The first midnight came without warning.
No moon. No stars. Only the red wound in the sky.
(SFX: shhhhh… the world holding its breath)
The caravan traced its endless circle. The corpse-mountain was silent. The boy—Sunny at fifteen—had slumped against the bars, exhaustion claiming him faster than terror. Sunny sat beside him, one hand resting on a thin shoulder that flinched at every sound.
Then reality hiccuped.
One heartbeat, the cage was real—cold iron, the stink of bodies, petrified wheels grinding slowly.
The next, everything dissolved into black water. Silence.
And then reality snapped back.
The boy was awake. Brand fresh. Bleeding.
The other slaves were exactly where they had begun. Memories erased. Bruises new. The mountain of corpses untouched. Reset.
Chains tightened around Sunny's wrists as though they had never been broken.
The boy looked at him, seeing a stranger in a black coat. The promise was gone. Midnight had erased it all.
Ash stayed outside the invisible circle, spear planted, flame simmering low. When the loop reset, her head snapped up. She saw Sunny kneeling again. She saw the boy recoil. Her face went still.
Sunny rose slowly. He approached the bars.
"Let them go," he growled.
The mountain laughed.
(SFX: ghhhraaahh… voices wet and layered, a thousand throats)
"Never. They are mine. You are mine. This road never ends, little liar. You built it the day you crawled out and left them behind."
Sunny closed his eyes. When he opened them, they were black from edge to edge.
Shadow poured from his palms like oil—creeping across the wagon, the circle, every chain, every corpse, every rusted wheel. It hunted the weak points, seeking the lie that held the loop together.
He found it: the heart of the mountain.
A single iron collar. Older than the Spell. Etched with the first slave's name. It pulsed like a heartbeat.
Sunny wrapped shadow around it and pulled.
The mountain screamed.
Chains snapped. Wagons cracked. Slaves blinked, eyes wide, suddenly awake.
For one heartbeat, the circle broke.
Then midnight returned.
The cage was full again.
The boy bled anew.
The mountain stood whole.
Sunny did not scream. He sat and waited.
Ash watched silently as he tried seventeen more times:
(SFX: crack, slash, sizzle—shadow blades, fire, and shattered chains)
Shadow blades, raw strength, reshaping memories, stolen flame, even the True Name of gods. Each attempt, the loop broke for one perfect instant… only to be swallowed again.
On the eighteenth dawn (or dusk), Ash approached the edge of the circle.
"You can't save them," she said softly. "No one ever could. Not even her."
Sunny's gaze lifted from the boy.
"Her?"
"My ancestor," Ash whispered. "The child your cohort carried out on the last day. Nephis gave her the last water, told her to live. She did. Had children. I am the last."
She touched the brand on her forehead—0001.
"The flame never went out. It just… got angry."
Sunny looked at the boy curled against the bars. He stood.
"One more try," he said.
Ash shook her head. The black water rose. Knee-deep, then waist-high. Outside, chains dragged. Mist carried the sound of marching. Slow. Rhythmic. Wrong.
Salt crusted the air. It tasted of old tears, older graves.
The Drowned Legion was coming.
(SFX: CLUNK… CLUNK… armored bodies rising from black water)
They rose like a tide of memory. Thousands, salt-encrusted, eyes sockets full of seawater, barnacles where hearts should be. Rusted swords and spears dragged behind them, furrows carving themselves in the water and instantly filling. Former Awakened, claimed by the Shore, never released. Silent. Hungry. Perfect.
Ash's flame roared—white, gold, furious.
"Every midnight they come!" she shouted. "They kill the slaves. The mountain eats them. The loop resets. That's the rule now!"
Sunny looked at the boy. The boy whispered, "Don't leave me."
"I won't," Sunny said.
He stepped out of the cage. The invisible wall was gone—midnight had not yet arrived, and the rules were bending.
(SFX: shhhhk as shadow spears erupted around the caravan)
Shadow exploded from his feet, a ring of black spears. The Drowned Legion hit like a wave against rock.
The fight was not beautiful. Wet. Close. Brutal.
Salt-crusted gauntlets tore through shadow. Rusted blades bit deep. Sunny waded in, shadow arms unfolding—seven of them, each wearing a face from his past.
He tore heads from necks, crushed helms until seawater and marrow mixed. Fists punched through chests. Hearts still beat, carrying fragments: memories of the Saint, the man who kissed his wife goodbye, the child Awakened too young. All of them haunted the Crimson Spire, feeding it. Building something inside itself. Something that needed one last ingredient. Sunny.
(SFX: splash… CRUNCH… shadow-blood meeting black water, salt hissing)
He fought until the water turned black with shadow-blood, white with salt. Until the Drowned Legion sank beneath the surface. Until the only sound was his breathing, Ash's flame, and the slow turning of wagon wheels.
Knee-deep in corpses, coat torn, one arm hanging wrong, face flayed to the bone, he stood.
Ash stared. Spear dripping.
"You can't stop midnight," she whispered.
Sunny looked at the boy. Eyes wide, trust unbroken. Something ancient inside him shattered.
He knelt again.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. The boy did not understand.
Sunny cupped the thin face in his hands.
"I lied," he said. "I always lied. That's how I survived."
The boy's eyes widened.
Midnight began. The world started to dissolve.
"This time," Sunny pressed his forehead to the boy's. "Stay here. Be braver than I ever was."
Then midnight swallowed them. Reset.
The boy bled anew. The mountain stood whole.
But something had changed. Recognition flickered.
The Crimson Spire far away fired a beam of pure red light. It punched through the red wound in the sky.
The water boiled. Ash's flame guttered in fear.
The mountain opened every mouth and screamed with one voice.
"It's time."
The caravan stopped walking for the first time in four centuries. The gates opened.
From the horizon, something vast moved toward them. Something the Spire had grown in its womb all this time.
Something with seven faces… that called him Father.