The room was quiet. Too quiet, save for the soft patter of raindrops against the window—a melody of comfort composed by nature.
Silence wrapped around the room like a warm blanket on a cold night. It settled over everything—the walls, the floor, even the rain beyond the window.
Normally, that would've been enough.I should've found comfort in it.
And yet... my heart refused to settle.
It slammed against my ribcage like windows banging shut in a howling wind.
My head throbbed relentlessly. Every muscle in my body remained taut, my back still pressed against the wall as though instinct refused to believe the danger had passed.
The rough texture of the plaster scratched at my shoulder blades, a coarse reminder of the reality I was trying to suppress.
I remembered my younger self running through the rain, savoring the strange comfort of its cold embrace—the way the water would muffle the sound of shouting, turning the world into a blurred, private sanctuary.
The orphanage that raised me offered little warmth, but it hadn't chained me. It just expected me to survive without it.
I watched other kids cling to each other or hide in forgotten corners, desperate for anything to hold onto.
I didn't want any of it. Because they asked something back.
As for me... It was the rain. It was cold, honest, and asked nothing in return.
Back then, it had been enough.
Now, even the same rain couldn't quiet the storm inside me. Even if I stepped outside right now, I doubted I'd feel the same.
The damp air bleeding through the window frame didn't smell like salvation anymore; it smelled of mildew and stale city soot.
My lungs burned, a sharp, metallic sting reminding me of the dust from the depot—the taste of pulverized stone and dried blood that still coated the back of my tongue.
I took a slow, uneven breath and let it all out. But it caught in my throat.
Each breath I took came out more ragged, drawing the knot in my chest tighter and tighter, threatening to unravel something inside me—something I could feel, yet couldn't put into words.
Then—
"Mmhmhm... mhm... la-lala-la..."
Somewhere behind the wall, a gentle melody drifted from the distance, slipping quietly into the room—a mother trying to lull her baby to sleep, perhaps.
It carried a strange rhythm, one that felt oddly out of place in Orario.
"Aha-ha... La-la-la... ha...m-mm"
The melody shifted, no longer distant, but weaving into the very air of the room. It crawled through the cracks in the walls, vibrant and incongruous.
Once, this city had existed only between the pages of a book I loved—a world I thought I knew. But books had never spoken of moments like this. They never captured the quiet lives tucked between adventures, the simple melodies people hummed without thinking. The way a lullaby could survive even here, in a city built on the bones of a dungeon.
The Orario I had imagined and the Orario I now walked were the same city... yet they couldn't have felt more different.
There was life here.
Warmth.
A quiet pull I couldn't quite put into words.
I closed my eyes without realizing I was doing it.
The darkness behind my eyelids didn't bring blackness; it brought the phantom flashes of the depot—the sickening, wet thwack of that limb connecting, the way the light had died in the monster's eyes.
I tried to overwrite those memories with the humming.
"...La-la-la... lala-la..."
The sound wasn't just a lullaby anymore. It carried a strange, hollow sweetness, like a voice reaching out from a place where memory had begun to decay.
It drifted in, light and aimless, dancing over the steady, rhythmic drumming of the rain against the glass.
My breath hitched.
The notes were deceptively simple, a fragile string of sound that seemed to pull at the fraying edges of my own composure. The floor beneath me felt unstable, as if the room itself were swaying, reacting to the frequency of the tune.
It was a haunting bridge between the silence of my own thoughts and the world outside.
The humming didn't just mask the ache in my chest; it gave it a shape, a transient melody that made the grief feel almost... thin. For a fleeting second, the heavy, metallic smell of the scythe limb on the table, the lingering dread of the depot, and the phantom weight of Sera's absence—all of it seemed to suspend itself in the air, caught in the cadence of that wordless, mournful tune.
They were true. The monster. The fight. The magic stone...
And the scythe limb I was holding.
All of it was true.
But what wasn't?
Sera...
A family I'd lost.
A reality I'd never have.
"...mmm-hm-hm..."
Then, the final note faded into the rain, leaving only the sound of my own heartbeat, now synced to a rhythm I hadn't chosen. It was slower, unnervingly steady.
Somehow, it loosened the ache in my chest. Even the throbbing behind my eyes slowly faded beneath the lullaby of an unknown mother.
Such a simple thing. Yet it reached somewhere words couldn't.
Is this what they call bittersweet?
Hah...
My heartbeat slowed, falling into the quiet rhythm of the room. The silence that followed wasn't empty; it was heavy, expectant, like the air right before a thunderstorm breaks.
I opened my eyes. Almost instinctively, they found the table again. The scythe limb sat there, jagged and dark, absorbing the dim light of the room. The ache the lullaby had loosened was already creeping back in, patient, like it had never really left.
Comfort like that never lasted long. Not for me. The silence after the lullaby lingered too long. Long enough for me to feel her watching me.
Then came the soft, deliberate clearing of a throat. It was enough. The room came back into focus—the peeling wallpaper, the dust particles dancing in the faint light, and...
...Raska.
There was that familiar look in her eyes—calm, unreadable... and quietly dangerous.
"Care to tell me what's all this?"