They sat like that for a long while, until the sky began to pale with the promise of dawn. Serena stirred, rolling onto her side. Kade muttered something in his sleep about "finding a signal." The world seemed to exhale as faint light crept over the horizon.
Dorian stood, stretching. "Your turn to sleep. I'll keep watch a bit longer."
Liam nodded, but before lying down, he said quietly, "If it's a mirror... maybe it's showing us what we're supposed to face."
Dorian didn't answer right away. His eyes were fixed on the far edge of the street, where the mist began to gather again. "Then let's hope we can stand what we see."
By morning, the gray light of dawn had bled across the shattered skyline. The air felt heavier, as though the world had been holding its breath all night and finally decided to exhale.
The group gathered near the supermarket entrance, silent and uneasy. Even though they'd slept in shifts, no one looked rested. Kade rubbed the back of his neck, scanning the street. "We need to move," he muttered. "Sitting still won't get us answers."
Dorian nodded. "Agreed. There's nothing left here but ghosts."
They left the supermarket behind, walking down a fractured road where weeds pushed through the cracks like green veins. The city stretched endlessly, empty towers, broken signs, streets that led nowhere. It was like walking through the skeleton of a world that had forgotten how to live.
For a while, no one spoke. Their footsteps echoed faintly, the sound swallowed by the vast silence. Then, suddenly, a glint of silver cut through the air.
A knife, spinning end over end, appeared out of nowhere and shot toward them. Kade barely had time to duck before it sliced across his cheek, leaving a thin red line.
He stumbled back with a curse, his hand flying to his face. "What the hell was that?"
The blade embedded itself into the cracked pavement, quivering. The group froze. Even the air seemed to hold still.
Liam's eyes darted around. "Did anyone see where it came from?"
No one answered. Serena took a cautious step forward. "It just... appeared."
Kade, still breathing hard, bent down and pulled the knife from the ground. The moment his fingers wrapped around the handle, his expression changed. His eyes widened, unfocused.
"Kade?" Serena's voice trembled slightly. "What's wrong?"
He didn't answer. His grip tightened on the knife, and his breathing grew shallow.
Images flashed through his mind, shadows moving in a dimly lit room, whispering voices, fear thick in the air. He saw people he didn't know, faces blurred and twisted in anguish. A woman crying. A man shouting. The sound of something breaking.
Then silence.
The visions vanished, leaving him shaken and pale.
He gasped and dropped the knife, clutching his head. "No… no, that wasn't me."
Dorian caught his arm, steadying him. "What did you see?"
Kade shook his head, his voice uneven. "Memories. Not mine. But they felt real."
"Describe them," Liam said softly.
Kade hesitated. "A room... dark. Someone was hurt. People arguing. I could feel the fear, the anger. Like I was there." He looked down at the knife lying between them. "It's like this thing carries someone else's past."
Serena crouched beside it, her brow furrowed. "Maybe it belonged to whoever was here before us."
Dorian's eyes narrowed. "Or maybe this world isn't just pulling places. Maybe it's pulling people, and their memories."
Liam looked at the blade, unease tightening his gut. "Or their regrets."
The four of them stood in a tense circle around the knife, no one daring to touch it again. The silence that followed was thick, alive with something unspoken.
Finally, Kade stepped back, shaking his head. "We shouldn't stay here. Let's move before something else decides to fall from the sky."
Liam nodded. "Agreed."
But as they walked away, he couldn't shake the feeling that the knife hadn't just shown Kade something, it had taken something in return.
And somewhere behind them, though none of them saw it, the knife shimmered faintly, as if breathing.
They kept walking long after the knife had vanished from sight, though none of them could shake its image from their minds. The streets around them felt tighter now, the air dense with unseen weight. Each shadow seemed to lean closer, listening.
After a while, Serena broke the silence. "Do you think… someone was here before us?"
Liam glanced at her. "Maybe. But if they were, they didn't last long."
Kade, his cheek still streaked with a thin red scar, let out a humorless laugh. "You think? This whole world feels like a graveyard."
Dorian's tone was quieter, thoughtful. "Or a museum. Not for things that lived, but for things that were lost."
Serena frowned. "Lost?"
He nodded. "Memories. Regrets. The things people bury to survive."
The thought made her shiver. She didn't want to believe this place was alive, that it could feed off them, twist their pasts into something tangible. But as she looked around, it all seemed to make sense. The world didn't feel random, it felt constructed, as if each piece was pulled from someone's soul and stitched together with grief.
They stopped near a collapsed fountain in the center of what had once been a square. The basin was dry, its cracked surface reflecting the gray light like glass. For a long moment, no one spoke. Then serena spoke,
"Before I came here, I wanted to start over. I wanted to leave everything behind, my home, my parents, my life. I thought that was freedom." She laughed softly, the sound hollow. "And now, I'd give anything to go back."
Liam's expression softened. "I wanted the same thing," he admitted. "A new beginning. I told myself I wanted to build a family. But maybe that was just another way of saying I was lonely."
Kade's gaze dropped to the cracked pavement. "I just wanted to belong. To stop feeling like an extra in my own life."
Dorian's fists tightened, his jaw hardening. "I wanted to escape," he said flatly. "From everything I'd done. From what I'd become."
Their words hung in the air, heavy and raw.
Serena looked from one face to the next, realization dawning. "Then maybe… this world didn't pull us here by accident."
Liam frowned. "You think we brought ourselves here?"
"Maybe not consciously," she said. "But maybe it's tied to our wishes. To what we wanted most."
Kade let out a breath, half a laugh. "So, what, you're saying you wished for this? For an empty world full of nightmares? I did not wish for this."
"No," Serena said softly. "We wished to escape. And this place is the answer."
Dorian looked at her for a long moment, then at the horizon, where the light was beginning to fade again. "If that's true," he murmured, "then this world isn't punishment. It's temptation."
The words settled over them like dust.
Liam stepped forward, his eyes dark. "Then we can't let it win. We find a way out. Together."
Kade hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. Together."
The wind swept through the broken square, lifting the dust into slow, swirling patterns. For the first time since their arrival, there was something close to unity in their silence, not peace, not yet, but purpose.
And somewhere behind the empty windows of the city, something watched them, quiet, patient, waiting for the next choice they would make.