Tristan sat alone, frozen by dread and blinded by darkness in a cramped corner of his cellar while the Deathless stampeded overhead through the village of Harrowgate—the low rumble of their passing occasionally punctuated by terrified shouts of his neighbors as they were found and slaughtered one by one.

If he could make it to his room and find the matches and a decent candle on his nightstand, he could keep them at bay long enough to escape. Maybe they're afraid of the light, Tristan wondered. It was possible, wasn't it? The Deathless had arrived shortly after sunset under cover of darkness. There had to be reason for it, right? They were made of shadows and had been created by the god of death and darkness, so it only stood to reason they would be weakened by light...

And the ax... I could get the ax! It wouldn't be a far walk from his room to the entrance where his grandfather's ax hung securely above the door to his small cottage. Light and a weapon, that's what I need. Just a little light...

An inhuman shriek ripped through the air, followed by a short-lived human squeal.

A spike of fear pinned Tristan to the spot and obliterated all thoughts of fumbling his way upstairs. Were he to try, he was sure to make too much noise even through the tumult. The Deathless would hear and kill him.

Maybe I'm safe... Maybe they can't see in the dark...

Someone else screamed. "No! Please, n—"

That sounded like Ferrin! Tristan wiped the rapidly accumulating sweat from his brow to keep it from stinging his eyes. A thundering roar rose above the din, and the whole cellar trembled, dirt falling from the ceiling like light snow.

The bellow of another nearby Deathless rose to a screeching crescendo, forcing him to cover his ears. It was only enough to muffle another cry from his neighbor and the booming crash that silenced them.

Stay—just stay. Don't run...

The creak of a door—the cellar door—echoed weakly in the dark.

Tristan peered wide-eyed into the gloom as the echo faded, trying in vain to see what had entered. And something announced its presence with a chirp.

Holding his breath, he brought his legs to his chest and curled into a ball.

The creature announced itself again—this time with a click, click, click, and a hissing rasp as it shuffled along the rough granite flooring. Inch by inch.

Unable to bear his burning lungs any longer, Tristan released a long, shuddering breath.

"Hello," a voice said. Its friendly lilting pitch sounded much like Ferrin. Yet, the voice sounded utterly wrong—like a hollow imitation of the person Ferrin once was, devoid of intonation.

The creature shuffled closer.

Even in the dark, Tristan could feel its gaze. He had no doubt—it knew exactly where he was, and despite knowing he'd been found, he still used both hands to stifle a whimper, hoping beyond hope it would ignore him and move on.

"Hello," it repeated.

The voice brought to mind a memory of Ferrin: the freckled farmhand smirking over the brim of a mug of ale as they shared a new pun to make Tristan laugh.

The creature chirped again and scuffled nearer. He could feel it creeping along toward him.

Another memory took root: He was sitting under the old oak overlooking the village—part of his evening routine when he could no longer take the chatter and clatter of merriment after a day's work, even when Ferrin's company had grown stale.

And what had been the point of that? Why hadn't he just left Harrowgate and moved to Vyrai as he'd dreamed instead of wasting his days in the fields and nights on a hill? He'd saved enough money, and his parents were long dead, so he'd had nothing to keep him grounded. Had it been fear holding him back? It didn't seem like it now that he feared for his life.

"Hello." The voice was close; and different, too. It sounded like Brenn... But that was impossible—the wayward troubadour was leagues away and not due back in Harrowgate for months.

The entity was close enough now that Tristan needed only to reach out to touch whatever it was. I could, he thought. I could just end it now and be done with it. I'll never see Brenn again or learn how to read the poem he wrote me... I'll never go to Vyrai...

But would it be quick? Would he suffer like the others?

Click, click, click. "Hello," the creature said again, sounding more like the blended voices of his mother and father.

Sniveling, Tristan suppressed a sob as another memory surfaced. He was in the forest, staying long after sunset while he hid from the other farmhands and mourned the loss of his parents in isolation. He'd heard a fae singing—Efa.

The creature chirped and released a low, breathless screech inches from Tristan's face.

Not even Efa's song would save him now...

He'd found the Seelie fae in the glade by a reflection pool—drawn by her soothing aria. And each spring, on the anniversary of his parent's death, she'd return and sing life into the glade and his heart beneath the brightness of the moon. Once, she'd even left him a gift—a glass flute imbued with the lively sound of her voice.

I should have talked to her, he lamented. But he'd always felt beneath Efa—too crude, ugly, and simple to be even within a few yards of her. He'd contented himself to listen and watch, just as he'd listened and watched Brenn over the years. Never making a move. Never taking the risk to discover what life had in store.

The creature—a Deathless—Tristan realized through his terror, trilled, and broke what little of his resolve remained.

His life had been meaningless. So what if he'd spoken to Efa, stayed in Harrowgate with Ferrin, or left for Vyrai with Brenn? Every choice would have been as weightless as the next in the face of annihilation. Every thought of right or wrong or what he'd valued or despised would vanish unnoticed as soon as the Deathless decided to end him. He'd be forgotten, and the sun would rise and set without consideration for his passing, just as it had for his parents—and everyone else who'd crossed that inevitable threshold.

Five icy digits touched Tristan's face—so cold it felt like someone had set fire to his skin as a humanoid palm covered it. He choked on a scream and groaned from the pain.

In the end, he'd no longer secretly hate his life or the people of Harrowgate, with their small minds and small lives. He'd no longer believe he was a good person for helping the elders stay fed and cleaned. He'd no longer believe he was a horrid wretch for secretly wishing they'd die so he could find time to do something else. He'd never fall in love or know heartbreak. He'd no longer fall asleep to birdsong in the fields, enjoying the scent of barley on the wind. He'd no longer fear dying without having lived for himself or enjoying the warmth of someone in his bed to remind him he wasn't alone. He'd no longer have to wait for Efa or Brenn to return to give him some semblance of happiness or a glimmer of a life he was never meant to have. He'd no longer have to venture out alone into the forest and scream to release the pain of everything he kept bottled up... Because when death came, there wouldn't be anything to contain.

In the end, he would no longer be him—just a fiction of what others believed him to be without ever truly knowing him. And when death came for everyone else, all thought of him would be extinct.

And it was coming, inevitable as the turning of the seasons. He could feel it in his stiffening bones and rattling skull just as surely as he could feel the Deathless gripping him with its freezing hand.

The darkness around him became Tristan's mirror, and in it, he saw a void. He was emptiness. A meaningless mass of flesh and belief destined to turn to dust and vanish beyond all thought and memory.

The Deathless spoke in a new voice—Tristan's voice. "Hello," it rasped, as empty and hollow as the others, an imitation—no, a reflection—of what he always was: nothing.

Then, Tristan began to understand.

If he was nothing, he was also everything.

He was part of the whole—a Balance—the Great Cycle of life wiped clean, only to give way to new life. Over and over and over again without end, caught in an unyielding, turning wheel human eyes could never see, and not even the fae could withstand for all their wisdom.

The epiphany tore and clawed at the fabric of his old reality while the Deathless pierced his mind and threatened to burst his mind at the seams. A small part of him pushed back against the weight of it all—desperately searching for a logical foothold to deny the absurdity of time unending without recognition of his existence.

He tried to remind himself he was in his cellar, experiencing the agony of his physical body, but the thought pulled him back to the struggle of his soul as the creature, his shadow—nothingness incarnate—held him, come to show him his infinitesimal place in the vast expanse of time and space.

The Deathless shrieked, angered by Tristan's futile rebellion against the truth it'd come to tell.

The Great Cycle was spinning as it always would, and there was nothing anyone could do to stop it.

The notion struck fear from his heart and replaced it with elation.

He didn't have to live.

But, if he so wished, he could witness a spark of infinity...

He only had to peacefully embrace the void and acknowledge the interconnectedness of all things—that he was no longer Tristan.

Gone were all notions of gender, race, or creed—everything that made him human.

He was his mother, his father...Ferrin, Efa, and Brenn! He was the earth, the birds, the sky, the worms soon to feast on his corpse, the atoms of stars, and none of it at all! He would be remade and dispersed throughout the cosmos forever—again and again and again...

His shadow—the Deathless—chirped in greeting as Tristan released his final human breath.

Death had come...

And found him worthy.

"Hello," said both man and shadow—Nameless and Deathless.

Together, they stood and made their way to the stairs.

Together, they ventured to the world above and bore witness to the turning of the world.

⊱─━━━━⊱༻●༺⊰━━━━─⊰

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