ECHOBURN

Aoto lay on his side in the mud, ribs aching with every shallow breath. His vision swam, and the trees above him blurred into a gray smear. His ankle throbbed where the ground had twisted beneath him during the fall—if it wasn't broken, it was close.

Something moved in the fog.A sound he'd come to recognize in the marrow of his bones: dragged limbs, deliberate steps, the wet rasp of air being pulled into lungs that didn't belong to anything living.

It was back.

The thing that had killed him once already.

He didn't move. He didn't dare. But it saw him anyway.

The fog parted, and the Entity stepped through.

It didn't speak. No voice this time. No whisper. Just that jagged, skeletal face split in half by a writhing slit of black teeth, stretching open as it raised its blade.

Aoto scrambled, pain lighting up his side like a lit fuse. He staggered backward, slipped, hit the tree behind him. His legs refused to move fast enough. There was nowhere to run.

The Entity's blade scraped the ground as it approached—slowly, as if savoring the inevitability of the kill.

Aoto gritted his teeth.

"Not again."

He threw a rock. The Entity didn't even blink.

Then, the world howled.

Not the Entity.

Something else.

A white blur shot from the trees. It hit the Entity with the force of a crashing comet, slamming it into the mud. Bones cracked. Trees bent.

Aoto stared, mouth open, as a creature shaped like a wolf, tall as a truck, with silver fur and antlers that pulsed like moons, tore into the Entity with terrifying speed. It moved like water. Fluid, deadly, precise.

The Entity shrieked, lashing out with clawed limbs, but the Moon Wolf darted past every strike, its jaws locking around the creature's midsection and ripping.

The two monsters vanished into the fog, snarling, crashing, the sounds of their battle echoing like thunder through the forest.

Aoto didn't move for a long time.

He didn't know how long he sat there, blinking, shaking, until the sounds finally faded.

Then he stood.

And limped.

And followed the trail of blood.

The trees were broken. The ground scorched black.

He found the corpse a hundred paces in.

The Entity was collapsed against a shattered boulder, twitching weakly. Its body was ripped wide open, viscera spilling like tar. It had one arm left, scrabbling against the dirt, trying to rise.

It turned its broken head.

Its hollow gaze found Aoto.

Still alive.

Still here.

Its hand reached.

Not for Aoto.

For the weapon—its weapon—thrown from the battle and lying in the dirt nearby, still faintly humming.

Aoto moved without thinking.

He stumbled, fell, crawled, grabbed the jagged handle with both hands, and—

Screamed.

It burned. It sliced through his palms just by existing. His skin sizzled, bone vibrating from the force of its unnatural hum.

But he held on.

He stood over the creature that had hunted him across death itself.

And he drove the blade straight into its skull.

The sound it made was not a scream. It was a rupture.

Like reality cracking for a second.

The Entity twitched… and then stopped.

Black liquid poured from its face. The slit of teeth slowly closed.

Dead.

Aoto dropped the weapon. It clattered beside the corpse. His hands were shaking, red and torn. He dropped to his knees, unable to breathe.

No interface popped up.No power surged through him.No victory.

Just silence.

And a faint warmth in his chest, like his body finally realized it wasn't going to die again.Not today.

He sat there for minutes—or hours. Eyes fixed on nothing. Everything hurt.

When he finally stood, he picked up the weapon again. This time, it didn't burn as badly.

It still pulsed. Still hated him. But it accepted him. For now.

Aoto dragged it behind him, limping through the ash-colored woods. Every step was pain.

Above him, through the trees, a pair of glowing silver eyes watched in still silence. Then vanished.

As the sun rose and the fog thinned, Aoto muttered to no one:

"I didn't win. I just didn't die."