Chapter Two – The Shape That Follows
871 Words
The figure walked behind Kaelen, silent and slow. His feet left no prints in the ash, but his presence bent the world around him in quiet ways. The wind shifted. The birds stopped singing. Fog thickened in corners where it had no right to be. Kaelen kept his eyes forward. The cairn lay behind them now, along with the spiral carved in stone. He did not look back. He knew what waited behind him.
What unnerved him was what walked beside him.
The village came into view again. A few Yren milled around the main firepit, tending stew, sharpening bone tools, or painting glyphs onto rotting bark. None of them looked directly at Kaelen. That was normal.
What was not normal was how they hesitated.
One by one, their eyes tracked behind him. Their mouths opened slightly, then closed. A woman holding a baby turned fully, stared straight through the figure’s form, then shielded her child and walked away. The god’s shape flickered. Not visibly, but in perception, like heat haze distorting what should be clear.
Kaelen felt the first itch of dread.
[Divine Notification: Passive Domain Field Expanding]
Status: Unstable
Visibility Threshold: 3 percent – Manifestation appears blurred to non-bonded mortals
Followers Required for Stabilization: 5 – Full visibility and influence unlocked at this level
Warning: Undefined Divine Signature detected.
“They can’t see you,” Kaelen said under his breath.
“Not yet,” the god replied.
“They’re afraid.”
“So are you.”
Kaelen stopped walking. The figure did not. He passed by, slow and steady, and the villagers instinctively stepped back, not knowing why. One young man whispered something and touched a charm on his chest. The god paused at the edge of the well and placed a hand on its stone rim. The fog that clung to him curled downward into the earth.
Kaelen watched, then followed, teeth clenched.
“You said you came because I remembered.”
“I did.”
“Then stay with me. Not with them.”
The figure tilted its head slightly, as if confused. “I go where I am needed. Right now, that is still only you.”
A scream cut across the square.
A woman stumbled out of one of the stone huts, her hands shaking. She pointed toward the god’s vague form. Her eyes were wide, not with awe, but with something closer to panic.
“He’s… wrong,” she said. “There’s something wrong with him.”
The scream did not stop.
Kaelen moved instinctively, cutting across the village square toward the hut the woman had come from. The god followed without sound, his veiled form drifting through the grey morning air like smoke. Inside the hut, the air was thick with damp wood and something fouler. A man lay curled on the floor, his skin ashen, eyes wide and unblinking. He wasn’t injured, he was fading. His breath was shallow, body trembling. He stared at the wall like it had something he was trying to hold onto.
Kaelen knelt beside him. “Drel? Can you hear me?”
The man didn’t respond. A low moan built in his throat, but it wasn’t pain. It was loss, deep and unplaceable. Kaelen had seen this before. Echo-sickness. The slow unraveling of self. No one knew exactly what caused it, only that it came for those who lingered too long near forgotten places, or remembered too deeply what they were not meant to recall.
Most who fell to it died silently within days. Others simply vanished, as if the world gave up on holding them.
The god stepped inside, his presence dimming the firepit.
Kaelen looked up. “Can you help him?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it.”
“You must understand,” the god’s voice remained even. “This will not make them love me.”
“I didn’t ask them to.”
The god moved to the man’s side and placed a hand over Drel’s forehead. His veil shifted slightly. The symbol on it, the broken circle, glowed dimly. The shaking stopped. Drel’s body stilled. His breathing deepened. He blinked slowly, and tears welled in his eyes.
[Divine Notification: Domain Action Executed]
Action: Memory Stabilization
Target: Drel
Result: Echo-fade suppressed, identity threads repaired
Domain Influence: Plus one
Current Influence Radius: Five meters, anchor: Kaelen
Warning: Unauthorized divine action risks detection
Kaelen exhaled. Relief, wonder, and fear tangled together in his chest.
“You healed him.”
“No. I remembered him, so the world did not let him go.”
Outside the hut, the air shifted. People had gathered. Watching. Whispers crept through the square.
“He touched something,” someone said. “He shouldn’t have.”
“Kaelen brought it here,” said another. “I saw it behind him.”
“No shape. No face.”
“A spirit?”
“A punishment.”
Drel sat up slowly, dazed. “I was gone. I… I saw a house. I think it was mine. But I didn’t know my name.”
Kaelen looked at the god. “Did you give it back?”
The god shook his head.
“No. I simply reminded him that he once had one.”
- Writer
