Eliot stood frozen at the threshold of his home, his fingers gripping the worn doorframe like it was the only real thing left in the world. The scent of hearth-smoke and dried herbs filled his nostrils, too sharp, too familiar. He knew this moment. He had lived it before. Again.
The realization slithered down his spine like cold water. The same creak of the floorboards underfoot. The same slant of fading orange light through the window. The same empty bowl on the table his bowl with the faintest smear of stew still clinging to the rim where careless fingers had scraped it clean. Alya sat by the window, her silhouette outlined in gold by the dying sun. She didn't turn when he entered, but he saw the way her shoulders tensed just slightly, just for a heartbeat before she forced them to relax. The same tell. The same performance.
Eliot's throat tightened. He had said these words before. He had lived this conversation. And yet... He stepped forward.
"Alya..." His voice was steadier than he expected, but the hesitation was still there, the same stutter in his breath. "Y-you wouldn't happen to know where my, uhhhh... my dinner mysteriously disappeared to, would you?"
She turned, and the smile she gave him was practiced, effortless. The same half-smile, the same tilt of her head. "I didn't eat anything..." Eliot clenched his jaw. He knew what came next. The argument. The frustration. The way she would laugh at him, just a little, just enough to make his blood boil. He had played this scene out before. But this time... He forced a shrug. "Maybe someone else took it?"
Alya blinked. For the briefest second, her mask slipped. Her fingers stilled against the wood. Then, too quickly, she tilted her head, feigning indifference. "Maybe." The air between them shifted. No anger. No accusations. Just... quiet. A heavy, suffocating quiet that settled over the room like dust.
Eliot exhaled, leaning back against the wall. The rough wood pressed into his spine, grounding him. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, just to breathe.
Then her voice, small and trembling said: "It was me." His eyes snapped open. Alya stood with her back to him now, her shoulders hunched, her fingers curled tight around the edge of the sill. Not defiant. Not teasing. Afraid. Eliot stayed silent. His pulse thundered in his ears. This wasn't the same.
"I took it," she whispered. "I just... didn't want to say it right away." The confession hung between them, raw and fragile. The air thickened, charged with something Eliot couldn't name. Something that hadn't been there before.
Eliot remained silent. Not because he was angry he'd known all along. But the confession... it still meant something. "Why?" he asked. "You knew I'd been in the fields all day." "I knew," Alya whispered. "It's just... sometimes I think if I take something of yours... you'll talk to me more. Even if it's just anger. At least it's attention." The door slammed open. Lilia stood on the threshold. "Alya." Her voice was even, but cold. Alya turned but didn't get a chance to speak. Lilia closed the distance between them in three sharp steps.
"You ate his dinner again. Stayed quiet. And then acted like it was nothing?" "I apologized..." Alya muttered. "That's not the point." Lilia's gaze cut to Eliot. "He works from dawn till dusk. And you... you're a thief." She stepped toward her brother and suddenly pulled him into a fierce embrace, not gentle, but desperate, as if trying to shield him with her own body.
"Stop staying silent, Eliot. You don't have to endure everything." He didn't answer, just rested a hand on her shoulder. Wordless. Alya stood apart, head bowed. After a heartbeat, she stepped closer. Hesitant. Unsure if she had the right. "I really... won't do it again," she said, barely audible. A second of stillness
Then a voice from the doorway: "...What is this, a family tragedy?" Akira stood there, arms full of kindling. "Or did you forget to invite me again? If you're hugging I want in too!" "Just get over here," Lilia sighed.
"Heck Yeah!" He wedged himself between them, grinning. For a few breaths, everything felt normal again.
A family. A simple moment. Warmth. But in Eliot's chest, the old man's words still echoed:
"You were awakened... and the dream dissolved."
Three days passed.
Everything seemed easier. Mornings began not with silence, but with voices Alya talking to Lilia again, Akira running through the yard shouting his ridiculous jokes, even their mother, usually so sullen, once sat with them at the table and wiped her hands on her dress hem instead of her apron. As if remembering she was a woman, not just a shadow by the stove. Their father mentioned the harvest might be better than last year's.
Eliot felt it was too calm. He waited. Waited for everything to unravel. For the world to vanish by morning, like it had that evening. But each day passed normally. That made it worse. He almost believed it had all been a dream. The old man. The reset. The empty village.
Almost.
On the third evening, as the sky burned deep orange, the first toll came. A strike as if from the earth itself. Heavy. Without echo. Everyone froze. The second toll ran like a shudder down their spines. Their father's hand twitched, dropping a clay bowl. It shattered softly.
The third toll. Then silence. No one asked what it meant. They knew.
Church bells weren't warnings. They were sentences.
The Inquisition had arrived.