Rayon walked through the forest, his suit tattered, blood drying against his pale skin. The silence after slaughter felt heavier than the screams that had filled it. Behind him, or perhaps inside him, Erethon strolled as though it were a pleasant evening, hands clasped behind his back, humming tunelessly.
Rayon finally broke the quiet.
"So," he said flatly, brushing blood off his collar. "What are you?"
Erethon tilted his head, grin curling wide. "Rude. No 'thank you,' no 'savior,' not even a compliment on how gracefully I tore apart those beasts. Children these days."
Rayon gave him a deadpan look. "You're me, remember? If I'm a child, so are you."
Erethon chuckled, low and sharp. "Touché. Still—since you ask so nicely, I'll indulge. What am I? Hm. I suppose… I'm what's left when the world decides it needs a definition for madness, chaos, dread, pestilence. They tried to name me once. Couldn't agree on which horror fit best. So I wore them all."
He gestured vaguely at the corpses littering the woods. "And you—lucky little cradle-born—got stuck with me sealed in your ribs. That man in black? He shoved me in you like a message in a bottle."
Rayon narrowed his eyes. "So before me, what were you?"
Erethon's smile flickered into something more jagged. For once, he almost looked thoughtful.
"Before you, I was hunger. A shadow pulling threads of reality until they snapped. I tore apart kings and priests, beasts and men. They couldn't kill me, so they caged me. Over, and over, and over. I slipped through each prison, left ruin in each world, until one day, he caught me."
Rayon raised a brow. "The man in black."
"Mm." Erethon nodded. "He didn't kill me either. He did worse—he stitched me into you. Imagine that. To go from being everything that made gods weep… to being a whisper in a baby's chest."
Rayon smirked faintly, cruel humor glinting in his eyes. "Sounds like a downgrade."
Erethon burst into laughter, clapping his hands mockingly. "Oh, that's rich! My host, my jailer, my punchline. You really do take after me."
They walked on in silence for a moment before Rayon said, "The strings. Explain them."
Erethon's expression sharpened, arrogance shifting into something closer to pride. "Ah. The Hollow Strings. They aren't magic. They aren't tricks. They are the bones of creation, the nerves holding reality together. Every world, every soul, every law—it's all strung tight. Most people live like puppets, dancing on their threads without ever seeing them. But we… we don't just see them. We cut, tie, stitch, and remake them."
He snapped his fingers, and faint threads of darkness shimmered in the air, vibrating like instruments. "That's why your hypnosis works so well. You don't bend minds. You pluck their strings until they sing the note you want. You don't heal wounds. You stitch your body back together like fabric. You aren't fighting monsters, Rayon. You're unraveling and rewriting them."
Rayon's lips curled into a slow grin. "And here I thought I was just clever."
"Oh, you're clever," Erethon said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "But let's not pretend cleverness alone lets you gut an eleven-headed serpent. That was me."
Rayon glanced at him sidelong. "You sure? Looked like my body."
Erethon clutched his chest dramatically, staggering like he'd been stabbed. "Wounded! Betrayed! My own other half stealing the spotlight! Oh, the tragedy!"
Rayon rolled his eyes, but a faint laugh escaped him anyway. Dark humor hung between them like smoke.
"So," Rayon said finally, his tone serious again, "you and me. One body. Two voices. You can't take over while I'm awake."
"Correct," Erethon said, grin returning. "Your will is… irritatingly strong. You don't bend. Not to me. Not to anyone. It's why you're perfect. Why we're perfect."
"And if I break?"
Erethon's grin widened into something sharp, too sharp. "Then I'll finally get to dance again. But until then…" He leaned close, whispering like a lover. "…I'll watch. I'll whisper. I'll laugh when you bleed, and I'll applaud when you kill. I'll be your biggest hater, Rayon. And your only true fan."
Rayon didn't answer. He simply adjusted his ruined tie, brushing dirt from his lapel.
"Good," he said calmly. "Then we understand each other."
Erethon's laughter followed him as they walked deeper into the forest, a sound only Rayon could hear.