My eyes opened, gritty, blinking against the light.
Am I really alive?
White pain lanced behind my eyes. The room tilted. When the world settled, I saw a rough canvas of tent ceiling above me. I turned my head.
The girl sat on a stool beside my cot. Her eyes on me, she didn't speak. Instead, she called over her shoulder, her voice small but clear. A smile broke across her face, not joy, but a profound, shaky relief.
Smiling weakly, I pushed myself up to sit. My head throbbed in protest. I looked down. My torso was a cage of white bandages, wrapped tightly from my ribs to my hips. How the hell did I even get here?
I grabbed my head. A phantom reel flickered across my vision: blood splattered all across the floor, the girl running toward me screaming, and the black silhouette of the beast against the broken light. I shook my head.
A single, cold question cut through the noise.
Who saved us?
My gaze turned to the tent's entrance.
The tent flap on the side lifted. A man stepped inside, tall, dressed in layers of dark blacks and greys that seemed to drink the tent's dim light. His hair was the colour of starless night, and his eyes were grey of weathered granite. He didn't approach. He simply leaned back against the tent pole, his gaze resting somewhere past my shoulder.
A face that at first glance, I didn't recognise. But somehow it was familiar.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice rough but clear. He closed his eyes slowly, as if my question were a mild inconvenience. He didn't even grant me the courtesy of a look.
"The one who saved you," he answered finally.
I stared at him, my gaze travelling from his worn boots to his impassive face.
Then, the realization hit, a cold jolt to my system. The way he held himself, the ancient weariness in his granite eyes. He wasn't just a survivor. He was an Old Soul. Zevran. Those who remember the loops they go through, their past lives.
I didn't want to encounter him early. He may seem kind, but he can change his mind whenever he wants.
"Though you should," he continued, as if discussing the weather, "you need to pay me."
Pay? The word hung in the air. My mind, still groggy, scrambled for its meaning here. A favour? A future debt?
"What do you mean, 'pay'?"
He finally looked at me, granite eyes devoid of warmth.
"I procured healing accelerants for you. Top-shelf. You were minutes from being a stain on the pavement."
He tilted his head, a pantomime of thoughtful recollection.
"And as you're aware, fragments are rather precious this early in a cycle. I don't run a charity."
I gritted my teeth until my jaw ached. There was nothing to say. He had saved my life and itemized the cost before I'd even opened my eyes.
For a while there was an unsettling silence between us. Then he turned and lifted the tent flap, preparing to step into the ruined world.
A final question clawed its way out of my throat before he could disappear.
"Why?" I asked, the word raw. "Why did you save me?"
His hand tightened on the canvas. He didn't turn back. The pause stretched thin and heavy.
"You seemed useful," he said, his voice drifting back, devoid of any inflection.
Then he was gone, the tent flap falling shut behind him.
The girl had sat through it all, silent on her stool. Her small hands were curled into tight fists in her lap. Her crimson eyes flickered to me.
I tilted my head down to my lap.
Useful.
So that's what I am to him. Not a person. A thing he can throw away whenever he wants. That bastard.
I shouldn't expect much from an old soul. They have seen too many lives to care for one more.
But I know this much: the price won't be in fragments, not the new system's currency. The payment will be as long as he can use me.
What if I just leave? Slip away from his sight and never look back? The thought was a brief, sweet escape. I don't want to be his puppet.
It's not like I'm denying that he saved me, but the world's cruel, isn't it?
But I can't let him go alone, either.
Old souls may have knowledge from their past lives, yet they have blind spots. Arrogance. Which leads to their deaths.
A sudden thought crossed my head. The girl beside me. Protecting her, I almost died, and yet I never asked for her name.
I felt a sudden shame all across my face.
I took a slow breath, trying to soften my own expression.
"Are you okay?" I asked, lower, gentler than I would use with strangers.
"I... I am fine, mister. Thank you."
Thank you. The words felt foreign in the tent's air. For her, it was politeness learned from a lost world. For me, it was a currency I would never be given.
A silence settled, filled only with distant sounds from the camp outside. I had to bridge it.
"...What's your name?"
She twisted a piece of her blood-stained dress between her fingers, not looking at me.
"Lunive." She said it like a secret she was afraid to lose.
"...I'm Serin."
At that, she finally turned her crimson eyes to meet mine. A flicker of something, not a smile, but a ghost of one, touched her lips.
"That's a pretty name, mister Serin."
"Just mister is fine," I said.
The 'Serin' makes me feel like an imposter. At least mister was comfortable enough.
I stared at her. She never survived in Zevran's previous loops. She always died at the same place each loop. I don't understand where these memories even come from. What's the source? It's like someone only gave me memories or fixed them in my mind.
I shook my head and sat up, expecting the familiar fire in my ribs. It never came. I pressed a hand to the bandages, only the pressure of the wrap, no agony beneath. Zevran's "top-shelf" healing accelerants hadn't just healed me; they erased the wound entirely.
A chill, colder than pain, traced my spine. I swung my legs off the cot and stood. My legs obeyed like they had never been torn apart.
Lunive shot to her feet, her stool clattering back.
"You can't! You're still..."
"I'm fine," I said.
For the first time, it wasn't a lie or a brave face. It was a disquieting fact.
"See?"
I took a few steps, my gait steady. The absence of pain felt like a debt itself.
Lunive turned once more, her gaze lingering on me, making the moment awkward. I shrugged, the moment stiff and uncertain. What was I supposed to say? I didn't even know why she was staring at me.
She pointed at me, and I looked down automatically. No shirt, just bandages covering my chest, raising goosebumps all over my body. I had forgotten.
Heat crawled up the back of my neck. Embarrassing, absolutely. I wasn't going to make it worse by acting flustered.
She asked, almost curiously, "Are you gonna go outside like this, mister?"
She turned and moved past me toward the bed. Beside it, a steel chair held a coat draped over its back. She lifted it carefully and gave it to me.
I scratched the back of my neck, the motion sheepish. The coat. Right. She handed it to me because I had been standing here like half an idiot, thinking about every problem but not about this.
I shrugged into the coat, the movement slow, measured. Giving myself time to think, to prepare for whatever waited outside. When I was done, I nodded toward the entrance.
"Let's go see what's outside."
I stepped outside.
The world had been unmade.
Before us, a titan of glass and steel stood fractured but upright, a survivor of something far worse than collapse. Its upper floors were simply gone, sheared away as if a giant had swept a hand across the skyline. What remained was a jagged crown of twisted rebar and dangling glass panels that caught the light and threw it down in shattered patterns.
Around its base, the earth had vomited forth its foundations. Smaller buildings had not simply fallen; they had been crushed, compressed into piles of concrete dust and splintered framework. A row of shops that once lined the street was now a continuous mound of debris, their signs still visible, jutting from the rubble at wrong angles. A café's awning lay across a crushed vehicle, its faded colours the only bright thing in the grey.
The street itself was barely recognizable. The ground had split in half a dozen places, long dark cracks running between chunks of asphalt pushed up like broken teeth. Glass covered everything. Not just from windows but from entire facades that had surrendered to the shaking and rained down in glittering curtains. It crunched under my boots with every step, a sound like walking on frozen snow, if snow could cut.
Concrete dust hung in the air, pale and settling, coating everything in a fine grey powder. It gave the ruins the look of old photographs, drained of colour, frozen in time.
And everywhere, the smell. Not just dust and broken stone, but something sharper. Coolant leaking from ruptured pipes. The sweet, wrong smell of things that should not be exposed to air. And underneath it all, the copper weight of blood.
To our right, a residential building had not just fallen but folded, its floors pancaking down into themselves until the whole structure was barely three storeys high, compressed like a stack of paper crushed by a fist. From somewhere deep inside, a thin wail rose and fell, rose and fell. Someone still alive in there. Someone who would not be reached in time.
Ahead, the only clear path was a narrow lane that had been carved through the destruction. Survivors had been busy. The larger chunks of debris had been pushed to the sides, creating a rough corridor wide enough for stretchers, for movement. The ground here was still treacherous, scattered with smaller glass and twisted metal, but it was passable. It led toward the mid-sector, toward the hospitals, toward hope.
This was what Volaira and her people were rushing through. This maze of broken stone and buried lives. This wound in the city's flesh.
I stood at the mouth of that cleared path and understood for the first time the true scale of what had happened. The earthquake had not just damaged the city. It had erased entire blocks, swallowed streets whole, turned towers into tombs. And somewhere beneath all this, people were still breathing. Still waiting. Still hoping someone would come.
I tilted my head to the sky. It was the same as before. Cracked, spilling different colours. It looked beautiful yet terrifying.
Two realities collapsed. Those beings above, watching us, and we had no clue.
Then, from the mouth of that made-up path through concrete and glass, I heard the scuff of hurried footsteps. A group emerged, a grim procession. They moved with purpose, carrying makeshift stretchers between them. They carried the wounded and the dead: some limp and still, others moaning through bloodied bandages.
At their front, leading them like a general through ruins, was a woman.
Her hair was the warm, burnt orange of terra cotta, pulled into a severe, practical bun. But it was her eyes, piercing cerulean blue, scanning the camp with fierce urgency.
"Take them to the triage tents in the eastern camp," she commanded, her voice carrying through the din.
"Priority ones still breathing. We need to move fast."
She paused, a flicker of pain crossing her face.
"And inform their families, if you find them."
As the people hurried to follow orders, her cerulean eyes swept the area and landed on me. She closed the distance in a few brisk strides.
"You," she said, pointing.
"Do you need something? Medical? Supplies?"
I shook my head. "No. I'm accounted for."
Her voice was hurried, layered with brittle worry. Of course it was. The earthquake hadn't just shaken the ground; it had shattered the community. Every second wasted was a breath lost for someone buried in the rubble.
Her gaze dropped to my bandages, then to my face.
"If you can, that is. Seems your wounds are already handled."
My eyes flicked to Lunive, who stood close by my side, her small hand gripping the fabric of my coat.
I took a deep breath, then nodded. It wasn't a choice, not really. Refusal would mark me as useless or, worse, a leech in a camp fighting for its life. I didn't know a soul here.
Survival wasn't just about staying alive. It was about proving you were worth keeping alive.
"I can help," I said, the words falling like a contract signed in the dusty air.
"Thank you. We're… we're out of almost everything." She pressed her finger to her forehead, a brief, contained gesture of stress.
"If you could, the Morien hospital. The main storage should still have supplies. Please, bring back whatever you can."
Her eyes held mine, cerulean bright with apology and need. "The systems are down. I'm sorry, you'll be on your own in there."
This was the same person who was commanding everyone. She seemed different now, a little bit softer.
She began to move, then paused, forcing herself to meet my gaze properly.
"I'm Volaira. Good luck."
"Right now, we're just survivors. The company… it doesn't matter anymore."
I listened silently. She had the look of someone who could carve order from chaos, who could command people when all hope was gone. A natural leader in the ruins.
A faint, tired smile touched her lips. "That's a good name. Well, Serin. If you find anything, bring it back here."
She took a step back, already scanning the camp for the next crisis. "Also, if you can't find me, ask for Volaira. Anyone will point you my way."
As she turned to leave, I asked her,
"Miss, might I ask a favour?"
She turned to me, her brow furrowed in curiosity.
I held Lunive's hand.
"Can you take care of her? I don't think she will be safe with me in the ruins."
She glanced at me, then at Lunive. She approached slowly, then lowered herself to her knees in front of Lunive, taking her tiny hands between her own calloused palms.
"Little one," she said, "would you like to come with me? I could use a pair of good hands."
Lunive glanced at me, searching my face. I gave a single, firm nod. Satisfied, she turned back to the woman and nodded her agreement.
Volaira rose, her hand never leaving Lunive's, and together they walked toward the smoke.
As she took Lunive away, I watched her. I watched the way she walked, her long legs slowing to match the small steps of the child beside her. It was not a choice but instinct, as natural as breath. You cannot teach that. Either you bend toward the frightened or you do not. She did.
She knew the right words too. She did not offer pity, which would have landed on Lunive like ash. She offered purpose. She looked at my girl, pulled from shadows, still flinching at sudden sounds, and saw someone who could help. She made her feel useful instead of burdened. And Lunive felt her warmth, that steady hearth-fire warmth, and placed her small hand in this stranger's palm without fear. I watched them disappear into smoke, saw Volaira lean down and Lunive's shoulders relax, saw trust on her face for the first time since I found her. She carried herself like someone who had borne invisible weight and refused to bend. I did not know her story. But I knew this: she made the world less cold simply by standing in it. And Lunive, who had reason to trust no one, felt that warmth and leaned in.
I turned my gaze to the ruins. The topless buildings. The fallen towers. The glass and concrete everywhere. A city reduced to rubble and memory.
Then a touch fell on my shoulder. The touch was casual, but its weight was deliberate.
"Seems you've healed." His voice came low, too close behind my ear.
I turned, already knowing. Zevran stood there, his granite eyes taking my measure.
Why was he here?
The question coiled in my chest like something alive. He had been watching. Of course he had. He had heard everything. Volaira's voice asking for supplies. The mention of Morien Hospital. The quiet exchange before she took Lunive's hand and walked toward the smoke. He had stood somewhere in the shadows and listened to plans that were never his concern.
So why was he here?
I should have hated him. But hate was a feeling, and feelings required something I no longer possessed. What I felt was worse. Nothing at all. And he could see it.
A faint flicker crossed his eyes. Disappointment. The look of a collector finding a minor flaw in a prized artifact. He had expected something else. Awe, perhaps. Earnest thanks. Something he could claim as payment for his miracle.
What he got was my exhausted face. My guarded posture. And the silent, heavy truth that his miracle had only bought me more time in a tomb.
He stared right into me, his gaze a physical pressure.
"So," he said. "What's the plan?"