The next morning, the rain had stopped.

  The storm clouds drifted away as if the world itself wanted to pretend nothing had happened inside that cursed facility.

  But Samye knew better.

  His clothes were torn.

  His body was broken.

  His heart was hollow.

  And he carried a weight heavier than any injury.

  After burying Aren beneath the mud-soaked earth, Samye walked—limping, bleeding, barely breathing—toward the village he had been taken from seven months ago.

  He moved quietly, like a shadow clinging to the ground.

  When he finally entered the town, heads turned immediately.

  People froze.

  Some gasped softly.

  Some stepped back in fear.

  Some whispered, unsure if he was real or a ghost.

  No one had expected to see him again.

  And certainly not like this—

  clothes soaked in dried blood,

  limping heavily,

  deep scars freshly split open across his arms, legs, and back.

  Samye didn’t look at them.

  He didn’t greet anyone.

  He simply walked forward, expression empty, eyes focused on the path that led to the place he once shared with Aren.

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  The villagers parted instinctively, giving him space—not out of respect, but because his presence felt wrong.

  Like he had brought a storm back with him.

  An old man stepped forward—the same one who often worked beside them in the fields. His hands trembled when he saw Samye clearly.

  “Samye?” the old man whispered. “Is it… really you?”

  Samye slowed, but didn’t stop.

  The old man followed him, voice shaking.

  “Where’s the boy? Aren? He was with you, wasn’t he?”

  Samye kept walking.

  He didn’t answer.

  The old man asked again.

  And again.

  Each time more desperate, more afraid.

  Finally, he reached out and grabbed Samye’s arm to stop him.

  The old man gasped.

  His fingers touched a long, brutal scar—raised and fresh, still bleeding in places. The skin beneath felt hot, swollen, barely healed.

  Samye stopped.

  Slowly, he turned his head.

  The old man waited.

  The entire street fell silent.

  With a voice colder than the morning air, Samye said:

  “He died during punishment.”

  The old man’s face fell.

  He didn’t speak again.

  He didn’t need to.

  Something in his eyes told Samye he already understood the truth:

  that whatever happened inside that place, Samye had witnessed more than any boy should survive.

  Samye walked on.

  Alone.

  The hut came into view—the small, crooked shelter where he once lived before Aren entered his life. It looked exactly the same.

  But to Samye, it felt different.

  Empty.

  Wrong.

  Too quiet.

  He pushed the door open.

  Silence greeted him.

  Not the comfortable silence of nights spent complaining, teasing, sharing food—but a silence that felt like a grave had been carved inside the room.

  Samye stepped inside and sat down on the floor.

  At first, he thought he heard the wind.

  Then he realized—

  It was memory.

  Aren’s laugh.

  Aren’s complaints.

  Aren kicking stones.

  Aren humming quietly when nervous.

  Aren calling him “brother” by accident.

  The sounds echoed through his mind—so vivid, so real—that Samye’s breath shook.

  He bowed his head.

  Tears fell onto the dirt floor.

  He didn’t fight them.

  He didn’t hide them.

  He simply cried—quietly, painfully—because he finally understood what he had lost.

  Not a prisoner.

  Not a burden.

  Not a responsibility.

  A brother.

  The only person who made that hell feel survivable.

  And now he was gone.

  The hut remained silent.

  But in Samye’s mind, Aren’s voice kept whispering—

  soft, fading, impossible to erase.