The ground was cold beneath his palms. Grit pressed into his skin, grounding him in a way that hurt. His lungs burned with every breath, shallow and uneven, as if his body could not decide whether it was finished or merely pretending to be.
The night had not changed.
The lantern still flickered. The bodies still lay where they had fallen. Blood darkened the dirt in irregular patches, already losing its sheen.
Only the weight inside his chest was different.
Helplessness settled over him like wet cloth.
This was how it ended. Not with thunder or resistance, but with exhaustion and procedure. With paperwork and cuffs and a woman who had never once believed the world might refuse her.
Her footsteps approached.
Slow. Unhurried.
She wanted him to hear them.
Lin's fingers curled weakly into the dirt. His arms trembled. His legs felt distant, like they belonged to someone else entirely. The last echo of borrowed power was gone now, leaving behind nothing but a hollow ache.
Inside him, there was no voice.
No guidance.
No cold steadiness.
Only silence.
He swallowed.
His throat felt raw.
"Get up," he whispered.
The words barely made it past his lips. They sounded foolish even to him, fragile and thin against the certainty pressing down on him.
The footsteps did not stop.
"Get up," he said again, a little louder.
He did not move.
His body refused him, muscles slack and aching, nerves dulled by fatigue. He felt ridiculous, kneeling in the dirt and muttering to himself like a child pretending at courage.
Fight.
The word surfaced unbidden.
Fight.
His jaw tightened.
"Fight," he whispered.
The woman laughed softly.
It was not amused. It was sharp, edged with contempt.
"Talking to yourself now?" she said. "I suppose that comes naturally to animals."
Her shadow stretched across the ground beside him.
Lin's breathing hitched.
Fight.
The word repeated, this time not as a thought but as a rhythm. Something to cling to. Something simple enough to survive the fog of exhaustion.
"Fight," he muttered. "Fight. Fight."
His fingers dug deeper into the dirt.
The woman stopped a few steps away.
"Do not mistake my patience for weakness," she said coldly. "You will remain where you are."
Her boot scraped forward.
Lin's vision tunneled.
He thought of the room he had woken up in. The cracked ceiling. The borrowed memories that did not belong to him. The month spent learning streets and faces and habits that had never been his.
Borrowed ground.
Borrowed body.
Borrowed defiance.
No.
Something twisted painfully in his chest.
This one thing, at least, would be his.
The woman reached for him.
FIGHT
Lin moved.
It was not graceful. It was not planned.
He lunged sideways, throwing his weight toward the nearest fallen body. Pain screamed through his legs as they protested the sudden motion, but momentum carried him forward anyway.
His hand closed around something he had noticed earlier, something hard.
Metal.
A knife.
He ripped it free with a grunt, scraping his knuckles against the floor in the process. The blade was slick, cold and unfamiliar in his grip.
He staggered to his feet.
The world reeled.
His vision blurred at the edges, stars bursting behind his eyes as blood rushed too quickly through his head. His knees threatened to give out again, but he locked them by sheer refusal.
The knife shook in his hand.
He had no idea how to hold it properly. His grip was wrong. His stance was terrible. Every instinct screamed that this was a mistake.
The woman froze.
For a heartbeat, shock flickered across her face.
Then rage replaced it.
"You dare," she hissed.
Her composure snapped entirely now. The practiced calm, the bureaucratic certainty, the assumption of obedience fractured all at once.
She surged forward.
Lin barely had time to raise the knife.
She slapped his wrist aside with brutal efficiency, pain exploding up his arm as the blade skidded harmlessly past her. Her knee drove into his stomach, knocking the air from his lungs in a wet gasp.
He stumbled backward, nearly falling.
She did not let him recover.
Her fist caught him across the jaw. Light flashed white as his teeth clicked together, his head snapping sideways. He tasted blood immediately.
"Stay down," she snarled.
Lin swung anyway.
It was wild and clumsy, driven more by desperation than intent. The knife passed close enough that she had to twist away, the blade slicing through fabric instead of flesh.
Her eyes widened.
She struck again, elbow cracking into his ribs. Something gave with a sickening crunch. Pain flared sharp and immediate, stealing his breath entirely this time.
Lin cried out, sound tearing from his throat.
He stumbled, nearly dropping the knife.
She grabbed his collar, yanking him forward, and drove her forehead into his face.
Stars burst again.
He reeled.
She was stronger than him. Faster. Clear-headed. Her movements were fueled by fury, but not dulled by fear.
Lin was none of those things.
He was exhausted.
He was shaking.
He was losing.
The knife felt heavy in his hand now, an anchor dragging him down rather than a weapon.
She backhanded him, sending him sprawling into the dirt. His shoulder struck the ground hard enough to jar his vision, pain lancing through his arm.
The knife slipped from his fingers.
For a moment, he lay there, stunned.
The night pressed in close.
The woman loomed over him, chest rising and falling quickly now, hair coming loose from its bindings. Her face was flushed, eyes blazing.
"You should have stayed kneeling," she said. "I would have made it quick."
She bent down to deliver the finishing blow.
Lin's fingers scrabbled blindly through the dirt.
His hand closed around something solid.
The dropped knife.
He did not think.
He thrust upward.
The blade slid into her neck with almost no resistance.
The sound was small.
A wet, choking sound.
Her body went rigid.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Her eyes widened, confusion overtaking rage as her hands tried to grab the hilt protruding from her neck..
Blood blossomed, dark and sudden.
She tried to speak.
No sound came out.
Lin pushed without meaning to, arms shaking violently as he drove the blade deeper through sheer panic. She stumbled backward, hands fumbling uselessly at the wound.
Then she fell.
The knife tore free as she collapsed, clattering against the dirt.
Silence crashed down.
Lin stood there, swaying.
His chest heaved. His ears rang. His limbs felt numb, disconnected from his thoughts.
Then the smell hit him.
Blood.
Sharp and metallic.
His gaze drifted downward.
She lay motionless at his feet, eyes staring sightlessly at the sky.
It took a long moment for his mind to accept what his eyes were telling him.
He had killed her.
The realization hit like a physical blow.
His stomach lurched violently.
Lin dropped to his knees, the knife slipping from his fingers as bile surged up his throat. He retched, body convulsing, vomiting onto the dirt beside the bodies.
It burned.
His hands shook uncontrollably as he wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, breath coming in ragged sobs he could not stop.
He had fought.
He had won.
And nothing about it felt like victory.
The night did not offer comfort. The town did not stir. No voice rose inside him to explain or justify or steady his thoughts.
There was only the cold ground beneath his knees and the weight of what he had done pressing down on him.
Lin bowed his head and retched again.