Chapter 12: Chapter 11 : The Weight of Silence

I kept telling myself I didn’t need to remember.

Whatever was lost was gone for a reason.

It didn’t matter what I’d forgotten. I was fine. I was moving. I was breathing. I had my mother again. That was enough, wasn’t it?

The carriage stopped.

My thoughts scattered like ash in wind.

“…What’s going on?” I asked, blinking myself back to reality.

“I think we’ve reached the checkpoint before the portal to the Demon Realm,” Mom replied.

“Portal?” I echoed. “What’s that?”

She perked up—an excuse to distract me from the storm behind my eyes.

“Portals are magical gates,” she said with the air of someone reciting gospel. “Created by the ancient god. And before you start listening to those foolish sages, don’t. They’ll tell you it was made by mortals or mages or scientists. Don’t believe them.”

She wasn’t religious.

But there was a line she didn’t let anyone cross.

“The god exists,” she said, voice firm. “He watches us even now. We have statues. Proof. From the old times.”

That settled it. Definitely not the same god I met.

Our conversation was cut short by the thump of someone landing atop the carriage.

An inspector.

Hope surged in my chest. We could call for help! The humans—

mom'shand shot out, covering my mouth. She shook her head.

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Her eyes said everything: Don’t.

Drawing attention would only lead to unnecessary bloodshed.

But then—too late.

The crates hiding us shifted.

“What the—GYAAAAAAAAA!”

The inspector’s scream was gutted halfway through.

Something wet splashed against the bars. A sound like meat hitting stone.

Nysera wrapped herself around me.

My eyes stayed open.

I didn’t flinch.

Somewhere in the haze of blood and screams, I remembered a place that wasn’t here. Crumbling cities. Sirens. Dust and ash and broken bodies half-buried in concrete. A sewer line had ruptured once. The smell was still in my bones.

The carriage door creaked open.

"You two. Get up. We’re changing rides," a demon growled. Not gleeful. Not cruel. Just irritated. Like someone handed him the chore no one else wanted.

"Of course I get the babysitting duty," he muttered.

The old carriage must’ve been damaged during the fight.

We stepped down. The world smelled like blood and ash and metal.

And bodies. So many bodies.

A guard’s jaw was missing, torn clean off. His body twitched occasionally—nerves still firing. One woman was nailed to the wheel of a wagon, her chest caved in. Another man’s eyes had been gouged, but his mouth was still open. Like he’d been trying to scream something important.

I didn’t feel a thing.

Not guilt.

Not horror.

Only curiosity.

-What kind of blade could make a wound that clean?

That thought should’ve disgusted me. It didn’t.

mom looked at me again.

Without thinking, I clung to her side.

Not because I was scared. But because I didn’t want her to stop seeing me as a child.

We boarded the new carriage.

It reeked of death. The corpses had only just been tossed out—slaves or prisoners. Blood still stained the wooden floorboards. There was no attempt to clean it.

The gate loomed ahead.

It wasn’t a door. Or a frame. Or a circle of stone.

It was a thing.

A jagged black slab of obsidian with no real shape. No smooth surfaces. It twisted with angles that hurt to look at directly—like it didn’t follow the rules of geometry.

The air around it shimmered.

Like the world didn’t want it here.

I stared.

“…What is that?” I whispered.

“A portal,” mom said. “One of the few still working.”

“Does it hurt?”

“To go through?” she repeated. “No. You won’t feel anything. You go in… and you come out. That’s all.”

That didn’t sound right.

The cart moved forward. The first wheel passed into the darkness—and vanished like it was swallowed by ink.

My fingers tingled.

My hand went first.

And everything changed.

Light.

Heat.

Color.

Sound.

But none of it made sense.

Time dilated. My skin felt like it had been turned inside out. Whispers vibrated through my bones. Shapes without form. Colors I had no name for. A distant chime that might’ve been music or language or just my brain cracking under pressure.

I tried to speak.

“This isn’t what she—”

Then everything went dark.