Kyle walked through the dark corridors with a torch in his hand, repeating the same words over and over.
"Extinguish the fire... burn the veil... extinguish the fire... burn the veil..."
His quiet, dry, broken voice echoed through the endless halls.
He couldn't remember how long he had been here, but he knew it had been a very long time.
He couldn't remember what he had done here or what he had seen, as if something had erased those memories. To him, it felt as though he had arrived only yesterday, yet deep inside he knew... he knew he had been here far longer than any human could possibly live.
He didn't know what he was supposed to do, but he didn't need to. His body guided him on its own, and there were only two phrases he had to remember.
"Extinguish the fire... burn the veil..."
After what felt like an eternity, Kyle finally reached the end of the corridor and saw a group of people gathered around a fire.
The sight caught him so off guard that he stopped repeating the words he had spoken for days... or perhaps years. A moment later, he came to his senses and began repeating them silently in his mind.
He stepped out of the darkness, letting the group hear him.
He stopped and let his gaze drift across them.
Three boys.
Three girls.
But his eyes lingered on only one of them.
At first, there was nothing unusual about her. Ordinary dark hair. Ordinary eyes. His gaze could have passed over her.
But it didn't.
It was because of the shade.
Her hair was just a little darker than it should have been, the color sinking half a tone deeper, making it feel calmer, heavier. It rested softly just below her shoulders without any particular styling.
Her eyes were dark as well. Ordinary, if you didn't look too closely.
But the longer he stared, the more he realized they held something else.
More depth.
More life.
And against that backdrop, there was her clothing.
A school uniform that hadn't yet had time to lose the traces of the day. The white shirt was slightly wrinkled, especially around the elbows and buttons, as though she had spent more time moving than sitting. The top button was undone out of habit. Her sleeves were unevenly rolled up to her elbows. A thin necktie hung loosely, shifted slightly to one side. Faint marks could be seen on the fabric—perhaps from a pen, perhaps only shadows caught in the folds that had never been smoothed out.
Her trousers were formal school trousers, already worn by an ordinary day: light creases at the knees, faint signs of wear along the sides.
Black school shoes.
Clean, but not polished.
A sword hung at her waist.
It stood out from everything else, yet somehow it didn't feel out of place.
She looked as though she had just walked out of school and somehow ended up here.
The moment Kyle saw those people and those familiar, ordinary things, he almost burst into tears.
"Extinguish...!"
The word escaped him.
His voice rose with excitement, only to break off immediately.
Feeling the eyes of the group on him, Kyle cleared his throat, letting his vocal cords adjust.
"What year is it?"
His voice was filled with hope.
One of the boys answered.
"Two thousand three hundred and forty-six."
Kyle froze.
His lips moved ever so slightly, as though he were trying to calculate something.
Two thousand twenty-seven...
Two thousand three hundred and forty-six...
He counted again.
And then again.
The number didn't change.
The torch trembled in his hand.
Tears filled Kyle's eyes, and despair entered his voice.
"It can't be... three hundred years... my family... my friends... they're all dead..."
His dry voice cracked, and the last words barely came out.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Even the crackling of the fire seemed unbearably loud.
Lucia looked at Kyle, unable to find the right words.
Three hundred years was simply too much to comprehend.
"Are you saying you've been here for three hundred years?" Lucia asked in disbelief.
"I came here... in 2027."
Kyle answered through his tears.
"Does that mean we'll be trapped here too?!"
Fear was clear in her eyes.
"No... no... I know how to get out. But it takes two people. That's why I could never leave."
Kyle said as he wiped his tears away.
"This place erases memories, but it can't erase instincts or feelings. So I forced my body to remember two things."
He paused.
His brow furrowed as he stared into the fire for several seconds.
It looked as though he was trying to remember something else.
His fingers unconsciously touched his temple.
"I think... there was something more..."
He slowly shook his head.
"But every time I try to remember... all that's left is fog."
He calmed himself and continued.
"Extinguish the fire... and burn the veil."
"So that's all we have to do to escape?" Lucia asked.
"Yes... but the fire won't let anyone bring a torch close to the statue. And it takes several people to put it out. I don't know what happens after that. I can't remember... but if I went to such lengths to make myself remember these words, then this must be the way out."
Silence fell over the group.
No one moved.
Everyone looked back and forth between the fire and the statue.
If Kyle was wrong, they might never get another chance.
"So what are we waiting for?"
Karl stepped forward and kicked the fire apart, scattering the burning logs across the ground.
But only a second later, the flames reignited and the pieces slowly began pulling themselves back together.
Seeing this, the others rushed toward the scattered remains, each trying to keep them from reforming.
Kyle dashed toward the statue and raised his torch to the veil.
The instant the flames touched the fabric, a thick fog burst out from beneath it, as though it possessed a will of its own.
It exploded outward, throwing everything away from the center.
In the next moment, the fog swallowed the entire space, erasing boundaries and direction.
The world became heavy, uniform, devoid of depth.
And with it came the sensation of being erased.
The crackling of the fire disappeared.
The echoes of voices vanished.
Even his own breathing sounded distant.
Only an endless white emptiness remained.
Kyle did not lose consciousness.
On the contrary.
For the first time in centuries, he felt absolute clarity.
He saw himself walking through endless corridors.
He saw days he couldn't remember.
Years he had never truly lived.
Three hundred years unfolded before him as one continuous existence.
And then, just as suddenly, they began to disappear.
As though they had never existed at all.
At the same time, Kyle felt the fog around him changing.
He was entering it.
Into the place where his memories had just been.
The fog filled the emptiness it created.
Then Kyle saw Lucia.
She stood only two meters away.
Her eyes looked forward, but there was no focus left in them.
Karl stood off to the side, still massive, but stripped of the inner weight that had once made him intimidating.
An empty shell.
Alan looked no better.
His posture remained disciplined, but it had become mechanical, devoid of meaning.
The others were simply gone.
As though the fog had already consumed them.
The veil changed.
It was no longer still.
It began to move.
Everything around it started to stretch toward it, to blur, to fall apart.
Karl was pulled forward.
Then Alan.
Their bodies began to lose their shape, as though they had been painted from fog itself.
Kyle turned toward Lucia.
She was still there.
Her eyes were empty.
But she still existed.
Without thinking, Kyle rushed forward.
He grabbed her hand.
And in that instant, he understood the price.
The fog inside him was trying to break free.
It reached for the veil just as everything else did.
But he could still stop it.
If he let Lucia go.
Then she would disappear along with the others.
"No one is waiting for me anymore.
But she still has a life out there.
Who would I even be if I escaped?
A man nobody remembers.
A man with nothing left.
A man who is three hundred years behind the world...
But she still has her whole life ahead of her."
He didn't know whether she could hear him.
He didn't know whether she even understood what was happening.
But her hand was still holding his.
Warm.
Real.
And somehow, that was enough.
Kyle tightened his grip.
He held on to Lucia as he felt his own body beginning to dissolve.
Its form was no longer solid.
Yet he refused to let go.
His fingers.
His arms.
His breath.
Everything was becoming less and less defined.
The fog inside him grew stronger, trying to tear its way out.
Kyle did not let go.
He held onto Lucia until the very end.
And eventually, his body ceased to be a body.
It became the same thing as everything around him.
Fog.
But Lucia remained.
He had saved her.
At the cost of himself.
And at the very moment when the last connection to his former self was fading away, when even the idea of "him" was about to disappear, a voice echoed through the endless white.
"Kyle..."
A brief silence.
"You have found your Legacy."