"Some gods demand worship. Others remember it."

  The rain had stopped, but the streets hadn't caught up. Gray sky gave way to gray puddles, clinging stubbornly to the edges of uneven pavement and catching slick reflections of gutter lights. Along the road, a lone bicycle leaned abandoned against a sagging stop sign. Everything shone under streetmps that blinked like they were tired of trying, like they too had had enough.

  Riven kept to the shadows in those narrow, dripping spaces under steep staircases and fire escapes, moving with the kind of instinct born of necessity, a compulsion you didn't think about too hard. His hood was drawn up, his shoulders hunched forward, lending him a shape more anonymous than person. One hand gripped the strap of his bag with knuckles gone pale, the other stuffed deep into the pocket of a worn jacket. His fingers rested against metal and a surface rubbed thin by too many years and too much running. Maybe tonight, he thought, they'd leave him alone. Maybe tonight, he could just keep walking.

  The city didn't look at him. It never had.

  Somewhere behind him, a car backfired. Somewhere ahead, a streetmp flickered once and gave up, leaving a warm afterimage on the back of his eyes. The air smelled of wet asphalt and diesel fires, a tang he couldn't shake even when he turned corners.

  He stepped under a rusted awning, sagging like the rest of the block, the kind that used to belong to a bakery or maybe a pawn shop, back when more than ghosts wandered through and this part of town had something to offer. The drip of water beside him made slow, offbeat taps, impervious to rhythm.

  He counted without meaning to, a compulsion that found him without his asking. Four. Seven. Pause. One. He resented how his brain did that—took a rhythm and turned it into obsession, like if he could only listen hard enough, the pieces of his life might fall and click into pce like puzzle pieces eager to fit together. Although he hated it, the bit of controlled silence this useless analysis lent him was a balm. A small comfort. It made the world quieter, gentler somehow. Predictable, for a second, enough of a second to matter.

  Riven adjusted his grip on the bag and kept moving, shoulders hunched and posture pointed like a weapon, making his breath match the tempo of the steps. His pce wasn't much—a roof, a corner to eat and sometimes sleep, four walls to think too loud inside and trip over undry that never quite made it to the basket. It had felt like a refuge when he first found it, a safehouse no one knew about yet. Now it felt small, closing in. The walls were flimsy and thin, letting in the sounds of the neighbors who never spoke but always argued. Their muffled shouting and angry silences were his only company. The radiator clicked like someone was keeping count of how long he'd been here, in this pce, in this city, in this life.

  A reminder of time passing, leaving him behind. Time was. A reminder he didn't need more of.

  He ducked out from under the awning and crossed the street, cutting between skeletons of buildings that had forgotten what they were. The entrance to his building came up quick—a dark mouth of an alley leading nowhere. He started up the stairs, taking them two at a time, bag spping against his back with each step. On the second floor, the elevator was stuck open and lolling in an echo of exhaustion. Its gate hung crooked over an empty shaft like a broken smile. He kept climbing, counting steps without wanting to.

  His door was on the sixth floor, paint peeling to nothing. He got it open with a twist and a shove, then dropped the bag on a splintered table while the sound of the city drifted up to find him.

  Riven dropped onto the bed's edge with a muted thud, the mattress sagging beneath him in echo. He focused on tying his boots with more care than necessity, his hands moving with delicate precision as if he were weaving intentions into the frayed ces. The task had the weight of ritual, each loop and pull given attention like he was counting on it to matter. It felt like the sort of devotion other people reserved for prayers, but Riven didn't have prayers. He never really did. Not real ones, anyway. Just... habits. Just the dull comfort of repetition. The world was wide and uncontrolled, but he could make a prayer of this.

  His head dipped low while he reached beneath the bed, hands searching through clustered darkness. He pulled out the tin box, its metal sides scratched and dented, memories of quick handling. It had been stashed behind a stack of old receipts—the kind for things he didn't want to remember buying—and a jacket that smelled like someone else's cologne, a reminder of who he thought he was supposed to be back when the city was someone else's too. The box gave a soft clink as he snapped it open, the same way it had every other night, every other time.

  Inside, things sat nestled with the intimacy of the forgotten: a candle stub from a long-ago vigil, a single feather, a coin with tarnished edges, and a piece of blue pstic broken and jagged and shaped like it used to matter to someone. He stared at the contents like someone looking for answers, like someone expecting ghosts to speak. An offering. He paused, thumb running over the round, worn face of the coin. The metal was cool to the touch, a chill that seeped into his fingers and his thoughts. He didn't remember where he got it. He remembered deciding it should mean something. Maybe from before, maybe from a time he was still hoping to find.

  The hoodie went on next, pulled over his head with a determination that was almost aggression, like a ritual he was tired of but couldn't do without. Then the jacket. Then the pendant—heavy, awkward, fidget-worn smooth in pces. The familiar weight of it was oddly comforting, a reminder of purpose. Bowen had made it by hand, back when Riven still believed in those kinds of gifts. Some mix of bone and metal, probably found in a scrapyard or under a vending machine. People always asked if it was religious. If it was something sacred.

  He hated that.

  The pendant sat cold and heavy against his chest as he slipped out the door and down the back stairs, the sound of the city fading to muffled hums behind him as he moved. Past curfew, past caring. The building's security cam had been broken for months, the st recording it captured distorted into long, streaked faces of people who hadn't lived there for a year. Not that anyone would've stopped him if it worked. Not that anyone cared enough to watch even if it hadn't. He was invisible here, too.

  He pushed out into the night with no hesitation, his path quick and certain. Water dripped from the eaves of the building, ticking out its uneven count while he walked. Before his boots hit the street again, the bundle of offerings was tucked into his coat like a fragile secret. The air was colder than he remembered, biting through the thin yers of cloth and sinking into his skin with a sharp insistence he didn't have time to feel.

  Riven moved fast, head down, arms tight to his sides. If anyone noticed him pass, he moved too quick for them to be sure. The street was empty, as empty as it ever got, the kind of lonely that looks haunted if you think about it too much. He didn't need to think.

  His steps were like static, the jumbled noise of someone used to drowning out the world around them. He stuck close to the buildings, to the edges where light never quite reached, letting the rhythm of his own movement fill his head and push out the rest. Counting steps he didn't mean to count. Running from thoughts he didn't want to catch.

  The rain picked up again as he rounded a corner, the first few drops catching in his hair and sliding down his neck, cold enough to make him shiver. He ducked under an overhang and kept moving, the short dry spell more symbolic than actual. There was nothing out here but boarded windows and long stretches of empty pavement, the skeleton shapes of fire escapes towering over every street like rusted, forgotten sentries. Exactly how he remembered, exactly how he needed it to be.

  By the time he reached the end of the next block, his face was wet and his hood was slipping back again. The city spread out ahead of him in long, gray smudges. He knew better than to trust the way it looked, knew it never went as far as it pretended to. Knew it was a trap, a trick, a way of keeping him here.

  The alley was where he left it, waiting in ambush between two empty warehouses and stretching back into darkness like a promise he hadn't bought in a while. It was easy to miss if you didn't already know it was there.

  Tucked between two buildings that leaned a little too close together, the alley looked like a dead end. A dumpster. Some broken crates. Maybe a cat, if you were lucky.

  But Riven slipped between the walls like he belonged to the space. Like it was holding its breath for him, waiting for him to arrive and give it meaning. As if the alley was a refuge no one else had found, a pce for secrets and ghosts.

  The air changed when he stepped inside. Quieter. Heavier. Like sound didn't quite know what to do here, like it was nervous and uncertain. He ducked under the snt of a sagging wooden beam, the kind that would've scared anyone else away. Pushed aside a curtain of vines that hadn't been there st week—or maybe they had. It was hard to tell with this pce. It grew wild and numb, indifferent to running and waiting.

  The shrine wasn't much anymore. A corner, a breath, a memory. Half a wall. A fallen altar covered in soot stains and moss. Stone that might've once been carved but now just looked tired. Pieces of it were scattered and forgotten. Forgotten, like everything else down here. Someone had tried to build it up and given up halfway through, like they'd decided it was easier to walk away than make themselves care.

  Riven crouched and set the candle stub onto a ft bit of stone. Pced the coin beside it. Then the feather. Then the broken charm. The objects looked small and lonely, insignificant next to the ruin of what might've once been beautiful. He studied them for a moment, then shifted them carefully, making their edges line up like it was important. Like someone would be checking to see if he did it right.

  He stared at the sad little arrangement, his head tilted like he was listening for some distant reply. Expecting answers he wasn't sure he wanted. His thumb brushed over the feather, slow and deliberate, as if he could coax it to mean something more. A weird little arrangement, more memory than ritual. No book had ever taught him this. No one ever had.

  Still, his voice held steady, clear and unwavering against the quiet. "Kinunnos. Or whatever you are now. I'm here. Again. For what it's worth." The words didn't echo. They didn't catch. It almost felt like the air had swallowed them whole, taken them to some pce where Riven's small decrations mattered. To some pce outside of here. He struck the lighter—twice, because the first one never worked—and lit the candle. The fme twitched, small but alive, trembling in the stillness. It pulled his focus, and he watched it with a devotion he couldn't cim as faith.

  Riven sat back on his heels, arms wrapped around his knees. Not praying, not really. Just... keeping the pattern going. Keeping the motion, the ritual, the cycle that had gotten him this far. That would get him farther. The fme tilted, a tiny lean to one side. He stared, brow furrowing as he tried to pce what was wrong. Not in a breeze—there wasn't one. There shouldn't be one, not here. The air was still, too still, like everything outside the alley had been put on pause. He frowned and gnced around. Nothing. Nothing but old shadows and deeper silence.

  But then the vines along the broken wall shifted. Just slightly. Not like wind. More like breath. Inhale. Hold. Exhale. He watched them, eyes wide and unsure, curiosity and fear a strange mix in his head. He sat up straighter.

  The shadows didn't move right either. One twitched against the far wall, like something had stepped between the candle and the stone. But there was no shape. No sound.

  And suddenly, no sound at all.

  The city was always humming—distant traffic, voices, the buzz of old electricity—but now there was nothing. Not even the occasional click of a settling pipe. Just a silence so thick it felt alive.

  Riven's spine prickled.

  He stared at the fme, his eyes following the small, quivering light. It flickered once. He drew in a breath. Again, twice, then held steady. He let out the breath. A blink, or a taunt. Like an eye. Like the alley itself was opening.

  He swallowed. Not fear, not quite, but something close. "Tired," he muttered, voice low as he talked himself down. "That's all." He paused, as if waiting for the silence to argue. "Didn't sleep enough, and now I'm freaking myself out like a horror cliché." He shook his head, trying to dislodge the whispers of unease.

  Riven stood, stiff from the cold and from crouching too long, brushing off his knees. They left damp marks on his pants. "Same time next week, you moody bastard." Uncertainty hung in the air like breath caught between panic and faith. The words echoed far down the alley, stretching the quiet so thin it felt like it might break. Longer than he liked. Longer than they should have.

  He turned sharply, forcing himself not to look back at the little shrine, at the weird arrangement of objects, or at the way the air seemed to ripple and change behind him. The fme wobbled again, a faint shimmer of farewell. Of warning. Of promise. He kept his head down and walked briskly, even though no one was watching him. Even though he was sure no one was. Even though it felt like everyone was.

  Behind him, something stayed. Waiting. Watching. Aware, even if it didn't want to be. Not fully formed, not yet, but enough to know. Enough to notice. Ash curled upward in the dark, like a slow breath from ancient lungs. Like the exhale of someone who had just learned how to want again.

  The alley shifted. Interested.

  Riven was back on the street in minutes, his steps quick and the rain faster. The city stretched out around him, indifferent. Uncaring. Just like he needed it to be. He moved through the empty intersections with purpose, the bundle of offerings tucked under his coat, hidden as though it was a secret he didn't have time to know. He didn't slow down until he was back at the building, didn't stop until he was up the stairs and through the door and safely swallowed by the same silence that had followed him all night. He dropped the little box onto the bed, watched the contents jumble together, uncertain and familiar.

  The jacket and hoodie were a mess in the corner, a heap of wet fabric that smelled like cold and the street. The pendant nded with a ctter on the windowsill. He watched it for a moment, the heavy shape, the intrusion it seemed to make against the room. With no one around to insist it meant something sacred, it didn't mean much.

  The clock blinked red in the dark. Three hours to sunrise, and he was already so tired. He sank onto the mattress, too drained to bother with covers.

  Riven woke up te.

  The arm had gone off, probably. Maybe more than once. At some point. Or it hadn't, and he just thought that it did. It was still blinking on the floor where he must've knocked it off in his sleep, the angry red fshing up at him like an accusation. He groaned, dragged himself upright, and immediately regretted it.

  His head felt full of smoke. Not pain—just that weird post-dream static that clung to your skin and filled you up with a thick, strange heaviness. Bits of it came back in fshes. Bare feet in warm ash. The crunch of bone underfoot. Someone saying his name—but not like the others did. Not "Riv," not annoyed. Like it meant something, like it meant him.

  He shook it off. Stood and forced his feet to move, slow and mechanical. He stepped over the pile of clothes and half-crushed the box with his heel. The chaos of objects rattled inside, small and helpless, like the way he felt until the dreams wore off. He rubbed his eyes and shoved a hand through his hair. His fingers were still cold from the night, from the silence that had folded itself around him and refused to let go.

  Water would help. He needed to clear his head. He stumbled into the bathroom, kicked the door shut, and cranked the old shower handle all the way to hot. Steam filled the space, more smoke, more haze, and he let it. He stood under the spray until everything turned blurry. Until the voices had scalded away and he could think again.

  Clothes. Cereal straight from the box. The usual.

  Riven stepped into the damp hallway, locking the door with the kind of hurried precision you use when you're te. He shoved the pendant deep into his pocket, out of sight and harder to remember that way. The stairs seemed longer than usual, the whole building tired and twice as heavy to move through. He hit the street at a jog, cutting across to the other side so he wouldn't pass the alley. So he wouldn't have to look. He ducked into a corner store, grabbed a convenience store coffee. Bck.

  The early morning traffic had already started up, honking and edging its way through the intersections. Noisy, the way the city should be. But Riven couldn't help gncing around, couldn't help wondering how much of it was real and how much was like the dreams.

  He made it to work fifteen minutes te. A new record, for him. He slid into his desk and set the cup in front of him, sticky hands still wrapped around it.

  "You look wrecked," a voice called over the low, mismatched partitions. "It must've been some night."

  The supervisor barely looked up. One of the other guys gave him a nod and a, "Rough night, shrine boy?"

  Riven rolled his eyes and kept working. Better to let the jokes nd. People got uncomfortable when you acted like you believed in anything.

  The shift rolled out in front of him, monotonous and blurry, a series of half-glimpsed employees and the glitchy screens they carried. Riven barely gnced up, his attention more on the packages he was scanning than on the faces pressing around him. Occasionally, his eyes darted to the clock. Five minutes crawled past. Ten. Thirty.

  The shift dragged, an eternity of meaningless motion, and Riven found a rhythm in its hollow consistency. He liked it better like this. He could almost forget st night, the pressing silence, the way it had filled up inside him and made promises he wasn't sure he wanted.

  He moved through the drudgery like a ghost, passing between deliveries and dropping boxes into waiting hands. One guy in a ripped jacket tried to flirt with him, a fast-talking mess of stammered lines and nervous gestures.

  Riven stared at him, bnk and unamused, until the guy finally gave up and looked away. Flustered. Defeated.

  Lunch was vending machine noodles, the hard and salty kind that tasted like cardboard and took the edge off your hunger without doing much else. He ate them in the stairwell, crouched on a step with his legs tucked close and his headphones in, shutting out the city, the world, the uncomfortable jokes that waited at his desk. He was almost himself again by the end of the shift. Almost.

  It wasn't until he got home that he noticed the ash. Just a faint smear, like gray chalk, on the edge of his right shirt cuff. He froze and stared at it, his mind racing in a dozen directions at once. The ash. Impossible, the part of his head that wanted to be logical said.

  A mistake.

  He hadn't worn this shirt to the shrine. He'd never worn this shirt there, not even once. But the ash was there anyway, soft and persistent against the fabric. Riven stared at it for a long time.

  What if it meant something? What if it meant everything? He swallowed, trying to force the questions back. Trying to force the fear farther. Then, carefully, he rolled the sleeve down, covering the mark. Covering the uncertainty, pretending it didn't matter and acting like nothing had happened. He turned on the TV and let the noise take over, let it fill him up the way the city had.

  Riven tried to focus on the flickering screen, on the sound and the light and the way they chased away the strange heaviness in his chest. But it followed him, even here. More than a weight. More than he knew what to do with. As if the ash itself was a warning.

  A reminder.

  A stray wisp from the dreams that had burned through his sleep.