The days had found a new rhythm.
A rhythm I hadn't known for an eternity.
I was no longer a stranger.
Not quite a brother.
But a face among them.
They had given me a sound.
A short, rough word, spat like a shard of stone.
A name.
Not the one I had once carried.
Not the one I would carry again.
A name that meant: the one who walks.
The one who always returns.
The one who endures.
I worked with them.
I followed their rituals, even without understanding their prayers.
I carried stones.
I hunted by their side.
I slept near their fire.
Sometimes, around the hearth, they would mimic me and laugh —
at the way I clumsily twisted branches, crushed berries, or shaped flint.
I laughed too.
Not out of reflex.
Out of instinct.
Because, for the first time in centuries,
I was not alone.
She was still there.
The girl with the thick braids.
With eyes burning with a life too large for this broken world.
She showed me the gestures.
She corrected my mistakes with a light laugh.
She reached out her hand without fear,
even when my scarred skin must have seemed strange to hers.
Sometimes, she brought me rare fruits.
Tiny offerings.
Fragments of life.
Sometimes, she just sat beside me.
No words.
No expectations.
Simply there.
The children clung to my legs.
The elders greeted me with short nods.
Even those who kept their distance allowed me to share their hard bread, their smoked meat, their fragile sleep beneath the stars.
I found myself listening to their stories,
even if I only understood the silences between their words.
I guessed at the dramas, the fears, the hopes, woven into their rough songs.
I rebuilt a memory, stone by stone.
A new memory, foreign to the one I had once carried.
One morning, I saw a child fall from a low wall of stones.
I caught him before he could hit the ground.
A simple gesture.
But the tribe's gaze changed.
The old chief struck my shoulder —
a short, almost brotherly blow.
The old woman with the empty stare whispered something as I passed.
The circle had closed around me.
I was part of it.
The days passed.
Misty.
Peaceful.
A new, fragile world stretched before me.
But one evening, as we gathered firewood at the edge of the village, the sky rumbled.
A murmur at first.
Then a deep, tearing cry.
A flash split the horizon.
Lightning struck a dry, ancient trunk.
The fire was born.
Voracious.
Uncontrollable.
It spread, devouring the tall grasses, the woven shelters, the sun-dried pottery.
The tribe rose in panic —
screaming, pushing, fleeing.
I stood too.
But my legs were heavy.
In my veins, it wasn't fear.
It was memory.
Cities burning.
Children screaming, their faces gone.
A white light swallowing the sky.
I froze.
For a moment.
For an eternity.
When I caught my breath,
the fire was already swallowing part of the village.
Sparks exploded into the sky.
The wind carried the panic.
Huts collapsed under the flames.
I grabbed a rough spear.
I threw myself into the chaos.
Not against the fire.
Against what came with it.
Because in the shadow of the blaze,
the beasts had come.
Twisted jaws.
Swollen bodies, poisoned by ancient toxins.
Masses of muscle and hatred, moving on broken limbs.
They charged at us.
I fought.
I fell.
I rose again.
Again.
Always.
An old man was torn in two.
A child vanished beneath a crimson maw.
But she —
the girl —
she was still standing.
Wounded.
But standing.
I saw her.
And I fought for her.
The fire consumed everything.
Beast, hut, memory of the village.
We fled.
All those who could still walk.
The others…
The others stayed behind.
When dawn came,
only a handful of shadows remained.
Us.
Broken.
But alive.
She was there.
Curled up near a rock,
arms wrapped around her knees,
her empty eyes staring at a ruined world.
I sat beside her.
Not to speak.
Not to explain.
Just to be there.
But as the morning light rose,
carrying ash and dust,
another sound came.
A different sound.
Footsteps.
Not fast.
Not panicked.
Not beasts.
Slow.
Heavy.
Ordered.
Men.