Isabelle freezes.
"I just heard something" she whispers
Isaac blinks. "You heard something? What? What'd you hear? You heard something?"
He's spiraling.
"Nevermind," she says softly.
They step inside. Isabelle sits near the back. Isaac exhales, arms slack at his sides.
It's just the dark.
Just the dark playing tricks.
Still... it always feels like something's watching. From the courtyard bushes. From the crack in the curtain. From the gaps between the slats in the ceiling boards.
Something. Watching.
He walks up to the podium and lifts his chin, mocking Gaius's cadence.
"The sacred spark we stole must be given back. It must be relinquished."
Isabelle giggles. "Didn't think you paid enough attention to quote him."
"I don't."
"You've got the voice for it though. All brooding and melancholic."
"Shut up."
"He who wishes to be closer to Devin'Him is he who gives up his spark…"
Isabelle tilts her head. "What is a spark, anyway?"
Isaac shrugs. "It's the feeling you get when you get what you want… but you still want more."
She watches him carefully.
Quiet.
Then:
"What do you want, Isaac?"
He blinks. "Huh?"
"What do you want?" she says again—only now her voice drops an octave. Slows down. Warps.
The room shifts.
He looks up at her.
Her mouth moves in reverse.
But the words are still playing forward.
What do you want.
What do you want.
What do you want.
What do you want.
What do you want.
What do you want.
Time fractures.
The lights flicker.
The ceiling stretches upward like wet paper.
A deep hum rolls through the floorboards—the hum of a cathedral organ, badly tuned, dragging itself in and out of key.
Suddenly—
CRACK.
The floor splits.
Wood turns to teeth.
He's swallowed by something massive. Something with breath and fur and a throat like a furnace.
He falls.
Falls.
Then—
SPAT BACK OUT.
"So loud, the spark, when it still believes itself a flame."
The log cracked under the weight of his swing. A dull whomp, then splinters. Pine bark peeled. Isaac gritted his teeth and swung again. The air was thick, humid, hanging low over Alexandra's yard like a held breath. Birds chirped—wrongly. Like they'd forgotten the tune.
He had already felled three. This one was stubborn.
He raised the axe again. But his arms were slower now.
"What do you want, Isaac?"
The voice came uninvited—not from the woods, not from the world. It came from within.
Not her voice, not Isabelle's. Not exactly. But it wore her voice, like old skin. It played the line again:
"What do you want?"
He stopped. The axe hovered mid-air.
He remembered it wrong. He knew he remembered it wrong. That night at the school, the empty chair, the locked classroom door...
Isabelle wasn't there.
She'd never come with him.
So why was she in the memory?
He looked down at the wood.
Split. Like his thoughts.
CRACK. The axe landed.
"Ohh, beautiful. You're thinking of this?" The voice came again, theatrical now. Velvet and oil, scraping and sharp.
Cairn Solis.
Isaac didn't lift his head.
"While the girl scratches at truth, and the boy opens his throat for it—you? You're here. Fantasizing about a conversation that never happened."
The trees quieted. The forest bent inward, like it was listening.
"There was no chair, Isaac."
He clenched the axe.
"There was no talk. There was no Isabelle."
The air behind him twitched.
"You went there alone."
A pause. Then, closer:
"You went there alone."
Isaac turned around. Nothing. Of course.
"She's not even in this memory," Cairn whispered, more amused than cruel. "So why did you put her there? Hm?"
The axe trembled in his grip.
"Is that what you want? Is that it? You want a little audience while you pretend to matter? A little warmth to decorate your emptiness?"
Isaac swung the axe again. Useless. Wide.
"You never chose anything. Not once. You didn't choose the church. Didn't choose the book. Didn't even choose the dog. You stumbled into it. You followed. You reacted."
Wind stirred. Wrong direction.
Cairn laughed—not loudly. Lovingly.
"And still you cling to these scenes. These memories. You romanticize failure like it's a virtue. You hug an old hag once and think it means you've got depth."
Isaac dropped the axe. His hands were shaking.
"Is that really all you are?"
A whisper now. Right in his ear.
"Is she what you want?"
Isaac turned. Still nothing. But the sky had changed.
"You think she's your redemption arc? That if you walk beside her long enough, it'll mean something? You think she makes you real?"
A pause.
"...Pathetic."
The trees leaned. Not swayed. Leaned.
"You are a placeholder. A vessel with no label. A throat waiting for someone else's words."
"And they—" Cairn hissed. "They're going to die for it."
Silence.
Then:
"But you could change it."
He looked up.
"You could choose."
A heartbeat. A flicker of warmth behind his ribs. Hope?
"You could want something."
Isaac whispered, barely audible:
"I do."
Cairn's voice went still. No mockery. No echo. Just the barest note of... interest.
"Say it, then."
But Isaac said nothing. He just picked up the axe.
Swung.
And the log finally split.
Cairn didn't speak again. But the forest hadn't stopped listening.
Ian jogged up from the house, wiping sweat from his brow.
He slowed when he saw Isaac, hunched near the felled log, breathing hard.
"Shit, man. Did you actually hurt yourself?"
Isaac didn't answer. Just kept breathing. Hands on his knees. Eyes on the ground.
Ian looked at the axe, then back at him. "This thing really is heavier than it looks, huh."
Isaac let it slip from his grip. It hit the dirt with a dull thud. He sank to the ground beside it.
"I could hear your swings from the front," Ian said, quieter now. "Sounded like you were trying to kill the damn thing."
He paused.
"Wanna talk about it?"
Isaac didn't respond right away. Then finally, he looked up at him.
"What did Elias say?" His voice was hoarse. "No one came to check on me. Were you able to talk to him?"
Ian nodded. "Yeah. Actually convinced his dad to let us speak for a bit."
He rubbed the back of his neck. "He's in rough shape, man. Don't know how he's still hanging on."
Isaac waited.
"He told me to search the village for answers," Ian said, with a short laugh. "Not super helpful, right? But I guess it's a good thing we're stuck on deliveries. That's half the job anyway."
He extended a hand.
Isaac looked at it for a second, then took it.
Ian helped him up.