Existence is a riddle written in contradictions. What makes something real? Is it atoms or awareness? If you touch a flame, it burns, but if you dreamt of that flame, does the pain you feel make it any less real? Maybe reality isn’t about proof but agreement—a collective hallucination where everything that can be believed long enough becomes fact.

  So it beckons the question.

  When you give an inanimate object life, does it become alive, or are you simply expanding what “alive” means? The line between imitation and authenticity blurs the moment intent is introduced. If it can think, is it real? If it can feel, is it alive? Or are those just echoes of the same illusion, an imitation so perfect that even it believes its own act?

  Maybe there is no clear boundary. Maybe “real” is just the word we use when something refuses to stop existing.

  And those were the thoughts twisting through Tinsurnae’s mind. The more she settled into herself, the less real reality felt. Lythra’s words about being “written into existence” echoed louder now, too accurate to ignore. The Sryun pulsing through her body was feeding the doubt, gnawing at the seams of her identity until she couldn’t tell if she was thinking or Unraveling.

  She looked down at herself — at a form that felt manufactured, sculpted by design rather than birth. Her heartbeat pulsed beneath her hand and for the first time she wondered if it was real or just another rhythm to fool her. The male counterpart had organs, blood, warmth. She had structure. A perfect imitation of life.

  What was she, really? A memory of someone? A shadow wearing flesh? Or something entirely new.

  There was no hesitation. The first touch was a test, a pressure point that yielded nothing but a faint, yielding resistance. Then, her nails grew sharp and dug in. They didn't break the skin so much as they parted it, a seam giving way under a determined will. A thin, crimson line welled up, and then another as she dragged her fingers downward.

  The sensation was distant, a curious fact rather than a wave of pain. She was a mechanic dissecting a machine, her own body the subject. Her fingers hooked into the incision, finding purchase against the rigid cage beneath. With a grunt of pure, focused effort, she pulled. The sound was wet and obscene, a tearing of thick fabric and wet clay. Skin and muscle parted, peeling back in ragged flaps to reveal the gleaming white of bone and the dark, pulsating mess within.

  Blood poured from the gaping wound. It wasn't a trickle but a flood, spilling over her hands, slicking her arms, and soaking into the sheets beneath her. It streamed from the bed in a steady, rhythmic patter, each drop a dark coin striking the wooden floor. She worked methodically, her breath coming in calm, even puffs, her face a mask of terrifying concentration. She ripped and tore, her fingers becoming clumsy, blood-slick tools, pulling at her own insides as if searching for a hidden switch, a faulty wire, a reason for this hollow, counterfeit existence.

  Her body was a canvas of brutal self-exploration. Gouged flesh, exposed bone, and the raw, wet gleam of her own anatomy lay open to the air. She wasn't sure how long she'd been lost in this grim task, time dissolving into the rhythmic tearing and the warm flow of her own life force.

  Then, a sound cut through the fog—a sharp, ragged inhale, followed by a scream that was pure, undiluted horror.

  Her head, lolled to the side, lifted slowly. Her gaze, clouded but lucid, fell upon the doorway. Caroline stood there, her face a perfect portrait of shock, her eyes wide and her mouth agape.

  Caroline’s scream shattered the static haze in the room. Blood splattered her hoodie as she caught Tinsurnae in her arms, heart pounding as she dumped potion after potion over her body. The air smelled sharp, like iron and panic.

  “It doesn’t matter!” Tinsurnae’s voice cracked, laughter trembling at the edges.

  “The hell it doesn’t!” Caroline shouted, pressing her hands against the wounds until the potion took hold. Skin began to close, the torn flesh knitting itself back together, and Tinsurnae’s laugh deepened into something ragged and strange.

  “Tinny—what are you doing!? Why would you—what happened!?” Caroline’s voice was breaking now, giving way to terror.

  Tinsurnae looked up at her through glassy eyes, a smile twisted by exhaustion. “I’m not trying to die,” she said softly. “This just proved something I was too afraid to confront…”

  Her voice dissolved into a laugh again, one that broke into a sob halfway through. Caroline didn’t ask another question. She just held her friend tighter, rocking her gently as tears and blood mixed into her hoodie and sheets, the air filled with a faint pulse of unstable Sryun energy.

  Neither spoke again for a long while. The ship hummed around them, quiet and distant.

  “I’m hollow…”

  Caroline blinked. “You feel hollow?”

  “No,” Tinsurnae said flatly. “I’m literally hollow. All this blood, but no organs. No lungs. No heart.” Her voice wavered as her eyes met Caroline’s. “I don’t exist, Caroline.”

  Caroline froze. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say. Then her UI pinged—an alert flashing: Sryun contamination detected. She sighed. “What a day,” she muttered under her breath.

  “Tinny,” she continued carefully, pulling her closer, “remember how we said we’d have that talk? About you. About life on Earth?”

  Tinsurnae looked away.

  “Please,” Caroline continued, keeping her tone soft. “Can we talk about it? I want to help, but I can’t if I don’t even know when you’re hurting. And no more Sryun right now, okay? Whatever curse or sword thing you’re working on can wait—it’s definitely messing with your mood.”

  Tinsurnae exhaled slowly. She had promised. And Caroline was her friend. Her only friend. With a small flick of her wrist, she stopped the Sryun flow. The pressure in her head cleared almost immediately, and she frowned at how much sharper her thoughts felt. Her male counterpart didn’t have this problem. Maybe… maybe talking to an actual person would help.

  “Fine,” she said at last.

  Caroline smiled. “Good. Good.”

  Tinsurnae glanced at the puddle beneath them and grimaced. “Just… give me a minute, okay? Let’s clean this mess first. I don’t want us just sitting in my blood.”

  “Yeah,” Caroline said, standing up and fetching a sheet from the corner. “Not the best conversation spot.”

  The room was quiet except for the soft crackle of flame as Caroline coaxed a bit of fire to life. Its warmth filled the space while Tinsurnae guided her Ryun in smooth, controlled waves, drawing the blood out of the mattress and off the floor until only faint stains remained. Neither spoke for several minutes. The air smelled faintly of iron and cinder—cleaner, but heavier somehow.

  Caroline didn’t know what to say. Not really. She’d seen Tinsurnae frustrated before, but this was different—frightening, and lingering in a way that made her chest ache. She wiped at her eyes, but the tears came anyway.

  When Tinsurnae finally glanced over, she blinked in surprise. “Are you… crying?”

  “I’m sorry!” Caroline blurted, scrubbing at her cheeks. “I wasn’t—ugh, I can’t do anything right—”

  “No,” Tinsurnae interrupted softly, shaking her head. “Don’t do that.”

  Caroline sniffed. “I’m crying because I’m sad, Tinny! Sad that you’re going through all this and won’t reach out to us! We helped North, sort of—we’re not completely useless.”

  Tinsurnae looked at her then, really looked, at this teary woman sitting in the dim light, hoodie still stained with drying blood but refusing to give up on her. Something shifted in her chest.

  “And don’t say you don’t exist,” Caroline went on, voice trembling. “I get that feeling—of being a burden, of not belonging. And I’m still figuring out how to beat it. But if you died, Tinny—if you actually died—I would…” She broke off, covering her face as fresh tears spilled down.

  Tinsurnae hesitated, then reached out, awkward but sincere. “I’m sorry. It’s just… a lot.”

  “I can handle a lot,” Caroline said, sniffling and wiping her nose.

  “You’re right. Sorry for the—”

  “Stop saying sorry and let’s just get to the bottom of this!”

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  Tinsurnae blinked. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Don’t call me ma’am, ugh! Everyone does that—do I sound old?”

  They both broke into small, tired snickers, sitting side by side on the freshly made bed. The tension didn’t vanish, but it eased.

  Tinsurnae exhaled slowly. “Well…” she said quietly, “I guess we’ll start with my birth. It technically happened twice.”

  Caroline leaned forward, bracing herself, unsure what kind of story began with technically, I was born twice.

  She tilted her head. “Like a respawn?”

  Tinsurnae blinked. “What?”

  “You know—like in a game. You die, then poof—new spawn point?”

  Tinsurnae just stared.

  Caroline shrank slightly. “Right. Not the time. Sorry. Continue.”

  Tinsurnae folded her hands together, gaze distant. “I was born in a sect called the Butin Covenant. They formed in 1793, tucked in a remote valley between eastern Switzerland and Austria. A breakaway from a stricter Protestant order. They were convinced the world had already begun rotting—that corruption was spreading through flesh and soul alike. To them, sin was a substance, something that built up inside the body until it spoiled entire communities.”

  Caroline made a face. “Like… spiritual cholesterol?”

  Tinsurnae’s eyes slid toward her again.

  “Okay, okay,” Caroline mumbled. “Sorry.”

  “Their doctrine claimed that God occasionally sent a child who could absorb sin—consume it like fire consumes oil. When I was born… they thought I was that child. I had both sexual organs, my body was ambiguous. My existence, to them, was a sign. They called me the Veilborne—born thin between the mortal and the unseen.”

  Caroline blinked hard. “Wait—they wanted that? Like they thought it was a blessing?”

  Tinsurnae nodded slowly. “A doorway, they said. A body that didn’t resolve into a single form wasn’t a mistake, but a bridge. They believed if they kept me alive—contained—the sect would remain pure while the rest of the world fell to ruin.”

  “Contained?” Caroline repeated, horrified. “Like… locked up?”

  Tinsurnae’s lips curved in a faint, humorless smile. “Yes. A room lined with scripture, constant prayers, fasting, purification rituals. Every sin they confessed… they believed seeped into me.”

  “That’s—holy hell,” Caroline yelled. “That’s not faith, that’s abuse!”

  Tinsurnae didn’t disagree. Her voice softened. “When I was seven, they said the barrier had grown too thin. They thought the unseen would claim me, so they tried to burn the sin out. Fire, oil, chanting—all of it. But I didn’t die.”

  Caroline sat frozen, unsure what horrified her more—the calm way Tinsurnae said it, or the implication she remembered every detail.

  After a long silence, Caroline whispered, “That’s… your first birth, right?”

  Tinsurnae nodded.

  Caroline blinked rapidly. “Okay. Gonna need a minute before you unpack the next one.”

  Tinsurnae almost smiled. “I know. It’s a lot.”

  “Yeah,” Caroline said softly. “But I’m here. So keep going.”

  Tinsurnae’s voice dropped low, quiet but steady.

  “They sealed me in a stone chamber beneath the altar of their meeting hall,” she said. “It wasn’t large. Just wide enough to lie down, and tall enough to sit. No windows. The air came through a grated hole in the floor, and food through a narrow hatch. I think they built it that way on purpose—to remind me I wasn’t meant for comfort.”

  Caroline’s stomach twisted.

  Tinsurnae continued. “And that was life. The Covenant believed the vessel had to remain close to the altar so their confessions could be heard. They’d kneel above, recite their sins, and whisper their apologies into the floorboards. They said their guilt flowed downward… that I absorbed it. And I did—emotionally, spiritually, physically. Sometimes I could feel their words crawl down the air shaft.”

  “God,” Caroline muttered, “that’s so messed up.”

  “No one spoke to me directly,” Tinsurnae continued. “They never gave me a name. I didn’t even realize I didn’t have a name until I escaped. They thought that acknowledging the vessel as a person would weaken its purpose. So I stopped being a person. I just became the chamber.”

  Caroline sat frozen. The heat from earlier had burned down to cold still air.

  “Over the years,” Tinsurnae said, her eyes distant, “something fractured. A split. The male identity formed first—the side that held everything they poured into me. Strong, silent, unmoving. The Covenant’s perfect vessel. The part of me that became what they wanted.” She paused, taking a slow breath. “The other… the one sitting here now… was born out of everything they denied. The voice that whispered instead of spoke. The one that tried to survive without being seen.”

  Caroline swallowed hard. “So she’s you and I’m guessing this is the second birth…,” she said quietly.

  Tinsurnae nodded. “The mind needed balance. So it created company.”

  Her gaze lifted from the floor, meeting Caroline’s. “Because when you spend your whole life sealed in the dark… eventually you have to start talking to someone.”

  She continued, her voice quiet but edged.

  “At some point the Covenant started fading,” she said. “Crops failed. Children were stillborn. People began to flee, claiming the valley itself had turned sour. Word spread that the Veilborne—the vessel—wasn’t absorbing sin anymore, but poisoning the sect from within. That I’d become a wound in their faith.”

  Caroline sneered, “They blamed you for their bullshit?!”

  Tinsurnae gave a hollow laugh. “They blamed me for everything. When they prayed and the sky stayed silent, it was because I hadn’t swallowed enough guilt. When their bloodlines sickened, it was because my body leaked corruption back into them. I was the problem and the solution all at once.”

  She looked past Caroline, eyes unfocused as if seeing those candlelit stone walls again. “Some wanted to destroy the chamber—to burn me with it. But the elders said opening it would unleash everything they had forced into me. Every sin. Every failure. Every secret they confessed into the dark. So their fear kept me imprisoned long after their faith had already begun to die.”

  She paused, breathing out slowly. “They told themselves I was protecting them. But really… I think they just couldn’t bear to face what they’d done.”

  Caroline swallowed hard, voice soft. “So they left you down there… even after the sect fell apart.”

  Tinsurnae nodded once. “Yes. In the end, their fear was stronger than their faith.

  A faint light flickering in her eyes like a memory catching flame. “He and I talked about everything,” she said. “When the dark got too heavy, we’d argue about the names of stars we’d never seen. He’d make up stories about what trees smelled like. Sometimes we’d sing—nonsense songs, things we made up just to feel like sound existed for us too.”

  She smiled faintly. “One day, I had the idea to run away. He told me it was stupid, but he agreed anyway. We spent days scraping at the stones near the floor grating, planning how we’d climb out. And one night… we actually did. We ran barefoot through the woods, laughing for the first time. But we didn’t make it far.”

  Her expression hardened. “They caught us before dawn. The elders said we’d cursed the valley by leaving. In their panic, they grabbed us and threw us down a well.”

  Caroline covered her mouth. “They threw you down a well—?!”

  “Yes,” Tinsurnae said simply. “And that’s how I ended up here—in Requiem. Though according to Rhan, the original story was we fell into the well and surfaced in an ocean, fighting to stay alive.”

  Caroline blinked. “Wait—how did you get the name Rhan?”

  Tinsurnae chuckled softly. “They’d shouted about me running. ‘The vessel ran that way!’ or ‘The Veilborne ran again!’ The word stuck. Rhan became less of a label and more of a message. I ran.”

  Caroline stared at her for a long time, the weight of silence pressing between them before she finally whispered, “That’s… actually beautiful. And so damn sad.”

  Tinsurnae smiled faintly. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Most names in Requiem are.”

  She leaned back, finally allowing herself to breathe. “Before the split, it didn’t feel strange. We shared everything—thoughts, memories, sensations. It was… normal. But the longer I’ve existed on my own, the more I realize I might not be what I thought. Like how Lythra said she’s a book character, written into life—I’m starting to think I’m just a figment of my counterpart’s imagination that somehow became real.” She exhaled shakily. “And if that’s true… I don’t know what that makes me.”

  Caroline frowned. “Well, maybe it doesn’t have to make you anything, you’re here. You think, feel, cry, joke, bleed—well, sometimes a little too much. That sounds real to me… besides aren’t we friends… I’m pretty sure I’m friends with real people.”

  Tinsurnae looked down. “When I said you were my first friend,” she murmured, “I meant it. My male counterpart got along with you, but everything else? That’s been me. You’re… technically my first.”

  Caroline blinked, then pulled her into a hug. “Then I’m glad to be it,” she said softly. “Because you do exist, Tinny. You saved our lives. You argued with me over food. You snore. You make bad jokes. That’s all pretty damn real.”

  Tinsurnae let out a weak laugh.

  “And since the Tree’s apparently a day away,” Caroline continued, pulling back, “I have an idea. Let’s help out around the ship. Do chores. Feed the little bird-things from the balcony. Just… do something normal… normal ish.”

  Tinsurnae raised an eyebrow. “Why?”

  Caroline grinned. “Because it’s the small things that make life worth it. Besides, it’s good to just have fun.”

  Tinsurnae smiled faintly.

  Caroline stood, hands on her hips, grinning. “I’m no longer the huge flesh boulder stuck in my room—I’m a fire-fox badass! And you’re no longer the imaginary idea of a D.I.D. vessel—you’re a final boss with wyrms and water powers! Requiem gave us a second chance. Or in your case, a respawn.”

  Tinsurnae snorted.

  “And no more Sryun for now,” Caroline warned. “That stuff’s bad mojo. I don’t even know how North handled it.”

  Tinsurnae laughed. “He turns his into sexual thoughts.”

  “Eww.” Caroline wrinkled her nose. “Yeah, that tracks.”

  But then she blinked.

  Wait a minute.

  All this talk of depressing flashbacks had made her miss one critical detail.

  “Hey, Tinny.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I came here during 2018.” She looked at her slowly, disbelief settling in. “You’re from the 1800s.”

  “Yeah.”

  ”When did you get here?”

  She tilted her head. “About five years ago…”

  They stared at each other…

  “How the hell does that work!? Gah! Why are all the people I care about so old!?”

  ———

  Another pulse of dark energy rippled down Givena’s arm, the curse mark glowing faintly beneath her skin. She smiled, flexing her fingers as the veins of crimson light crept up her wrist and faded again.

  “How much longer?” a man’s voice called from behind her—impatient, rough, and just a little nervous.

  Givena didn’t turn. “Don’t rush,” she said, her tone calm but cold. “If you do, everything will fail.”

  “I’m not trying to make it an F- plan,” the man shot back. “I’m just wondering what the hell’s taking so long. The other two are getting antsy. We can take them now!”

  She slowly turned her head, her eyes gleaming with quiet amusement. “There’s a Jujisn on that vessel,” she said, “and a handful of Outlanders strong enough to distort the battlefield just by existing. If you’re so desperate for revenge that you want to run in blind, then by all means—be my guest. I’ll even write your epitaph myself.”

  The man scowled but said nothing.

  Givena chuckled softly. “Besides,” she went on, “if you paid attention instead of brooding, you’d notice we haven’t been doing nothing.”

  “You sent out a curse that fizzles away every few minutes,” he said flatly. “I’m so impressed.”

  “No,” she said, stepping closer, her smile widening as the curse flared again, black and red patterns coiling like serpents under her skin. “It’s building.”

  He raised a brow, finally curious.

  “When it’s strong enough,” Givena whispered, watching the horizon where the ship drifted through the clouds, “I’ll activate it. And when we attack, it won’t just be from the outside—it’ll be from within.”

  Her eyes glowed faintly gold and violet, the light flickering like fire. “You don’t win wars by being reckless,” she murmured. “You win by waiting for the perfect moment… to strike once—and end everything.”