The days after the Harvest Moon passed in uneasy quiet.
Verdant Hollow was changed. The villagers no longer whispered in fear of the soil, nor painted spirals on their doors. Children laughed openly in the square, their voices no longer silenced by dread. For the first time in generations, the Hollow felt alive.
But Elian was unraveling.
He walked among them, but each step carried the weight of countless others. When he looked at the sky, he saw not one moon but dozens — every Harvest Moon that had ever risen, layered atop one another. When he heard laughter, he also heard screams. When he closed his eyes, he lived a hundred lives that were not his own.
The Echo was inside him. And it was growing louder.
---
The Splintering
Lira found him in the manor one evening, standing before the cracked mirror. His reflection no longer matched him. Sometimes it was a child. Sometimes it was a stranger. Sometimes it was no one at all.
"Elian," she said softly, touching his arm.
He flinched. "Don't call me that."
Her breath caught. "Why?"
He turned to her, eyes glowing faintly silver. "Because I don't know if that's who I am anymore."
The voices stirred within him, whispering, pleading. "We were here. We mattered. Don't forget us."
He pressed his hands to his head. "They won't stop. They want me to speak for them, all at once. But if I do, I'll vanish."
Lira gripped his shoulders. "Then let us carry them with you. You don't have to bear this alone."
But Elian shook his head. "The wound chose me. The vessel must hold."
---
The Village Divides
Word spread quickly. Some villagers began to fear him, whispering that he was no longer Elian but the Echo itself wearing his skin. They avoided him in the square, crossing themselves when he passed.
Others revered him, bowing their heads, calling him the Keeper of Names. They brought him offerings — toys, ribbons, scraps of cloth — relics of the children they had lost, begging him to speak their names aloud.
Each time he did, the voices inside him grew heavier.
Maerith confronted him in the square. "You cannot carry them all. You will break. And when you do, the Hollow will break with you."
Elian's voice was layered, a chorus. "Better me than another child."
But Maerith shook her head. "No. Better all of us than you alone."
The villagers murmured, torn between fear and devotion.
---
The Fracture
That night, Elian dreamed.
He stood in the forest of bone-white trees, the stitched sky unraveling above him. The children walked backward through the fog, their mouths sewn shut. But this time, when they turned, they all had his face.
"You are us," they whispered. "We are you."
He tried to run, but the fog thickened, pulling him down. The soil opened, swallowing him whole.
He woke screaming, the manor walls trembling, the mirrors shattering. Lira rushed to him, holding his face in her hands.
"You're slipping," she whispered. "You're becoming them."
Tears burned his eyes. "Then what am I, Lira? Am I Elian? Or am I the Echo?"
She held him tighter. "You are both. And neither. You are the bridge."
---
The Choice Looms
The journal appeared again, though its pages had been blank since the Pact broke. New words bled across the parchment:
> "The vessel cannot hold forever. The wound must be shared, or it will consume."
Elian stared at the words, trembling. "It wants me to give them away. To let the village carry them too."
Lira nodded. "Then let us. That's what remembrance means — not one voice, but many."
But Elian hesitated. "If I release them, they may not stay gentle. They may not forgive. They may consume the Hollow."
The voices inside him stirred, restless, hungry.
The Harvest Moon was gone, but its shadow lingered.
And Elian knew the next choice would decide not only his fate, but the fate of Verdant Hollow itself.
---