The ground did not forgive footsteps.
Every print Sunny left behind filled instantly with black water,
SFX: ripploop—void-soaked footsteps erased
as though the Shore refused to let him claim even an inch of it again.
He walked anyway.
The slave camp sagged behind him like a memory that had learned how to rot.
Wagons sank deeper as he passed —
SFX: groaannn—rust collapsing inward —
chains lifted and trembled, singing their old, familiar dirge.
He did not look back.
The Labyrinth
It had grown.
Where once there had been twenty- or thirty-meter walls of dark stone,
now cliffs towered —
black, wet, cancerous things leaning inward until the sky was nothing but a thin red wound overhead.
The sun (if that bleeding hole deserved the name) hung motionless.
Nailed in place.
Time had died here, and no one had bothered burying the corpse.
The air tasted of rust and wet iron.
Every breath coated the tongue like blood.
Sunny walked for hours.
Or days.
Distance had become a rumor.
The ground rose and fell in slow, tidal breaths.
Sometimes he passed the skeletons of Nightmare Creatures so ancient their bones had turned to stone and kept growing, forming arches and tunnels he had to crawl through.
Inside, the walls wept a thick, salty fluid that whispered his old names in voices belonging to those he had killed:
SFX: sskrrr… sskrrr… (Lost from Light)
skkkrraaa… (Sunless)
shhhh… (Slave)
lieeeerrr…
He did not hurry.
He had already died more than they had.
The City
Eventually, the cliffs parted.
A city opened before him.
Not the desperate ruin he remembered.
Not the Dark City stitched from hope and dust.
This was something else.
A colossal inverted ziggurat carved down into the bedrock.
Layer after layer descending into hunger.
Each level a ring of black stone wider than the last.
Houses clung to the inner walls — built from shipwrecks, broken wagons, bleached bone.
Bridges of chain and rope swayed over the abyss.
Torches burned with green fire that gave no heat.
The entire structure hung beneath the red sky like a tumor the world had failed to carve out.
And it was alive.
Thousands moved across the terraces.
Hard-eyed.
Hard-lived.
Children with branded foreheads chased each other across roofs.
Old men sharpened weapons that had never known peace.
Hammers sang on iron without pause.
They saw him the instant he stepped into the open.
A hush fell —
SFX: whuuum—silence dropping level by level
— until the entire city held its breath.
Sunny stopped on the uppermost terrace.
Every face turned toward him.
Thousands of eyes reflecting the red sky like blood caught in mirrors.
Then they knelt.
Not in fear.
In recognition.
A voice rose from far below, cracked and ancient:
"The Traitor Saint walks again."
The words spread upward like infection.
"Traitor Saint."
"Traitor Saint."
"Traitor Saint."
The name settled onto his shoulders like an old chain.
He did not correct them.
The Girl on the Bridge
From the highest bridge — a swaying thing of bone and rope — a figure stepped forward.
A girl.
Seventeen. Maybe eighteen.
Tall, lean, sunburned dark.
Hair like molten silver tied back by a strip of red cloth.
Eyes burning with live gold fire.
She wore armor of black iron and white bone.
In her hand: a spear that looked suspiciously like a fragment of the Crimson Spire — jagged, warm, bleeding slow light.
Impossible.
Nephis was dead.
Burned herself to nothing four centuries ago.
Sunny had held what remained and wept blood for a week.
The girl walked the bridge as though it were solid stone.
At the end, she did not slow.
She jumped.
SFX: fwsshhh—air tearing
Ten meters.
She landed lightly before him, ash settling at her feet.
Up close, the resemblance was a knife in the ribs.
Same cheekbones.
Same stubborn mouth.
Same spear posture.
Only the eyes were wrong — too much fire, not enough mercy.
She studied him.
Then she smiled.
Almost the same smile Nephis had given him the first time she judged him worth saving.
Almost.
"Hello, ancestor-killer," she murmured.
Before he could answer—
She moved.
The spear blurred — a straight, merciless line.
SFX: CRAAK—impact through bone
It punched through his sternum, out his back, and buried itself three feet into the black stone behind him.
Pain blossomed —
bright, clean, honest.
The girl leaned in, using the spear as leverage.
Gold fire met absolute black.
"Four hundred years," she whispered.
"Four hundred years we waited for you to crawl back. And here you are."
She twisted the spear.
SFX: grrrkkk—bone grinding
Shadow-blood hissed where it touched the weapon.
Sunny tasted iron and old promises.
He looked closer.
A brand on her forehead.
0001.
His cohort number.
Burned into living skin when she'd still been a child.
He coughed once.
Black droplets spattered her cheek.
She didn't blink.
Silence spread.
Even infants quieted.
Sunny lifted one hand, slowly, and closed his fingers around the spear's shaft.
"You have her eyes," he said.
Calm. Almost curious.
Her smile thinned.
"I have her everything.
You made sure of that when you left her to die."
She ripped the spear free.
SFX: shlkk—shadow flesh sealing shut
The wound closed instantly.
Sunny stood whole again, coat fluttering in a wind no living world claimed.
He looked past her — at the terraces, at the thousands of branded foreheads, at the altars made from shattered swords and melted Memories.
At the seven silhouettes painted on the deepest wall: one for each cohort member.
His silhouette was in the center.
Faceless.
Heart hollowed out.
He looked back at her.
"What's your name?"
She considered killing him again.
Decided it was pointless.
"Ash," she said.
"Because that's all that was left when the fire went out."
She stepped back.
Planted the spear.
Regarded him the way a butcher regards a cow that has walked willingly into the slaughterhouse.
"Welcome to the City-That-Ate-Time, Traitor Saint.
We've been keeping your seat warm."
Behind her, the city rose as one.
No cheers.
Just watching.
Waiting.
Sunny felt four hundred years of weight settle over him like a familiar yoke.
He smiled — small, tired, sharp.
"Then let's not keep them waiting any longer."
Ash's golden eyes narrowed.
She turned and walked toward the city.
Sunny followed.
Chains sang beneath their feet —
SFX: cliiink—cliiink—old metal waking
The red sun bled overhead, unmoving.
And somewhere deep in the inverted ziggurat, something vast and patient stirred in its sleep.
Tasting the return of an old, beloved flavor.
Betrayal.