The forest grew unnaturally still.
Not quiet—still.As if every leaf, every root, every grain of soil had stopped breathing just to listen.
Ren remained on his knees before the seal, Lyra's arms around him, Borin standing guard behind them, Draven trembling so hard he shook the bushes.
Something was shifting.
Not in the world—in the air between them.
A pressure, thin and fragile, like the moment before a candle flickers and dies.
Lyra tightened her hold.
"Ren… talk to me."
He didn't answer at first.
His eyes were open, but not focused on anything in front of him.It was as if he were staring at a point far, far beyond the clearing.
Then—
He whispered:
"It's dreaming."
Draven yelped.
"THE THING UNDER THE ROCK?! IT DREAMS?! WHY DOES IT DREAM?! WHY CAN'T IT JUST— I DON'T KNOW— STOP EXISTING?!"
Ren didn't hear him.
The echo in his chest pulsed once—soft, tender, almost sad.
Lyra saw it in his expression.
"Ren… what do you hear?"
He blinked slowly.
"Not words."
Borin shifted his stance.
"What, then?"
Ren touched the seal again.
And the world tilted.
Not physically—but in perception.
The clearing blurred at the edges.The trees darkened, becoming silhouettes.The air thickened, like water turning to mist.
Lyra gasped as the roots beneath her feet coiled, not to grab, but to anchor—as if the forest didn't want anyone to fall into what was coming.
Ren exhaled shakily.
"It's sharing the dream."
Draven grabbed Borin's leg.
"I DON'T WANT TO SHARE ANYTHING!"
But the dream wasn't asking permission.
It unfolded.
A sensation washed over Ren—weightlesstimelessvoiceless.
Colors without form.Shapes without edges.Echoes without sound.
Lyra clutched Ren's hand.
"What do you see?"
He blinked.
And for a brief moment, his eyes weren't gray.
They were empty.
"A place that no longer exists."
Lyra's breath faltered.
Draven fainted standing up, falling face-first into the roots.
Borin didn't even have the energy to react.
Ren continued:
"It's showing me where the path began."
The dream deepened.
Ren felt the earth beneath him dissolve.The clearing vanished.Lyra's warmth became distant.Borin's presence faded.
And then—
He was somewhere else.
Standing on cracked soil.Under a sky split by gray fissures.Surrounded by pillars that resembled trees, but were hollow—as if life had been carved out of them.
He turned.
Something sat at the center of the barren world.
A figure.
Thin.Still.Wrapped in pale, frayed fabric.
Neither alive nor dead.
Their head lowered.Hands folded over their lap.Breath shallow—too shallow.
Waiting.
Ren's heart twisted.
The sealed one.
The first echo-bearer.
He stepped closer, though the dream felt like walking through water.The figure did not move.But the world itself reacted—cracks spreading across the skyas if the dream couldn't hold his presence.
Ren whispered:
"You're… still here."
The figure exhaled.
A sound so soft it felt like it came from inside Ren's own chest.
Then the echo in him surged—not in pain,but in recognition.
The sealed one lifted their head.
Slowly.
Agonizingly slowly.
Their face was blurred, caught between memory and shadow, but their eyes—
Their eyes were hollow.
Hollow in a way that no living being should ever be.
Yet they focused on Ren.
Saw him.
Recognized him.
The echo trembled violently.
Lyra's distant voice called his name, but it felt muffled, like she was speaking from underwater.
The sealed one opened their mouth.
No sound came.
But Ren felt the meaning as clearly as if it had been carved into his bones.
"Turn back."
Ren shook his head.
"No."
The figure stood.
Not quickly.Not fluidly.
Every movement cracked the dream around them, making the world shiver.
Ren stepped back, breath caught in his throat.
The sealed one extended a hand.
Not toward him.
Toward his chest.
Toward the echo.
Their voice reached him again.
Not a whisper.A plea.
"Don't carry it."
Ren's heart pounded.
"I don't want to."
The figure stepped closer.
And the dream bent around them.
"Then give it up."
Ren trembled.
"I… I can't."
The sealed one's blurred face shifted.
Not angry.
Desperate.
"It will take you."
Ren's voice broke.
"I know."
"Then why do you hold it?"
Ren swallowed.
Something inside him—the fractured echo—strained, as if pulled toward the figure's hand.
"I don't know how to let go."
The dream cracked.
The sky split open.
The world fissured.
And the sealed one reached out and touched Ren's chest.
The echo inside him screamed—not in pain,in memory.
Lyra's voice burst through the dream, sharp and terrified:
"REN! COME BACK!"
————
Ren collapsed forward.
Lyra caught him before he hit the ground, pulling him against her chest.
"Ren! Ren, breathe—please, breathe—"
He gasped as air rushed back into his lungs.
Borin hovered behind them, tense.
Draven was crying into his own shirt.
Ren clung to Lyra as if drowning.
Her voice broke.
"What happened?! What did you see?!"
Ren tried to speak.
But only one sentence came out.
Barely a whisper.
Barely a breath.
"They begged me…not to become what they almost became."
Lyra held him tighter.
"What did they become?"
Ren's eyes opened slowly.
Gray.
Empty.
Haunted.
And he whispered:
"They became the dream."
The seal pulsed once.
Soft.
Warning.
And Ren understood—
The echo wasn't just a bond.It was an inheritance.And someone had left it behindfor him to decidewhether the path would end with himor begin again.