The crimson glow swallowed the horizon. What was once a broken village now looked like a dream bleeding into itself — fragments of homes stretched like reflections across rippling glass. Every sound echoed too long, as if the air itself was listening.
Kael and Mira stood at the fissure's edge, their shadows stretching unnaturally in opposite directions. Beneath them, the ground pulsed with faint luminescence — the steady heartbeat of the Vein.
Mira crouched, pressing her palm against the surface. "It's deep," she murmured. "I can feel movement below, like veins of blood threading through the soil."
Kael's gaze followed the pulsing light as it disappeared into the cracks. "If it's alive, it's feeding on something. The question is — what?"
She didn't answer. Instead, her eyes drifted toward the far end of the plaza, where a stairway seemed to form from nowhere — red stones rising smoothly from the ground, one by one, in a slow spiral downward.
Kael's grip tightened on his sword. "It wants us to go down."
Mira rose, brushing the dust from her knees. "Then we go. If it's communicating through patterns, this is an invitation… or a test."
As they descended, the air grew heavier. The walls of the spiral pulsed faintly, the same rhythm as the fissure above. Tiny motes of red light drifted through the air, illuminating carvings that appeared along the stone — spirals, eyes, and strange shapes resembling roots.
Halfway down, Mira stopped. "These carvings… they're not random. Look — they shift when you look away."
Kael turned his head slightly, and indeed — what was once an eye morphed into an open mouth, whispering shapes etched into the walls. The sound was faint, barely more than the hum of breath.
Then he heard it clearly.
"…you hear us…?"
Kael froze. "Did you—"
"I did," Mira whispered. "The walls… they're speaking."
The whispers grew louder, like wind curling through a thousand unseen cracks. They weren't just sounds — they were fragments of voices, overlapping, desperate, yet harmonious in a way that made Kael's skin crawl.
"…the pulse remembers… the forgotten rise again…"
"…he carries the shard… she carries the rhythm…"
Mira shivered. "They know us."
Kael stepped closer to the wall, eyes narrowing. "Or they're reading us."
The whispers shifted tone — no longer chaotic, but singular, sharp, directed. "Kael…"
The voice was soft, female, distant. It came not from the wall, but from within him — from the pulse that had merged with his own heartbeat since entering the valley.
He staggered back, clutching his chest. The crimson veins under his skin glowed faintly for a moment before fading. Mira rushed to his side. "Kael— what's happening?"
He exhaled sharply, the echo of that voice still vibrating through him. "It spoke my name… from inside."
Mira's eyes darted around. "The Vein's memory is latching onto you. You've touched it too many times. It's recognizing your pattern."
"Then it's learning faster than we thought," he muttered.
They continued down, the stairs spiraling deeper until the walls opened into a vast subterranean chamber. The ceiling was lost in darkness, but at its center stood a massive root-like structure — thick, red, and pulsating, anchored into the ground like the heart of the world.
The air here was warm and alive, vibrating with low, rhythmic energy. Kael approached cautiously, each step resonating with the heartbeat. Mira followed, her gaze fixed on the pulsating mass.
"It's the core," she breathed. "The Vein's origin point."
Kael stopped a few feet away. The surface of the root shimmered, alive with faint images — memories flickering like reflections in liquid light. He saw glimpses of faces, places, moments lost in time. Hunters. Villagers. Even fragments of the past world before the decay.
Then he saw himself — distorted, standing amid ruins, his blade buried in the same red mass.
He froze. "Mira…"
She stepped closer, eyes widening at the reflection. "It's showing us something that hasn't happened yet."
The heartbeat quickened, echoing through the chamber. The whispers returned, urgent now, overlapping into chaos.
"…the shard must return… balance or decay…"
"…one must be lost for the pulse to remember…"
The air trembled violently. The walls bled red light, and the ground shifted beneath their feet. Kael felt the pulse syncing violently with his heart, each beat sending a shock through his body.
He dropped to one knee, gritting his teeth. "It's trying to pull me in!"
Mira grabbed his arm, her voice steady despite the quake. "Fight it, Kael! It's trying to rewrite your pattern — to make you part of it!"
"I can't— it's too strong!"
Without thinking, Mira pressed her hand over his chest, and her pulse met his. A second rhythm — hers — clashed with the Vein's. The resonance shifted, the red light flickering as if confused.
For a moment, the world stilled. The whispers fell silent.
And then, a single line echoed in their minds, clear and cold:
"Two hearts cannot share one memory."
The light flared once more — blinding, red, endless — and the chamber shattered into darkness.
Silence. A silence so absolute it hurt.
Kael opened his eyes to a world submerged in dull crimson light. The ground beneath him pulsed faintly, veins of molten red crawling like living rivers across an endless plain. The air shimmered — too thick, too heavy, as though he were breathing inside a dream.
"Mira?" His voice was swallowed instantly, as if the air refused to carry it.
No answer. Only the rhythmic thrum beneath his boots.
Kael pushed himself up. His sword was gone, his gloves torn. His veins glowed faintly beneath his skin, synchronized with the pulse of the Vein itself. He looked around — and saw the impossible.
Above him floated fragments of memory — shattered scenes drifting like glass panels suspended in the air. Within them, he saw moments replaying: his first battle with the hunters, Mira's first smile, the day the Vault opened. Each image warped and flickered, as if the world were trying to remember, but couldn't.
He reached toward one. The glass surface rippled — and suddenly he was there.
The sound of rain. The smell of smoke. The night the Vault broke open. Kael stood watching himself from a distance, blade drawn, screaming Mira's name as the earth split apart. Then, as quickly as it appeared, the scene shattered back into red dust.
Kael staggered back, breathing hard. "No… this isn't memory. It's reconstruction. The Vein's rewriting the past."
Meanwhile—
Mira awoke inside a cathedral made of roots. Every wall was alive, breathing, the glow of the Vein running through the wood like molten blood. She sat up, heart racing. "Kael?"
A whisper echoed softly, like wind through hollow glass. "…he is beyond… the pulse divides what it cannot contain…"
Mira's hands trembled. "No. I won't lose him to this."
She stood, her boots sinking slightly into the soft, pulsing ground. The air was thick with images too — but hers were different. In her fragments, Kael stood distant, his eyes hollow, his blade dripping with crimson. The memory twisted his expression, turning his determination into something colder, darker.
Mira pressed her hands to her temples. "You're showing me lies."
The Vein whispered back — "…truth and lie are one beneath the pulse… you made him your anchor, and now you must pay the weight of memory…"
Her breath hitched. "Anchor…?"
Suddenly, she saw it — a thread of light pulsing from her chest, trailing away into the distance, vanishing into the red horizon. Kael. Their shared heartbeat had become a tether through the Vein's labyrinth.
Mira didn't hesitate. She followed it.
Kael wandered through the bleeding plain. He was beginning to hear her heartbeat faintly — distant but rhythmic, like an echo calling from another world. Every step he took left a ripple behind, and in those ripples, he began to see her.
Mira — trapped inside a cathedral of roots, her hands glowing as she forced her way through the walls of light.
Kael clenched his fists. "Hold on, Mira… I'm coming."
The pulse around him grew stronger, the red deepening to black. The Vein seemed to notice his defiance, and the ground beneath him shifted violently. Tendrils erupted from the soil, crimson and sharp, striking at him like serpents.
Kael drew breath, and his right arm ignited with the faint glow of the shard. Energy pulsed through his veins, his movements flowing with unnatural precision. He cut through the tendrils one by one, shouting into the red void —
"You won't take her!"
The Vein responded with a roar — not sound, but vibration. It struck his chest like thunder. Kael fell to one knee, clutching his ribs as the pulse screamed inside his head.
Then—
He saw Mira, clear as day, standing at the edge of her own world — reaching toward the same invisible thread that bound them. Their voices collided through the divide.
"Kael!"
"Mira!"
Their hands met across the unseen wall. For an instant, the world paused — light and memory aligning.
The Vein's voice shattered the stillness:
"Two hearts cannot share one memory… unless one forgets."
Mira's eyes widened. "No—"
Kael felt the pull again — the world fracturing around him. The pulse began to absorb him, rewriting his essence into the rhythm of the Vein. Mira slammed her other hand against the divide, tears mixing with the red light.
"Take me, not him!"
The light flared violently. The pulse trembled, and the voice replied, colder than before:
"Exchange accepted."
Kael screamed her name — but his voice dissolved as the red light consumed her.
Mira's image disintegrated, turning into particles of crimson dust that spiraled upward, fading into the Vein's core. The tether snapped.
Kael fell to the ground, gasping, the world collapsing around him. The crimson plain faded to gray.
And then — silence.
He rose slowly, alone, surrounded by the ashes of the Vein's glow. The air was still. The world had stopped pulsing.
He looked up at the hollow sky and whispered, "Mira…"
But only the faint echo of her heartbeat lingered — fading, fading — until it was gone.