Not feel the injustice of it burning in its chest?
Rage tears through me. Sudden. Vicious. Even here, wherever this is. My vision stutters. I think my hands are fists, but I can’tfeel them. I can’t feel anything except the crack in me, widening fast and sharp, like I’m coming apart from the inside.
Sabine deserves justice.
Not this... indifference.
“Stop,” I try to say. But the word doesn’t come out. There’s no voice to speak with. Just the intention.
Just a scream trapped somewhere in my soul, echoing without air.
The figure doesn’t pause. Doesn’t blink.
He steps forward and tilts his head toward her body like he’s listening for something beneath the silence.
Then something shifts.
From Sabine’s chest—right from her heart—something lifts.
It glows, like a tiny lightbulb in the dark.
It doesn’t have a body, not really. It doesn’t seem to have a shape at all. It’s just light. And yet… it looks like her.
Like her softness. Her sorrow. The way she used to smile at me when it was just the two of us and life still felt kind.
She floats upward.
The figure summons a scythe from thin air.
The raven on his shoulder shifts, watching me like it knows who I am. Like it’s judging.
“No,” I think. No—beg. “Not her. Take me. Please. Take me instead.”
But he doesn’t hear.
Doesn’t even notice my pleading.
This…thingraises the scythe. The blade hums with something. I don’t hear it so much asfeelit. It’s like a vibration of sorts. Something that I feel in the core of my being, like it’s older than me. It slices through the space between them, and Sabine’s light—her soul—shudders.
The raven lets out a low, guttural croak.
I lurch forward—or try to. My body stays still, but my will surges ahead. Every part of me reaches for her light. For whatever is left of her that’s still here.
It’s still her. I know it is.
Please, I think, and this time, the word seems to ripple through the dark.
The being hesitates.
Just for a moment.
It turns its head and looks straight at me.
It sees me.
And what’s left of my breath catches.
Because those eyes aren’t just empty. They’re infinite. I could fall into them and never stop. This isn’t a man.
