There were some things time didn't touch. Anwyll had learned that early. No matter how many days passed, no matter how many nights blurred together into the same dull repetition, that moment stayed the same—clear, unchanging, carved into him rather than remembered. The cold. The way the air burned his lungs. The sound of her voice breaking—"A…Anw—" It never finished. It never would.
For a long time, he thought it would fade. That the edges would dull, that the weight would lessen the way other memories did. It didn't. If anything, it sharpened. He remembered the way she looked at him in that final moment—not afraid, not desperate. Just… soft. He remembered the silence after. The absence. The way the world kept moving like nothing had changed. That was the part that stayed with him the most.
Nothing changed.
Only him.
Years passed.
The room smelled of iron. The man in the chair had stopped forming real words, what came out now broken—pleas without structure, breath without strength. His head hung low, his body barely holding itself upright. Anwyll stood in front of him, still and unmoving, his expression empty of anger, hesitation, or satisfaction. There was only focus.
"Please… I told you everything… I swear…"
The voice cracked into nothing.
Behind him, Alex leaned against the wall, watching with quiet disinterest. "He's lying."
That was enough.
Anwyll moved. The current answered instantly, snapping across his fingers in tight, controlled arcs—no wasted motion, no excess. Every action was deliberate, practiced, efficient. The man screamed. Anwyll didn't react, didn't pause, didn't look away. Time stretched, then snapped.
"Enough."
He stopped immediately, the energy fading as if it had never been there.
"Clean up," Alex said, already turning away.
Later, the streets were quiet. This part of the zone belonged to Alex, and that meant something. Control. Order—of a kind. People here knew how to behave, or they learned. Anwyll enforced that. An attack dog—that's what some of them called him. He didn't care. His steps were steady, unhurried, his presence enough to make people look away as he passed. No one wanted his attention.
That was the point.
He had the right to decide who paid, who suffered, and who didn't walk away.
A memory surfaced.
Unwanted. Uninvited.
She had been younger than him—not by much, just enough. Her hands were bound, her body shaking, but not from weakness. From refusal.
"I won't."
Her voice had been steady.
That was what made it worse.
Alex had watched from the side, unimpressed. "Make her."
That was all.
Anwyll had stood there for a moment—just a moment. The current in his hands flickered, unstable, uncertain. Like him. She didn't scream at first. She endured.
"I won't," she said again.
Even as it got worse. Even as her body began to give out.
Something in him had locked up then. A stiffness in his chest. A hesitation.
Guilt.
It had been there. Brief. Sharp.
Then Alex spoke again.
"Don't stop."
So he didn't.
And eventually—she stopped speaking. Stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Silence followed. And that feeling in his chest… faded. Not all at once, but slowly, over time, with every job, every order, every scream that came after—until it was gone.
The present returned quietly. Anwyll didn't slow. The memory passed like everything else.
Meaningless.
A small shop stood ahead. Water—dirty, but still drinkable, rare enough to matter. An old couple ran it. They saw him before he spoke. That was always how it started. Fear came first. Then desperation. Then pleading.
"P-please… we paid last week…" the man said, stepping forward, his hands shaking.
Anwyll stopped in front of them.
"You're late."
"We're trying—business has been slow, we just need more time—"
"No."
The word was quiet. Final.
The woman stepped forward, her voice breaking. "Please… we'll pay, we just—"
Anwyll looked at her.
For a moment, something flickered. Not enough to become thought. Not enough to stop him. Just… something.
Then it was gone.
He moved.
Quick. Precise. No struggle. No drawn-out moment. Just action.
The man's voice broke into a scream.
The woman didn't. Not fully.
Not before it ended.
Silence followed—heavy, immediate. The man collapsed beside her, his hands shaking as he reached for something that wasn't coming back.
"Please… please…"
Anwyll stepped past him. Didn't look back. Didn't say anything.
He didn't need to.
The message was clear.
No one disobeys Alex.
The street remained quiet, but the silence had changed—heavier now, watching. Anwyll continued walking, unbothered, unchanged. And somewhere along the way, whatever hesitation once lived inside him… was gone.
The streets thinned as he moved deeper into the quieter parts of the zone, the noise fading into something dull and constant. By the time he reached what used to be home, the world had already settled back into its usual rhythm—as if nothing had happened.
It always did.
The building still stood, barely. Broken, leaning, reinforced in places with scrap and effort that didn't quite hold. It wasn't safe. It wasn't clean.
But it stood.
That was enough.
Inside, the air was still. Familiar. Different.
The walls had changed.
Paper covered them—layered, overlapping, pinned and nailed into place wherever space allowed. Some torn, some stained, others fresh. Images, notes, names, symbols, rough sketches, hand-drawn maps. Lines connected one piece to another, crossing and recrossing in a chaotic web that only one person understood.
Yuri.
Every lead he had found. Every rumor. Every fragment that might mean something.
Most of it meant nothing.
But that didn't matter.
He didn't need certainty.
He needed direction.
Anwyll stood in the center of it all, his eyes moving slowly across the walls, reading, re-reading, memorizing. A name scratched out. A location circled twice, then abandoned. A symbol repeated in multiple places.
That one lingered.
Longer than the rest.
Then he moved on.
Time passed—hours, maybe less. It didn't matter. Eventually, his body gave in before his mind did. He sat, leaned back, and stilled. Sleep didn't come gently.
It took him.
A thud.
Sharp. Close.
His eyes snapped open.
Morning light bled faintly into the room. For a moment, nothing moved. Then his gaze shifted toward the entrance.
The newspaper.
Folded. Damp at the edges. Routine.
Normal.
Anwyll stood and walked over, picking it up, his eyes scanning before it was even fully opened. Most of it was useless—names he didn't care about, places that didn't matter, problems that didn't touch this world.
He turned a page.
Then stopped.
Not at the headline.
At a word.
Familiar.
Too familiar.
His eyes narrowed slightly as the rest of the page faded away, that single detail pulling his focus in completely.
For the first time in a long while—
Something wasn't empty.
Something… connected.