But scattered throughout the mundane records were stranger accounts that made his skin crawl with recognition. People who claimed to see a figure waiting for them in their final moments. Deaths that seemed negotiated rather than inevitable. Last words that spoke of tall shadows and cold eyes, of someone who came not when called but when needed, whether the dying wanted him or not.
In a withered book bound in what might once have been skin, Damian found a single line that stopped his breath entirely: “He comes when you call him, not with words but with ache, drawn by the weight of souls who refuse to let go.”
The text was attributed to someone called the Last Witness, dated to the collapse of the Ashen Accord. Below it, in different handwriting that felt somehow familiar, was an addendum:
“The greatest mercy is often indistinguishable from the greatest cruelty.”
Damian ran his fingers over the lines repeatedly, tracing each letter with growing obsession. The words seemed to burn themselves into his mind, echoing with the weight of absolute truth. As he read and re-read the passage, he became aware of that presence again, not quite a voice but something like held breath, like someone listening from just beyond the edge of perception.
The library grew colder with each reading, frost forming on the ancient texts despite the warm air. Damian's breath became visible, and the silence deepened until it felt like being buried alive in cotton.
“I know you're there,” he whispered to the empty air between the stacks. “I can feel you listening. What do you want from me?”
No answer came, but the cold intensified, and for a moment Damian could have sworn he felt fingers ghosting across his cheek. Gentle, impossibly gentle, but cold as winter morning.
He left the library shaken, telling himself it was only fatigue, nothing more. But deep in his bones, he knew better. The city’s breath felt closer, its presence humming in every stone he touched—as if the streets themselves tracked his passage, attentive and waiting.
The walk back to his clinic took longer than usual, his steps slow and hesitant as he tried to process what he'd learned. The idea that Death might be a person rather than a process, that someone might actually be listening to the desperate prayers of the dying, was both terrifying and oddly comforting.
That evening, Damian performed his nightly ritual with unusual care. He lit his candles one by one, each flame steady and warm against the growing cold in his clinic.
But tonight, for the first time in years, he felt compelled to speak aloud to the darkness. The words came unbidden, pulled from some deep well of longing he hadn't known existed:
“If you're there, if you're real, if you can hear the ache in people's hearts, don't take me yet. I have too much left to do.”
The moment the words left his lips, everything changed.
A cold wind swept through the clinic, raising goosebumps along Damian’s arms, even though the windows were shut and the doors locked tight. He felt the sudden chill settle over him, sharp as knives, the air prickling against his skin. The candle flames must have danced—he could hear the faint, uneasy flicker and smell hot wax drifting in strange currents, all pulled toward the eastern wall as if by invisible breath. The temperature dropped so fast it left his teeth chattering, and when he exhaled, he could feel the wetness of his breath in the frozen air. Somewhere nearby, the walls crackled and popped, the sound of ice forming—patterns he could only imagine, but he felt their presence like a whisper just out of reach.
The silence that followed was different from any quiet Damian had experienced. It wasn't empty but full, pregnant with attention, heavy with presence. Something was listening, had heard him, was considering his words with the weight of cosmic significance.
The realization hit him like a revelation: he was not alone, had never been alone. Something vast and patient had beenwatching him, waiting for him to acknowledge its presence, to speak directly to the darkness instead of pretending it was empty.
His hands shook as he reached for his journal, trying to record what had happened. But words felt inadequate, too small to contain the magnitude of what he'd just experienced. How could he describe the feeling of being heard by something that existed beyond mortal comprehension?
Sleep brought no relief from the growing strangeness. Damian dreamed of a figure kneeling before a door made of interlaced ribs and shadows, tall and impossibly graceful, with hair like starlight and eyes that held the darkness between stars. The figure's hands were pressed against the bone door, and tears fell from his void-dark eyes like drops of liquid silver.
In the dream, the weeping figure looked up at the sound of Damian's approach, and their eyes met across the threshold between worlds. The recognition was instantaneous and overwhelming, like meeting someone he'd been waiting for his entire life without knowing it.
The bone door swung open to reveal Damian's clinic, and the figure rose with fluid grace. When he spoke, his voice was like wind through empty spaces, beautiful and terrible and infinitely sad: “You called, and I answered. But are you prepared for what that means?”
Damian tried to respond, to ask who the figure was, to understand the profound sorrow in those star-bright eyes. But the moment he opened his mouth, the dream fractured like glass, reality reasserting itself with violent suddenness.
He woke screaming, his skin covered in frost despite the warm night. His clinic was freezing, his breath visible in the suddenly arctic air.
Corrin burst through his door without knocking, their face pale with worry and fear. “Gods, Damian, what happened? You were screaming loud enough to wake the dead.”
He couldn't remember screaming, couldn't remember making any sound at all. But his throat felt raw, and his neighbors were probably cursing his name. Through chattering teeth, he managed to whisper the words that would change everything: “Someone heard me. Someone answered. And I think... I think I've been calling him my whole life.”
Corrin wrapped him in blankets while he shivered uncontrollably, his body convinced it was freezing despite the warm air. They made tea with hands that shook almost as badly as his, and sat with him until the tremors subsided and his breathing returned to normal.
“Tell me,” they said when he was finally calm enough to speak coherently.
So he did. The dream, the figure with starlight hair, the bone door that opened onto his own clinic. The sense of recognition, of meeting someone he'd been waiting for without knowing it. The terrible, beautiful sadness in those void-dark eyes.
“It felt real,” he said finally. “More real than this conversation, more real than anything I've ever experienced. Like everything else has been shadow, and that was the first time I've seen actual light.”
Corrin was quiet for a long time, their breathing careful and controlled. When they finally spoke, their voice was small and frightened: “What if it was real? What if whatever's been happening in the city, all the strangeness and the broken clocks and the impossible things, what if it's connected to you?”
