The café was quiet, except for the gentle hum of the rain on glass.
Sylence sat opposite Lucia, his hands wrapped around a cup that had long since gone cold.
The conversation had stalled somewhere between comfort and confession.
Lucia leaned forward slightly, her eyes calm but searching.
"So," she said softly, "what's your story, Sylence?"
He looked up. The question didn't surprise him—it waited, like a letter unopened for years.
"I was a child born into a noble family," he began. "My parents were… proud people. Detached. But they adored me because I was different. I learned faster, spoke earlier, thought deeper. They said I had the clarity of a prophet and the patience of a scholar."
He paused.
"I used to ask questions," he said, his tone flattening into reflection. "Questions that made even our tutors fall silent. I remember once asking Master Ilver—our family philosopher—'If good exists because God wills it, then what if His will changes? Would evil become holy?'"
Lucia blinked, half-startled, half-impressed.
Sylence smiled faintly. "He couldn't answer. He just… saluted me. Said the mind that asks such questions should not belong to a child."
The rain pressed harder against the glass.
His voice grew distant. "But then… my health began to fall. Fevers that spoke in whispers. Dreams that bled into waking. I…" He stopped midsentence. His throat tightened.
Lucia leaned closer. "You don't have to—"
"I'll tell you the rest later," he said abruptly, pushing the chair back slightly. His eyes clouded—not with pain, but with retreat.
Lucia watched him carefully, the analyst beneath her empathy awakening.
Post-traumatic collapse, she thought.
Something deep, burned-in.
Whatever happened to him wasn't just pain—it was pattern. The kind that rewires a mind permanently.
To distract him, she smiled. "Come on. You need air."
They walked through the market as the rain faded into mist. Streetlights bloomed over puddles like tiny universes. Lucia's chatter filled the spaces Sylence usually guarded.
At a corner stall, she stopped.
A brown teddy bear sat half-buried among newer, brighter toys. Its fur was worn, its button eye cracked, its stuffing uneven. It looked abandoned by time.
Lucia froze.
Her expression softened in a way Sylence had never seen. "That one," she whispered.
He frowned. "Lucia, there are others—better ones."
"No," she said simply. "That one feels… right."
Her fingers trembled slightly as she lifted it. The air around her seemed to dim, just enough for Sylence to notice.
He paid for it without hesitation but couldn't resist asking, "Why that one? It's dirty. Torn."
Lucia looked at the toy with strange fondness. "It feels… connected. Spiritually. Like something familiar waiting for me."
She smiled—and for a heartbeat, her eyes didn't look blue.
They looked almost golden.
Sylence's chest tightened with an emotion he couldn't name.
Curiosity turned to unease.
He didn't ask again.
That evening, they walked home quietly.
Lucia held the bear close, humming a tune she claimed she'd known since childhood.
Sylence felt the rhythm echo faintly inside his skull—as if something ancient recognized it.
When they reached the apartment, Lucia placed the bear on the couch before heading to her room.
Sylence lingered.
The bear's button eye caught the light.
It seemed to glimmer—too long, too intentionally.
He turned away.
It isn't easy to handle, he thought.
The whisper in his mind answered:
"Then you should take help from the Lighthouse."
He didn't argue.
The sea was calm that night when Sylence returned to the Lighthouse.
He carried everything—the watch, the pen, the relics of his curse.
They hummed faintly, reacting to the place they once called home.
The Lighthouse spoke not with words but resonance.
"You've returned," it said through vibration.
Sylence placed his items down, one by one. "I need to rebuild this place. Make it… permanent."
The air shimmered like breath over glass.
"Do you intend to stay?"
"No," he said. "Not yet. But I'll come back to restart my mission. This time—without failure."
The Lighthouse paused, then replied with quiet acceptance.
"As you wish. The walls will remember you."
A pulse of light swept through the chamber. Stone bent, expanded, reshaped. Rooms formed. Windows breathed open. The Lighthouse evolved—half-human, half-memory.
Sylence looked around. "It's enough," he whispered.
He left.
Behind him, the light dimmed to a slow, steady rhythm. Watching.
Back in the city, time moved differently.
October 25th, 2012.
Sylence's birthday.
Andrew, Tony, Peter, and Lucia decorated the apartment clumsily with balloons and thin ribbons. Heaven sat near the window, watching with mild disapproval but calm eyes.
At 11:59:54, the door opened.
Sylence entered.
"Perfect timing!" Tony laughed. "Six seconds early."
Lucia clapped her hands. "Happy birthday, Sylence!"
The lights dimmed; a cake appeared from the kitchen. Andrew lit the candles with a grin that looked surprisingly warm for a man who once lacked a pulse.
They sang—loud, chaotic, sincere.
For once, Sylence didn't correct anyone's pitch.
He smiled.
It wasn't perfect happiness.
But it was close enough to make him forget the weight of every deal he had ever made.
They laughed, shared drinks, argued about which movie to watch next. Heaven barked once, almost in approval.
The night softened around them.
From a door slightly ajar, a faint shadow stretched.
The teddy bear sat against the frame, half in darkness, half in light. Its single good eye reflected the glow of the candles.
And slowly—too slowly—it smiled.
A whisper crawled from its stitched mouth:
"You've kept him alive for now.
Good.
It's almost time to remember who I was."