Ashfall woke up to silence. Not the normal kind, but the kind that came after something had been erased.
At some point during the night, exhaustion had swallowed him whole. The past days with Calethia, the chaos with Kael, the endless stench of death; it had all finally caught up to him. And now, as his eyes opened, he realized what was missing: the bodies.
Every single corpse they'd stacked near the rails was gone. The floor was spotless, the blood too. Even the dark stains that had seeped deep into the cracks of the concrete were just… gone. As if someone had scrubbed the world clean while he slept.
He sat up slowly, his back stiff, his neck aching. Around him, the others were stirring, their faces pale and empty. Not a single one looked surprised.
No one said a word about the missing corpses. No one even looked toward the tracks. It was as if they'd all silently agreed not to notice.
Ashfall rubbed his face, trying to force the last of the sleep away. His body felt heavy, but it wasn't just fatigue; it was dread. Something about this place crawled under his skin. The way Kael's rules shifted every day. The way Lyara watched them all with her blank, unreadable eyes. The way no one ever asked questions.
He looked around, counting them again. Still the same number. Except now, they all looked hollow, drained, dead inside long before anyone actually killed them.
You're all just waiting, he thought. Waiting for him to decide what happens next.
He pushed himself to his feet and scanned the empty station. Whatever had taken the bodies had also taken the smell. The air was unnaturally clean, crisp, even pleasant. Like snow after a storm.
He frowned. If Kael's trying to build some kind of community, he thought bitterly, why slaughter everyone who was already living here? Would've saved him the trouble of gathering a bunch of broken strays...
There was no answer to that. There never was.
Breakfast came, because Kael demanded it. He sat once again on his improvised throne, surrounded by the boxes they'd looted. His charm was back in full display. His words smooth, his grin confident, his tone dripping with superiority.
"Eat together, stay together," he said, waving his hand like a preacher blessing his flock. "It's what separates us from the Mythbornes that crawl out there in the cold."
Ashfall didn't bother to hide his disdain. "Right," he muttered under his breath, stabbing at the stale bread. "We're so civilized."
Kael either didn't hear him or didn't care. He kept talking about loyalty, about purpose, about how the world outside was chaos while his rule was order. It was like listening to a narcissist justify his own reflection.
Ashfall tuned him out halfway through, focusing on the taste of nothing in his mouth. The only reason he played along was survival. Kael liked obedience and anyone who disobeyed didn't last long enough to regret it.
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't. There were no clocks here, no light from outside, no rhythm. The only way Ashfall could measure time was by the number of times they "woke up" to eat together.
Days, maybe weeks, he couldn't tell. All he knew was that Kael's grip grew stronger. He decided who worked, who slept where, who cleaned. And no one questioned him or could.
Today, it was Ashfall's "turn." Kael had announced it casually, as if handing out chores.
"You," he said, pointing at Ashfall with that lazy smile. "You'll take care of our wounded little princess today. Feed her. Change her bandages. Make sure she doesn't bleed out. Wouldn't want to lose our precious mascot, would we?"
Ashfall had wanted to tell him to go to hell.
But Lyara's eyes—those pale, moonlit eyes—had fixed on him, and his throat closed up before the words could come out.
So now here he was. Sitting beside the arrogant girl in the corner of the station, while the others sorted boxes and supplies for the hundredth time just to keep their hands busy.
Her face was almost completely covered in fresh bandages, only a few strands of blonde hair sticking out from beneath the white wrappings. She looked fragile now, like a ghost of her former self, but the arrogance still clung to her posture: the slight tilt of her chin, the way she refused to look at him directly.
Ashfall sighed and leaned against the cold wall behind him. "Why the hell did he keep you alive?" he muttered under his breath.
She didn't answer. He glanced around. The others were quiet, focused on their meaningless sorting. No one cared. No one ever did.
He thought again about the massacre and the way Kael had wiped out everyone who lived here before, leaving not a single survivor. But why didn't he kill her back then? What made her worth saving?
And why, after all this time, hadn't a single Mythborne appeared down here? It made no sense. Even in frozen ruins, those things usually found their way to human fear like vultures to meat...
Kael didn't seem to care. He never mentioned night watches, never worried about patrols. He acted as if the monsters were beneath him or maybe he already was one of them.
Ashfall had tried sneaking out one night, just to test it and to see what lay beyond the station's rusted tunnels in the other direction. He'd been careful, silent. He could've sworn everyone was asleep. But the second he'd stepped toward the exit, his body had frozen. Not by fear. By her. Lyara.
Her voice had whispered in his skull without sound, and his legs had turned him around before his mind could protest. He hadn't tried again since.
Now, he sat in silence beside the bandaged girl. He stared at the floor, trying not to think about Kael, about the missing corpses, about the whispers in his dreams. His mind drifted anyway.
Maybe she knows something, he thought. Maybe that's why he kept her alive.
He looked at her again, ready to ask, but before he could, she turned her head slightly toward him.
Her voice was muffled under the bandages, soft but steady. "My name's Rhea."
Ashfall blinked. "What?"
"Rhea," she repeated, louder this time, as if daring him to challenge her. He stared for a moment, confused, then just muttered, "Good for you," and looked away. She turned her face back to the ceiling, ignoring him completely.
For a long time, neither of them spoke.
Ashfall's jaw tightened. He glanced at Rhea again. Her bandages hid almost everything, but the faint outline of her lips beneath them curved downward slightly, as if she was frowning.
So he just sat there. Breathing and thinking. His hand slipped into his pocket, brushing against the cold fabric of the mask he still kept hidden. The memory of that silent man's stare came back and the warning in his eyes: Say one word about it, and you'll be next.
Ashfall exhaled slowly. What the hell is going on here? he thought. He turned his eyes back toward Rhea. She was still staring at the ceiling, still silent, like she was waiting for something or someone.
And just as he opened his mouth to break the silence, something deep in the tunnel shifted.
A low, distant creak, like metal under pressure. Followed by a sound that didn't belong underground: a faint ticking.
Ashfall froze. Rhea did too, her head turning slightly toward the dark tunnel ahead.
The ticking grew louder. Steady and rhythmic. The same sound he'd heard once before, far above this frozen world: The Clock.