What Waits

11/28/4722

I close my eyes and try to pray. The words are not comforting, they are just strange syllables to a god who has most likely forgotten me. The cold presses close. Patient. Waiting. Eventually, despite everything, exhaustion drags me down into sleep, into the nightmare.

I’m back.

Gallowspire. The great fortress-prison that held the Whispering Tyrant for centuries. Until it didn’t. Until the light failed and the darkness won. I’m beneath the rubble again. Crushed. Buried. The weight of stone and timber and bodies pressing down from above. I can’t move. Can barely breathe. Blood in my mouth. Dust in my lungs. Darkness absolute. I should have died here. Should have joined the others. All the knights of Lastwall, all the faithful warriors, all the defenders of the light—all dead. Crushed. Broken. Gone.

But something watched me.

I remember this part. This is where it happens. In the darkness, in the tomb of my brothers, something paid attention. Something noticed I was alive.

Here it comes. The light. But it’s wrong. It was always wrong. I just didn’t let myself see it. It’s not the warm gold of Iomedae’s blessing. Not the silver radiance of a cleric’s prayer. This light is cold. Pale. The color of a dead man’s eyes.

Around me, under the rubble, in spaces that physics says cannot be, the stone has become transparent. Like looking through dirty glass. Like looking through a wall made of frozen tears. I see the bodies of my brothers. But they’re not lying still. They’re moving. Slowly. Deliberately. Assembling themselves. Broken bones slot back together with wet clicking sounds. Torn flesh stitches itself with black thread that writhes like living things. Eyes that should be dead open and stare at nothing with empty purpose.

The Whispering Tyrant’s work. Turning the faithful into the thing they died fighting. But that’s not the horror. Not the real horror. Something watches them. Something watches through them. Something behind them, around them, above them, below them—something that exists in ways I don’t have words for.

I try to close my eyes but I can’t. The light won’t let me. It wants me to see. It needs me to witness.
The dead knights turn. All of them. All at once. Their heads swivel jerkily until every unblinking eye is upon me. Seeing through the stone. Seeing me hiding here. Alive. Still breathing while they are dead.

One of them starts walking toward me. Through the rubble. Through solid stone. Like he is only making his way through a wispy fog. I recognize his face. Brother Kellan. Taught me how to hold a shield properly. Always had a joke ready. Died holding the gate against a tide of wraiths. His mouth opens. Black sand pours out like tears. Like a voice made of grinding stone.

“The light saved you, Hugh.”

The voice isn’t his. Isn’t anyone’s. It’s wrong. Like a chorus of whispers that never quite sync.

“But what light was it?”

The other dead knights speak in unison:

What light?”

The cold light intensifies. Brightens. Burns my eyes but I can’t look away and I see it.

Behind the dead, behind the stone, behind reality itself is something immense. Something that makes the Whispering Tyrant look like a child playing dress-up. Something older than Lastwall, older than Gallowspire, maybe older than the world itself. A shape that isn’t a shape. A presence that isn’t present. Eyes that aren’t eyes. Countless. Innumerable. Arranged in patterns that hurt to perceive. Watching. Always watching. And I realize: It didn’t save me. It marked me.

I wake screaming.

Silence it immediately. Knight’s discipline. Guardian’s training. Don’t wake the others. Don’t show weakness. Don’t—I’m soaked in sweat despite the cold. My hands shake. My shield has fallen to the floor—I must have grabbed for it in my sleep.The lamp is out. The room is dark except for pale moonlight through the window.

And standing in that moonlight, barely visible, almost transparent—A girl. Small. Dark hair. Pale skin. Ragged clothes. Bare feet. She’s watching me with those too-dark eyes. I freeze. Shield in hand but not raised. She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just watches. For one long moment, we stare at each other across the cold darkness of my room.

Then she raises one hand. Small fingers. Child’s hand. Points at me. Not aggressive. Not threatening. Pointing. Showing me something. Telling me something without words. You. I’m here because of you. Then she’s gone. Like she was never there.

I’m alone in the dark. Alone with the cold. Alone with the weight of what I’ve done and what I can’t undo. The lamp won’t relight. So I sit in darkness, shield across my knees, watching the corner where she stood. Waiting for dawn. Knowing that when it comes, the light won’t change anything. The dead don’t forget.

And neither do I.