Ren stood alone in that hollow dark, broken dagger trembling in his hand. It was a stupid idea to hold onto it. There was no reason to hold such a useless weapon. But letting it go would feel like dropping the last piece of himself he still understood.
'I shouldn't be here alone,' He thought.
The altar waited ahead, blackened by time. Or ash. Or memories. Behind it, the wall had caved inward, revealing a split in the stone. And a collapsed section of the floorboard. A large hole.
Something about it drew his attention.
Not the Mother, nor a voice.
But his own instinct.
Ren stepped past the altar and crouched at the edge of the breakage. Dust drifted in the still air of the hollow space. The cold rising from it wasn't the kind that touched the skin. It was the kind that filled your chest when you breathed. He peered over the ledge, and saw a narrow stone passage that wound downward—a collapsed staircase burrowing into the darkness.
Yet far below, a faint light pulsed, bluish and distant.
Ren glanced back toward the chapel doors, half-expecting them to creak open.
To see Eva standing there. But he was only met by isolation.
His fingers tightened around the broken edge of the hole, and he began his descent, careful with each step between crumbled tiles and fractured stone. The crumbled walls here were rough. Carved. Marked with symbols and smeared handprints. As if someone had clawed this passage into existence in desperation. Running from something. Or reaching for something.
The corridor narrowed as he descended, pressing him between damp stone walls that wept with moisture. Moss clung to every crack. Water trickled from somewhere above, pattering like rain inside a tomb. He kept one hand against the wall for balance.
The pale light ahead grew stronger.
Lunar.
After what felt like an hour, though it may have only been minutes, the corridor opened.
And Ren stepped into something…impossible.
A vast underground expanse stretched before him.
Not a chamber, nor a simple cave. But a world.
The ceiling arched high overhead, formed of stone and crystal veined with silver and violet light. Waterfalls poured from impossible heights, cascading through fractures in the rock as though the heavens themselves had split open. They fell in slow, graceful sheets into a wide basin below, glowing faintly with bioluminescence. But none of it compared to what hovered above.
A full white moon, perfect and still. It wasn't a hole in the ceiling. It wasn't an illusion.
A moon, suspended in the air, as if a piece of the sky had been torn away and buried beneath in this place. It was bright, its presence alone being enough to light this entire underground world.
The moonlight bathed the entire chamber, painting the waterfalls ghost-white and turning moss-covered stone into shimmering emerald. Ren stood at the precipice, still in awe.
A narrow stone path stretched from where he stood, winding downward toward the waterfall's edge, hugging the wall like a forgotten pilgrimage trail.
Without realizing it, he whispered. "…What is this place? It's…beautiful."
He began down the path, each step careful on the slick stone. The descent was slow, and deliberate, giving him time to take in the vastness below. There were no nightmares here. No sign of The Mother. No wolves. No corpses. No abominations. And no crimson skies above.
Halfway down, the path widened into a stone platform that jutted outward like a balcony. The view stole what little breath he had left. Far below, the water was smooth and still, like a mirror held up to the moon. A soft mist curled upward where the waterfalls met the basin. Ren sat at the edge and stared up at the moon. He didn't know what this place was meant to be.
But it felt sacred. Like something precious had been hidden here long ago.
'I don't belong here,' Ren thought. 'I don't know what this place is. Why it exists? But I know it wasn't meant for someone like me.' He looked down at the broken dagger in his hands. 'Everything I've done here. Every time I've died. All the pain...I thought there must be a reason. A reason I must endure. Not for myself, but for something else. Someone else…I acted like I had answers. Like walking into the chapel alone made me brave. Courageous.' A bitter smile tugged at his lips. 'But I was just scared. Scared of someone to stay again. Scared of needing.'
He leaned back on his palms.
'And now I'm sitting here alone…in front of something that doesn't care who I was. It feels…kind of nice.' The smile that followed was much too fragile. 'I think she would've loved this place…'
For a moment, he imagined her beside him. Eva, sitting there with her eyes closed, listening to the distant sound of falling water. Breathing in the stillness. Feeling the same air that filled him.
He stayed there for quite some time, letting the sounds drape over him like a shroud.
Then—
A faint sound came near the basin. He thought he saw her.
A dark silhouette, wavering like smoke against the moonlight on a shallow ledge below.
Ren blinked again and saw nothing.
Not a hint of something being there.
He rose to his feet, and heard a voice behind him, gentle and soft.
"This place is really pretty, Ren…"