NOT ONCE, NOT TWICE, BUT FOREVER

A voice rose from behind them—singing now.

Soft. Female.

But the lyrics were wrong.

"We carry what we buried…

And we bury what we miss…

When the moon turns from silver…

It remembers who we kissed…"

Hazel's face turned white.

"That's not a festival song."

"It is now," Leo murmured.

"Because someone let him in."

Oliver stepped back from the firelight.

Something caught his eye—a child standing just at the edge of the trees.

Barefoot. Still. Watching.

No scar. Not yet.

But the child's eyes—they were Yama's eyes.

Looking not at Oliver.

But at Leo.

The fire roared again—too bright, too controlled.

Lanterns floated like golden lies overhead, and music—lilting and sweet—returned as if nothing had cracked beneath it.

But the tempo was wrong.

The notes were played as if forced from tired bones.

And the crowd?

They moved like marionettes.

Too smooth. Too in rhythm.

As if someone—or something—was watching, ensuring no one missed their cue.

Hazel stood close to Oliver, her arm occasionally brushing his, not clinging, but checking—are you still here? Are we still real?

Leo kept his distance, drifting toward the edge of the circle.

He stared at the dancers, at the couples laughing with wine-stained teeth, at the stew bubbling beside firelit children.

Then he saw the child again.

Still watching.

Still silent.

And Leo's heart dropped—not because he feared the child.

But because he remembered being him.

Not in form.

In silence.

Before.

Leo had once danced too close to a ritual fire, years ago—another village, another festival.

He had mocked a girl who placed ash across her forehead. He'd stolen her beads and laughed when she cried.

She cursed him in a tongue older than language.

He mocked that too.

That night, after the flames died, Yama came.

Not walking.

Waiting.

Leo had been drunk—confident.

But when he crossed that field alone, he met a man without face.

Only a scar.

A silver moon glowing from beneath a hood.

No eyes.

No voice.

Just a question that struck without sound:

"Why are you laughing?"

Now.

The fire flickered, and Leo blinked back into the present.

He reached for his cup.

His hand trembled.

Hazel noticed.

"You remember, don't you?"

"I never forgot."

"Then why are you still here?"

"Because the only thing worse than being seen by Yama…"

He looked over his shoulder—

The child was gone.

"…is pretending he's not watching."

Oliver approached slowly.

"He saw you tonight."

Leo's smile returned—but it was hollow.

"Let's hope he saw someone worth sparing."

A beat passed.

"Because I'm not sure I did."

From behind the fire, a drum began to beat.

Slow.

Measured.

A rhythm that did not call for joy.

But for order.

And across the field, one by one, the dancers stopped dancing.

The fire didn't go out.

But its light bent—turned.

Toward them.

And somewhere, between the wind and the smoke, Yama's voice returned:

"The first dance was memory. The second… is verdict."

And the ground beneath their feet answered.

A deep thrum like a heart too large to belong to one being.

Boom—

Boom—

Boom—

Not fast. Not celebratory.

But measured. Inescapable. Like a ritual knife carving a circle they could not step out of.

One by one, the dancers turned inward.

No more laughter.

No more wine.

Just bare feet on dry earth.

Arms lifted—not in joy, but in obedience.

The fire in the center grew higher, but colder.

Flames bent unnaturally inward, as if sucked toward a void only the soul could see.

Hazel was the first to move.

Not because she wanted to.

But because the stone inside her remembered this rhythm.

She lifted her arms, one after the other, fingers trembling not from fear, but memory.

"This isn't just a dance," she whispered.

"It's confession."

With each step, her breath shortened.

Every pivot of her foot pulled more than air—it pulled blood, history, and the names she had hidden inside her bones.

Faces she'd forgotten emerged in the smoke—women she betrayed to protect Oliver.

Children she couldn't save.

A sister who begged her not to cross the line—and was silenced.

She turned again. Her eyes were glass.

"This dance doesn't just remember.

It collects."

Leo's fists were clenched at his sides.

"Don't do it," he muttered.

But his knees bent on their own.

The beat pulled his spine into rhythm—every vibration a memory of humiliation, of piss down his legs, of Yama's unseen breath on his shoulder.

He stepped into the circle.

No audience.

No stage.

Just reckoning.

Again.

"I'm not a child," he hissed.

The drum replied:

Then dance like a man.

And so he did—awkward at first. Then looser. Then tighter.

Each move strained the muscles he used to shield his shame.

Each pivot dragged his memory out like a blade.

And still the beat went on.

Until Leo danced without defense.

Oliver's hands shook.

The rhythm wasn't in his feet yet—but it was inside his chest.

A second heartbeat.

Or maybe his true one, finally awakened.

He tried to resist.

But resisting felt like drowning.

So he lifted his foot—

Placed it on the bare earth.

And let the rhythm find him.

The moment he did, the world unraveled.

His vision blurred.

The flames hissed out.

The dancers were gone.

He was alone.

Not in a dream.

Not in a vision.

But in a place deeper.

A space between guilt and truth.

In front of him:

A broken mirror.

Every shard reflecting a different version of himself.

One smiling, one weeping, one covered in blood, one holding Hazel's hand, one standing alone in the rain, one wearing Yama's scar.

The drumbeat pulsed through the shards like veins.

One by one, the reflections began to dance.

Not gracefully.

But violently.

Truth without elegance.

"You don't know who you are," a voice whispered behind him.

"But the dance does."

"The fire knows."

"Yama sees."

"And still… you step forward."

"Why?"

Oliver whispered back:

"Because I'd rather die dancing than rot still."

He stepped into his own reflection.

The mirror shattered again.

And he fell back into the fire circle—on his feet, sweating, breath ragged.

Hazel and Leo turned to him.

They did not speak.

The drum had stopped.

But something else had begun.

In the silence, the fire pulsed once—twice—then turned blue.

A wind blew across the dancers.

But no one moved.

Because just beyond the fire's edge—

Yama stepped forward.