Pheo withdrew the sword smoothly, the body falling into the sand beside the others. After looking at how there were no dustdevils close enough to cause harm to him, he began to work without hesitation.

  He searched the bodies first. Water skins, dried meat, hard bread, pouches of gold coins, extra ammunition he had no use for, spare weapons, and everything else that seemed worth taking. The rest he left scattered in the sand.

  After days of rationing himself, he finally ate properly. Slow at first, then slowly ate faster as if he’d been starved for days. The kind of hunger that had been ignored for far too long.

  When he finished, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stood. One by one, he dragged the corpses inside the cave. It wasn’t kindness or respect for the dead, but caution.

  In The Badlands, exposed bodies meant scavengers. And scavengers meant attention. He stacked them deeper in a side chamber already tainted with blood, then he began to extinguish the lights.

  Lanterns were crushed.

  Torches stamped out.

  Oil kicked into sand.

  The cave dimmed, darkened slowly until eventually it swallowed itself whole. Only when the last faint glow died did he move. He didn’t light anything for himself, he didn;t need to.

  He turned and walked deeper. Though he could not see, he remembered. The slight slope in the stone after twenty paces, the narrow stretch where the ceiling dipped just low enough that he had to crouch, and the open chamber beyond.

  He had memorized it, because this wasn’t his first time.

  The first time he’d found this cave, it hadn’t been for shelter. It had been for silence. For the darkness it provided, for the answer he needed. He still remembered that fight he had against the entity.

  And the voice.

  Since then, he hadn’t heard it again. He had tried to dismiss it as exhaustion, a hallucination, but deep inside he knew better. So he prepared, bringing weeks worth of food with him along with water and basic supplies.

  If the voice required isolation, then he would isolate. If it required darkness, then he would drown in it. Even if the method felt stupid, even if he was chasing nothing, he needed to know.

  He needed to see if this was the path he needed to take to progress further.

  Pheo went until he reached the deepest chamber. Completely black. Not the kind where shadows existed, but the kind where sight simply stopped, where it was no different than being blind.

  He sat, closed his eyes, then opened them again. There was no difference.

  Minutes passed.

  Then hours.

  Without sight, his other senses sharpened unnaturally, as if he finally were paying attention to them. The scrape of sand shifting somewhere distant, the slow drip of thick liquid from stone, and his very own breathing, too loud for comfort.

  He could feel the faint beat of his pulse in his ears, his skin pricking at every subtle air current. The cave felt alive, or maybe it was just his mind trying to compensate. He waited for the voice.

  Nothing came.

  “...Tch.”

  Sitting idle would rot his thoughts. If he was going to wait, he needed to be doing something productive along the way. He stood up in complete darkness and reached for his weapon.

  The sword Midas had forged exactly to his request. He had been precise with the description. A straight blade, balanced for throwing. At the hilt, a reinforced housing containing durable elastic material. Not rope, not chain, but rubber.

  The strand ran from the pommel and wrapped around his hand and wrist, snug but flexible. If he threw the sword, the rubber would stretch before snapping back, retracting the blade to him.

  A returning weapon that rewarded precision but punished hesitation. He swung once, the blade cutting the air with a whisper. He then threw it forward into the dark, and for a split second, there was nothing.

  Then he felt the tension in his hand.

  The rubber stretched to its limit. He tuggled slightly, the sword snapping back toward him.

  He caught it by instinct.

  Pheo threw the sword again.

  It vanished instantly into nothingness.

  He listened until a fraction of a second later–

  Clink.

  The faintest sound of steel striking stone.

  His fingers tightened as he pulled. The rubber stretched taut, humming faintly with tension before snapping the blade back toward him. He caught it by feel alone.

  Again.

  Throw.

  Stretch.

  Retract.

  Catch.

  Again.

  This time he pivoted, slashing at where he imagined an opponent would stand. He let the blade fly past him deliberately, then ducked as it whipped back over his shoulder, guiding it with subtle pulls of his wrist.

  Without sight, he relied entirely on feel.

  On timing.

  On spatial memory.

  At first, the timing was inconsistent.

  Sometimes he pulled too early and the blade rebounded off nothing.

  Sometimes he waited too long and it dragged awkwardly across the cave floor.

  Sometimes it struck stone at an angle he hadn’t predicted and returned unpredictably, grazing his sleeve or shoulder.

  But he adjusted.

  Listened to how the rubber vibrated when fully extended, measured distance by tension alone. His world slowly shrank to sound, to air displacement, to the faint tremor in his grip.

  If the voice would not come, then he would force himself to evolve anyways. In the darkness, alone, the rhythmic whisper of steel slicing air became the only heartbeat in the cave.

  Time stopped existing.

  There were no shadows stretching.

  No sky dimming.

  No sunrise bleeding through cracks.

  Only repetition.

  At some point, the motion became seamless. There was no hesitation when he threw, no miscalculations on where it would strike. Even in total darkness, the blade returned exactly where he expected.

  He didn’t know how many attempts it took, he didn’t know how long he’d been inside, he only knew that eventually, he stopped missing. Once he finally understood the concept, he got bored of throwing, he moved to other things.

  He shifted to swinging.

  The new sword was subtly different from his previous one. Slightly heavier at the hilt due to the retraction housing. The balance point altered just enough to punish muscle memory.

  He slashed forward, the arc dipping lower than expected. He began to correct himself as he pivoted and thrusted. The rubber at his wrist tugged faintly with every motion, a reminder of its presence.

  He spun–

  His boot slipped. A shallow puddle he hadn’t accounted for. His body tilted dangerously, and for a moment, he felt gravity pulling him sideways.

  Instinct kicked in.

  He widened his stance mid-fall, letting the momentum roll through his hips instead of his shoulders. The blade scraped stone but he stayed upright.

  He stilled. Adjusted his footing and memorized the terrain through contact alone. There were many slips like that. Hippen dips in the cave floor, loose gravel, sticky patches where blood had once pooled.

  Each mistake sharpened him. He began mapping the chamber without sight.

  Three steps forward, uneven ground.

  Two steps left, low ceiling.

  Five steps back, clear swing radius.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  The darkness stopped being an obstacle, instead, it became the environment. Eventually, the idea of day and night lost meaning. He slept only when exhaustion forced him to. A few hours, then up again to train.

  He ate sparingly, drinking measured amounts. There was never light, not even a sliver. He had extinguished every source himself. The world outside ceased to exist, there was only the cave he was in. And the faint, constant hope that maybe, just maybe, the voice would return.

  It never did.

  Until–

  Light. Sudden, violent, and blinding. A torch’s flame burst into the chamber like an invading sun. After so long in darkness, even that small fire was unbearable. His pupils constricted painfully, his vision flooding white.

  Instinct took over.

  He moved before thought, his sword already in his hand as he tightened his grip to throw directly at whoever decided to invade his darkness.

  Back to the present–

  The cave smelled of iron and sand.

  Pheo dragged the last corpse into the pile, letting it slump against the others. An entire caravan. Gone. Their presence erased from the surface of The Badlands as if they had never been there.

  He stood there for a while, breathing steadily.

  “...Now what?”

  His voice sounded smaller than he expected. It echoed off the cavern walls and returned to him warped and hollow. He stepped away from the bodies leaned against the cold stone.

  “What am I supposed to do?”

  Silence.

  He looked upward instinctively, though there was nothing to see. “Any hints? Anything?”

  Only the echo of his own voice answered him.

  “...Anything…”

  His jaw tightened. The words came back to him again. Clear, unchanging, and carved into memory.

  I will lend you my strength one last time.

  But if you wish to use my powers again… if you want answers–

  You must isolate yourself in pure darkness… so the brightest light may shine.

  He exhaled sharply. “I’m hundreds of feet underground surrounded by darkness,” he muttered. “There isn’t a single light source anywhere near me.”

  He had extinguished every torch. Blocked every entrance but one. Trained until the concept of day no longer existed. Drowned himself in physical darkness.

  Was that not enough?

  Frustration crept into his voice. “What else do you want?”

  The cave swallowed his question.

  He paced slowly, boots crunching faintly over sand. “Do I need to go deeper?”

  There was no deeper.

  “Do I need to blindfold myself? Bury myself where I stand?” His thoughts began slipping out loud without restraint. He had been alone for too long, disconnected too long.

  No one can hear him.

  No one can judge him.

  “What does ‘pure darkness’ even mean?”

  He stopped walking, the silence pressing in around him. The phrase repeated again in his head.

  Pure darkness… so the brightest light may shine.

  “...Pure.”

  He frowned. He had taken it literally, too literally. No light, no sound, pure isolation. But the voice hadn’t said cave, it hadn’t said night, it had said darkness.

  “What if…”

  He swallowed.

  “What if it’s not just about sight?”

  He had surrounded himself with physical darkness. But mentally, he wasn’t empty, he was crowded. What if pure darkness meant stripping away everything inside him until nothing remained?

  “What if I need to isolate myself from everything?” he whispered.

  Not just people.

  Not just light.

  But–

  Expectation.

  Attachment.

  Desire.

  No hope.

  No fear.

  No longing.

  No identity.

  Just–

  Nothing.

  His pulse quickened. To be surrounded in darkness mentally meant confronting every part of himself and letting it fall silent. Could he even do that?

  Would there be anything left after?

  His fingers tightened unconsciously around the sword’s hilt.

  Pheo lowered himself to the cave floor. With the cold stone beneath him and rubber tether resting against his wrist, he steadied his breathing. Then, quietly, almost respectfully, he spoke into the void.

  “I’m ready.”

  As if someone sat across from him, as if something was listening.

  He closed his eyes.

  At that moment the chill vanished. The damp scent of iron and earth dissolves into the smell of wood and cooked food. Warmth replaced the cave’s suffocating cold.

  When he opened his eyes again he was no longer met with darkness. He stood before a small wooden house nestled in the woods, sunlight filtering through leaves overhead. The air was crisp and clean, birds chirping faintly in the distance.

  He was back home.

  His heart pounded as he looked down at himself, he was not a child. He was still fifteen, still scarred, still calloused. This was not a memory he was observing. He was inside it.

  “Pheo.”

  The voice came from behind him. Gentle. Familiar.

  He turned slowly. His mother stood by the doorway, untouched by the curse, her eyes bright and alive. Her movements were fluid and natural. Not frozen. Not entombed. No crystal shell of eternal ice encasing her body. No lifeless stillness trapped behind a transparent prison.

  Here, she was simply his mother. She smiled the same way she used to. “Food’s ready,” she said lightly, as though nothing in the world was wrong.

  A firm hand rested on his head. His father stood beside him, strong, sane, and composed. Not the fractured man he remembered him as. “We’ll head out later,” his father said casually. “Need to get more meat again.”

  He ruffled Pheo’s hair before walking toward the house. Pheo followed without resistance. The wooden floor creaked beneath his steps as he entered. The scent of food from the kitchen wrapped around him warmly.

  In the small dining room sat a table with three plates laid out. Three.

  His mother hurried around, placing fishes down and telling them to start while she finished preparing the food.

  Everything felt painfully real. The warmth of the house, the weight of the chair, the subtle clink of utensils against ceramic. He could almost forget the truth. Almost forget reality.

  Pheo pulled the chair back and sat down slowly, eyes lowering to the plate in front of him. For a moment, he simply stared. The food laid out before him was painfully familiar.

  Two golden rounds with bright centers glistening softly, their edges slightly crisped.

  Thin strips of meat browned and curled at the sides, a sheen of grease catching the light.

  Beside them, a heap of shredded potatoes pressed and fried until the outside turned crisp while the inside remained soft. The sight alone tightened something in his chest.

  He couldn’t remember what they were called.

  That realization struck him harder than he expected.

  The names were gone, buried somewhere in time, but the taste, he remembered that. He had clung to that memory after his mother died, recalling the saltiness, the warmth, the way the textures blended together. It had been one of the few things untouched by grief, something small and fragile he refused to let fade.

  Before his thoughts could spiral further, his father’s voice cut in. “Eat it before it gets cold.” Pheo blinked and looked up. His father was already cutting into his portion casually, as though this was just another ordinary morning.

  His mother moved around the table, finally sitting down with a satisfied sigh. He picked up his utensils and took a bite. Warmth spread across his tongue instantly. The crisp edges gave way to softness.

  The savory richness blended with the mellow center of the eggs, the salt of the meat cutting through cleanly, the fried potatoes grounding everything with their simple comfort. It was exactly as he remembered.

  Exactly.

  His breath faltered.

  This isn’t possible, and yet the heat lingered on his tongue. The texture, the taste, the weight of the food, it all felt real. Not like memory, not like imagination.

  His father leaned back slightly, chewing contentedly. “See?” he said with a grin, nodding toward Pheo’s mother. “No one cooks like her. You won’t find these anywhere else.”

  His mother chuckled softly, waving him off. “It’s just what I prefer to eat. Everyone else has those plain breakfasts.”

  “Which is why this is better,” his father replied.

  Their conversation flowed easily, light and unforced. Pheo found himself watching the small details. The way his mother’s eyes curved when she smiled, the way his father exaggerated just enough to make her roll her eyes. The rhythm of their voices. The quiet clink of utensils against plates.

  He took another bite.

  Then another.

  Slowly, the doubt in his chest began to thin. The cave felt distant now, like something imagined. The darkness, the blood, the corpses buried beneath the sand, they seemed unreal compared to the warmth of this room.

  His father wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and leaned back slightly. “River’s been quieter lately,” he said. “Tracks near the banks yesterday. Might be a deer passing through again.”

  Pheo swallowed his bite before answering. “Are you going alone?” The question came out naturally, without calculation. His father shook his head. “We’ll see. Depends how far I go.”

  Pheo glanced down at his plate for a second, then back up. “If you need help carrying anything… I can come.” It wasn’t strategy. It wasn’t planning. It was instinct, the kind he used to have before everything became about survival.

  His mother smiled faintly. “You don’t have to join him so early, we know you can’t keep up with your father.”

  “I’m not rushing,” Pheo replied quickly. “I just… don’t mind helping.”

  His father chuckled. “You say that now.”

  Pheo gave a small shrug. “Better than sitting around all day.”

  His mother tilted her head slightly. “And what would you rather be doing?”

  He paused.

  For a split second, the images of the corpses he saw and battles he’s fought tried to surface.

  But they felt distant.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe be with you both. Or just… be outside.”

  His father nodded slowly. “Fresh air’s good. Clears the head.” His mother reached over and adjusted his plate slightly closer to him. “Eat first,” she said gently. “You can decide the rest after.”

  Pheo obeyed without thinking.

  As the conversation drifted into simpler things, his mind continued to fade further away from The Badlands as if it was just a fleeting dream. And for a moment, he started to allow himself to believe this was reality.