small, too small. Some wrapped too tight. Some dragged behind with ropes.
A sharp breath caught in his throat. He didn't know these people, had no names to attach to the faces, but their presence clawed at something in his bones. A pull, a tug—like a tether between his chest and the altar behind him.
The same altar he had awakened upon.
Was this their purpose? To offer the dead to the mountain?
No songs. No weeping. No gods.
The first figure stopped at a black stone slab near the path's highest point—just below the ridgeline. The rest followed, forming a crooked line. One by one, they stepped forward, placed their burden at the edge, and pushed.
A soft thud. A roll. The sound of meat and stone colliding. Over and over. Until the bodies reached the forest's hungry roots far below.
Yi Wu didn't move. He couldn't.
He simply watched.
And the mountain watched with him.
---
Time passed like oil dripping into fire—slow, thick, consuming.
The villagers began descending, now empty-handed. Not once did they look up. Not once did they speak. One woman dropped a length of prayer beads. She didn't stop to retrieve them.
Yi Wu waited until the last of them vanished behind the folds of fog below.
Then he turned to the altar.
Blood still marked the edge where he had first lain. Darkened, dried, but unmistakable. As if the stone refused to forget him. As if it wanted to remember.
Behind it, further back into the mountain's scarred slope, stood a weathered torii-like structure, half-swallowed by vines and age. Carved into its lintel were words Yi Wu could not yet read—but his mind twitched at their presence. Recognition without understanding.
As he stepped closer, the wind changed.
A low groan echoed from beneath the earth, like breath from a mouth that had forgotten it could exhale.
Yi Wu turned back toward the cliff's edge.
The bodies were gone.
No blood on the rocks. No trails through the mist. Nothing.
As if the mountain had devoured them whole.
A sound behind him.
Footsteps.
Not human.
Click. Drag. Click. Drag.
Yi Wu froze. The instinct to flee scraped along his spine, but his limbs remained cold, obedient only to the gravity of fear.
The sound grew closer.
And then—a voice. Dry. Hollow. Without breath.
"They feed us their dead."
Yi Wu turned.
Nothing.
Only the trees.
Only the mist.
Only the space between things, now breathing.
He stepped backward.
"And still, we hunger."
---
He ran.
Down the trail, bare feet slapping stone, breath sharp in his chest. Trees reached for him like mourners desperate for the dead. The fog closed in, thick and damp, clinging to his skin like guilt.
Roots snagged his ankles. Branches scratched at his arms.
He didn't stop until the smell hit him.
Burnt salt. Wet ash. And something else—iron and rot and incense turned sour.
A clearing opened ahead.
In its center: a pit.
Around the pit: relics of worship—twisted statues of things with too many limbs, too many mouths, but no eyes. Faces wrapped in cloth. Tongues carved in jade.
Within the pit: bones.
He staggered forward, compelled. Each step felt chosen for him.
He knelt at the edge and looked down.
A sea of skulls. Children. Elders. Warriors. Monks.
All smiling.
All missing their jaws.
---
A memory rose.
Not his.
A village girl, her hands bound with red thread.
A priest in black robes, chanting not with sound, but with absence.
A blade, dull and rusted, yet hungry.
A scream never released—only swallowed.
Yi Wu's breath caught.
The vision snapped like dry branches underfoot.
He was alone again.
But the pit was still there.
And so was the whisper:
"You are not the first."
---
He stood.
Staggered backward.
And found himself facing someone.
A boy.
No older than ten.
Barefoot. Hair matted. Eyes too old.
The boy tilted his head. "You saw them?"
Yi Wu nodded slowly.
"They don't come for blessings," the boy said. "Only to forget."
"Forget what?"
The boy looked up at the sky.
"There were once names."
Yi Wu waited.
The boy did not offer more.
Only turned. Began to walk.
Yi Wu followed.
They passed stone markers etched with sigils Yi Wu could almost read. Memories pricking his skin. Scripts like rivers branching across bone.
At one marker, the boy stopped.
"She was my sister," he said.
"Where is she now?" Yi Wu asked.
The boy didn't answer.
Only stared at the ground.
Then, softly: "She became part of the mountain. Like all of us."
---
They reached another cliff. Higher. Wind harsher.
Below, Yi Wu saw another procession.
Not of villagers.
Of things.
Shadows in the fog. Walking upright. Wrapped in red silk.
But wrong. Twisted. As if time and decay were garments they wore proudly.
The boy watched with him.
"They bury them in silence," he said. "But silence remembers. And it walks."
Yi Wu turned to him. "Why show me this?"
The boy's eyes flickered—no longer human.
"Because you woke up."
Yi Wu's heart thudded.
"You think that means you're alive?"
Silence.
"No," the boy whispered. "It means you're unfinished."
The wind screamed.
When Yi Wu looked again, the boy was gone.
Only footprints in the ash remained.
---
That night, Yi Wu sat at the altar once more.
He did not sleep.
Could not.
The mountain no longer felt silent.
It felt… watchful.
He closed his eyes.
And in the darkness behind them, he heard drums.
Far off.
Wet. Beating not with wood, but with flesh.
The Corpse Parade had not ended.
It had only begun to circle back.
Toward him.