Alex clenched his teeth. The urge to turn back was a physical pain, deeper than the wound in his leg. Behind them, the forest screamed, shrieking, skittering roars that clawed at the air.

  He took one step toward the sound.

  Iris’s hand tightened on his waist. Her grip was weak, her fingers cold, but the message was clear.

  “Let’s… go,” she whispered, the words an anchor in the chaos.

  Slowly, the two reached the bank where a boat waited.

  It sat half-buried in reeds and mud, pulled crookedly onto the shore as if abandoned in a hurry. The hull was narrow and low, its dark wood swollen and warped from years of water and neglect. Deep scratches ran along its sides, gouges that spoke of rocks, claws, or desperate landings in the dark. One oar lay inside, its handle splintered smooth by countless hands, the other propped awkwardly against the hull, cracked but intact.

  Moss clung to the seams between planks, and the faint smell of stagnant water and old rot clung to it, heavy and sour.

  It didn’t look like a lifeline. It looked like the kind of thing people used when they had no other choice.

  Behind them, the forest screamed again, closer now. Branches snapped. Something heavy tore through undergrowth with no care for stealth.

  Alex didn’t hesitate anymore.

  Limping, He guided Iris down first, easing her into the boat as gently as he could. The wood creaked under her weight, protesting but holding. When he stepped in after her, the hull dipped sharply, water sloshing against the edges before settling.

  For a breathless moment, the boat seemed to decide whether it would carry them…

  Then it did.

  Alex grabbed the oar, knuckles white, and pushed them away from the bank just as shadows surged between the trees.

  The mist swallowed the shore. And the forest howled in rage behind them.

  Then, just as the howls engulfed the shore and the forest, something broke through the night. Not physical. Not truly. It was… light.

  Blinding and consuming. A brilliance so absolute it swallowed the skittering screams whole, erasing them mid-cry. For a heartbeat, the world existed only in white, every shadow burned away.

  The shockwave came an instant later. The lake bucked violently beneath them as the force tore across the water, ripples rising into waves that slammed against the hull and hurled the boat farther out, faster than any oar could have carried it. Alex was thrown forward, arms wrapping around Iris as the world roared.

  Then silence.

  The light collapsed in on itself, gone as if it had never been. The water settled. The air stilled. and the dark returned. Not the familiar dark of night or fog, but something deeper. Something… heavier. As though the world had exhaled and left only absence behind.

  Alex held Iris close, listening.

  Nothing followed. No skittering. No howls.

  Only the quiet.

  For a long moment, the silence lingered.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  Then, clenching his teeth as he shifted his injured leg, Alex reached for the oars and began rowing again. Each pull was slow, careful. The night had fully reclaimed the lake, dark and cold, the shore nothing more than a distant belief. Still, he steered toward it, toward the place where their final destination waited.

  Iris lay unconscious beside him. Her breathing had steadied somewhat, shallow but even. The bleeding from her arm had stopped, leaving dark stains on her sleeve.

  After a while, Alex paused.

  He exhaled deeply, knuckles tightening around the oar handles. The water lapped softly against the hull, the sound hollow in the vast darkness. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, a question meant more for himself than the night.

  “Was there really nothing I could have done?”

  The night offered no answer. The water lapped, indifferent.

  He stared at his hands, blistered and slick with sweat and blood. The phantom vibration of Mnemosyne’s Silence still hummed faintly, a ghost of its earlier scream. It felt heavy on his back, a dead weight now. A tool he hadn't used when it mattered most.

  He thought of Roric’s grin, already feeling like a memory from another life. ‘You ever notice, that the world doesn’t remember how scared you were?’ He could almost hear the words over the water, carried on a cold breeze that wasn't there.

  “It only remembers what you stood in front of.” He let out a whisper.

  What had he stood in front of? A wall of fog. A tide of teeth. He’d swung a sword he didn’t understand and run from a fight he couldn’t win. He hadn't stood. He’d… survived. And now, two men who’d shown him more courage in minutes than he’d felt in a lifetime were gone, swallowed by mist and that brilliant, terrible light.

  “What… was that?” Alex murmured.

  The question wasn’t just about Roric and Malach. It was about the cabin, the creature, the light, every skittering step in the dark. Was survival the only thing he was built for? Running, hiding, an observer even in the moments where action is required.

  He looked down at Iris. In the faint starlight, her face was pale as marble. The makeshift bandage on her arm was a stark, ugly thing. She was a warrior who had lost her arm, a protector who had been broken in the act of protecting him. Because of a promise to some distant Lady.

  A bitter taste filled his mouth. He was a burden. A thing to be carried, defended, died for.

  His grip on the oars tightened until the wood groaned. A hot, helpless anger rose in his chest, sharp and clean compared to the numbness of fear. It wasn't directed at the forest, or the creatures. It was directed inward, at the hollow space where answers should have been.

  "Damn it," he whispered to the dark water.

  He took up the oars again. The motion was mechanical. Pull, twist, release. The boat cut through the black mirror of the lake. The far shore was no longer just an escape. It was a verdict. The Archives awaited. A place of answers, A place to remember.

  Alex rowed. Each pull was an act of defiance against the silence, against the guilt gnawing at his ribs. He would get Iris to the shore. He would find these Archives. He would live. He would remember.

  Even if the only thing to remember was the weight of the oars in his hands, and the sound of a friend’s voice being erased by mist and a light he could not name.

  However, his attention was caught by a subtle vibration.

  He paused, oars lifted from the water, listening. At first, he thought it was his sword. Mnemosyne’s Silence still hummed against his back, a low, weary note he could feel through the leather. But no, this vibration was different. Deeper. It wasn't in the air, it was in the water. A tremor coming up through the hull, through the seat, into his bones.

  It came from deep beneath the black water.

  Alex swallowed hard. He did not let himself think of what might be moving down there in the dark. Things with scales. Things with too many teeth. He forced his hands to move, dipping the oars back in, pulling, slowly. Carefully not to make a sound.

  Then came a smell, carried by a cool breeze.

  It was unmistakable, even in dreams. The sharp scent of the air right before it splits apart.

  His head snapped up. He scanned the horizon, the empty sky. He found the source behind them.

  It wasn't on the horizon. It was catching up.

  Dark clouds, bruised purple and green, raced across the lake’s surface, swallowing the stars in their path. They moved with a hungry, unnatural speed, churning the water beneath them into a froth of whitecaps. Within their depths, lightning flickered, not in bright forks, but in silent, sickly pulses of violet light.

  It wasn't just a storm. It was a wall. And it was coming for them.