ECHOBURN

There was no light when he came back.

No tunnel. No voice. No warmth.

Just pressure. Like the world had clenched its jaw around him and then spit him back out.

Aoto woke with dirt in his mouth and the taste of blood he couldn't place.

His chest spasmed.

He coughed. Rolled. Gasped.

And then froze.

He didn't remember falling asleep.

Didn't remember closing his eyes.

But he remembered dying.

The fire. The kill.The breath before he could exhale—And then nothing.

No pain. Just… ending.

He sat up.

Shivering.

Not from cold.

From something else.

His hands clutched his stomach. Not because it hurt, but because it remembered hurting.

There was no HUD.

No message.

No "respawn complete."

Just the wind.

And a silence that pressed against the inside of his skull like it was trying to crawl back in.

"I died," he said aloud.The sound of his own voice cracked."I actually died."

He stood.

His legs were working, but barely. His balance was off. His heart felt like it hadn't quite restarted right.

The sun above was dim. Like it was afraid to shine fully.

He looked around — nothing.

Just a distant mountain. Dead trees. Faint fog.

No sign of the mimic-thing from before. No sign of the thing that—

No. He didn't even see it.

He just… stopped existing.

Now the fear bloomed in him.

Slow.

Suffocating.

Like something was still watching.

He began to walk.

Fast at first. Then slower. Then faster again. A circle.

He didn't know where he was going. He just needed to be moving.

The wind passed behind him.

He turned.

Nothing.

He sat by a dead tree. Built a small fire from dry roots and silence.

He didn't speak again.

He barely blinked.

Because every second felt like it could be the last one again.

Not because he was afraid of dying.

But because now?

Now he knew something out here could kill without noise. Without weight. Without warning.

The fire burned low.

Aoto sat hunched beside it, legs pulled to his chest, stone knife resting useless in the dirt. His eyes were open, but he wasn't really seeing anymore. Just waiting for something to move.

He'd walked half the valley that day. Found nothing. No animals. No threats.

But the feeling remained.

That thing—He hadn't seen it. Hadn't heard it.

Only felt the moment it chose to end him.

And somehow…He knew it was still here.

A gust of wind pushed across the trees.The branches didn't sway.The fire didn't flicker.

Only Aoto moved — his eyes shifting upward.

He stood slowly.

Listened.

Nothing.

He turned to collect his knife.

And froze.

His reflection was staring back at him from the blade.But it wasn't following his movement.

The reflection's eyes shifted — not his.The reflection smiled.

And behind him, a shadow opened.

Aoto spun—Too slow.

The sky fractured above him.Color bent sideways.His spine arched as something passed through him — not around, not across, but through.

There was no pain.

Only silence.

And a pressure, like fingers on the back of his skull.

He collapsed without sound.

No scream. No struggle.

Just dust where breath had been.

The fire kept burning.

The leaves didn't move.

And above, in the canopy of this broken world, something waited to decide if it would let him return again.