The air outside the gym was heavy with silence. The sun hung high above the shattered campus, a pale disc smothered by a veil of thin ashen clouds. The light that fell over the broken concrete and twisted rebar was a sickly, diffused gray—too bright to be comforting, too dull to be alive.
The wind picked up again, rustling through the overgrown grass that had begun reclaiming the cracked walkways. It swept past Garret where he sat on the rooftop, tugging at the edges of his coat, whispering through his unkempt hair. He didn't move.
From up there, he could see everything—the collapsed dorm roofs, the burned-out cafeteria, the glint of glass shards reflecting dead light. The whole campus lay stretched beneath the bruised sky like a corpse that refused to rot.
Eira and Kael were going over the plan again near the entrance, their voices low and steady. Leah was treating Eira's shoulder, her healing spell casting faint glows of pale gold that pulsed weakly in the half-light.
But Garret, he said nothing.
He sat on the roof of the gym, the Chixiao sword resting against his shoulder, his reflection faintly visible along its black-red edge. Around his shoulders hung the Shroud, a mantle of living darkness that rippled faintly, like smoke trapped under silk. It wasn't alive, not truly, but it moved with the subtle rhythm of his breath, responding to him in ways that made it seem almost sentient. When he breathed in, it pulsed faintly, as if inhaling with him. When his grief deepened, it darkened, swallowing the light around him.
He had not said a word since they had returned. Not to Eira, not to Leah, not even to Clara when she'd tried to speak to him. He couldn't. There was nothing left to say.
The Shroud shifted slightly as a dry gust swept across the rooftop. The fabric, if it could even be called that, whispering faintly against his chest. The air carried the faint tang of rust and burnt flesh, remnants of the chaos that had consumed the campus.
Below, the others worked quietly, too aware of him to disturb him. Clara especially.
She had tried, twice now, to speak to him. The first time he hadn't even acknowledged her. The second time, he'd looked through her, eyes flat and empty like glass. She'd stopped after that. But her eyes kept drifting up to him.
The roof creaked beneath his boots as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes fixed on nothing.
He'd been trying not to think. It didn't work.
Every time he blinked he saw her, Eva, smiling faintly in the sunlight. The last image he had of her before the world fell apart. Now, that smile was gone, replaced by the phantom of what he'd seen her room torn apart, blood like dried paint.
He clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white.
The shroud whispered faintly, not in words but in sensations, like threads of cold smoke weaving through his thoughts. It didn't speak, not truly. But it reminded him. It showed him fragments of the creature he'd slaughtered, the look in its eyes as it died.
The monster had died. He hadn't felt victory.
Only silence.
And now they wanted him to hunt another monster, only this one wore human skin.
"Garret," a voice called softly.
He didn't turn. He knew that voice.
Clara.
She hesitated at the edge of the roof before climbing up, her small frame awkward but determined. She sat down a few feet away, cross-legged, not too close. She didn't look at him directly.
"I didn't get to thank you… for saving us."
He didn't respond. The wind was louder than her voice.
Clara waited, then tried again. "The girls… we thought no one would come. When we saw you fighting that thing, we thought…" She stopped herself, biting her lip. "Never mind. I just wanted you to know."
Still nothing.
The silence was suffocating. She could hear the faint, distant cries of the undead echoing across campus, the soft hum of Leah's magic somewhere below. And beside her, the man who had saved them might as well have been a ghost.
Finally, Garret spoke, his voice hoarse and low.
"You shouldn't thank me."
Clara blinked, startled. "Why not?"
He looked at her then, and for the first time, she wished he hadn't. His eyes were red, bloodshot, rimmed with rage and grief.
"Because I didn't save you for your sake." His voice was rough, detached. "I was just killing what was in my way."
Clara's heart sank. "That's not true. You…"
"It doesn't matter," he cut in, turning his gaze back to the horizon. "None of it does."
The words weren't cruel. They were honest.
Below them, Darrius's voice broke through the stillness. "Eira, we ready?"
Eira's cold voice answered, "Almost."
Kael's scouting ahead with the drone feed."
Clara stayed beside Garret longer than she should have. She didn't speak. She just watched the faint tremor in his hands, the way his thumb brushed absently against the sword hilt as if reminding himself it was still there.
When she finally climbed down, Eira was waiting for her near the entrance.
"You shouldn't push him," Eira said quietly.
Clara blinked. "I wasn't…"
"I know you weren't trying to," Eira cut in. Her tone wasn't unkind, but it carried weight. "But right now, he's…dealing with things we can't know. Let him be."
Clara hesitated, then nodded. She knew Eira was right. Still, she couldn't shake the image of him sitting there, staring at the sky like he didn't belong to the world anymore.
He stayed on the roof until the sun began to sink, the light fading to amber and red like blood bleeding into water.