The fire cracked and hissed in the dark cavern, casting jagged shadows across the rough stone walls and the worn faces gathered near its warmth. The faint drip of water echoed from somewhere deep in the rock, a hollow metronome counting down the seconds. Mica stood with his arms crossed, eyes locked on the flames like they might offer him clarity. The caverns around them felt heavy, suffocating, as if the earth itself were holding its breath.
The Fiend waited for them beyond the stone corridor.
But the real confrontation had already begun.
“I know that we’re just about ready to fight the Fiend,” Mica said, his voice low, brittle. “But is what Wallace said true? That you can rewind time and erase mistakes?”
Kelvin stood beside him, silent for a long moment. Then he nodded. “Yes. I have the power to do that.”
Mica turned fully to face him. “But... why didn’t you stop Wallace that night? If you stopped him, he never would’ve hurt Kai. Kai wouldn’t be struggling to forgive him. Fiona wouldn’t even know that Wallace was a rapist—because he never would’ve become one.”
Kelvin looked away, his jaw tight. “Mica… I didn’t stop Wallace that night. And I could have. I know.”
He stared into the fire. “But time doesn’t work the way people think it does. I don’t get infinite tries or perfect do-overs. Every change ripples outward—breaks things I never intended. I've tried to 'fix' moments before. Sometimes it helps. But more often... it just shuffles the pain somewhere else.”
He turned back to Mica, his voice steady but heavy. “You think I didn’t want to stop him? I did. Gods, I wanted to. But I’ve learned the hard way—stopping a crime doesn’t change the person who was going to commit it. It just delays the truth. Wallace needed to face who he really was... and Kai needed to see it. If I rewound that night, I wouldn’t be saving Kai. I’d be betraying him with a lie.”
Mica was quiet. His eyes didn’t leave Kelvin’s. Then he let out a breath, half-resigned, half-sarcastic.
“I guess that’s fair,” he muttered. “You did stop Fiona from killing a hundred rabbits that day, and now we’re on this quest battling fiends… but the dragons wanted you to kill her. And now she’s two months pregnant by a rabbit you used to bully in high school.”
Kelvin winced. “Yeah… not my finest chapter.”
Mica’s fists clenched. His voice turned sharp. “You let it happen.”
“I know.”
“You had the power. You knew. You could’ve stopped it, and you didn’t. You watched Wallace destroy Kai and you just… you stood there with the keys to the machine that could’ve unmade it. You chose a version of reality where my best friend lives with that, every day. And you’re telling me that’s the best we get?”
Kelvin’s voice cracked. “No. I’m telling you it’s the one where you live. See, Wallace is the dragon’s brains. He sees all the timelines, the possibilities. I’m the body. The strength. I act. That’s the balance.”
He looked down at the ground, ashamed. “And Wallace… Wallace needed to learn. To learn from his mistakes.”
Mica’s eyes burned. “Learn? He raped Kai, Kelvin. He didn’t make a mistake—he committed a crime. He destroyed someone.”
Before Kelvin could answer, a voice cut through the cavern like a blade.
“You consider Kai your best friend?”
Wallace stepped from the shadows just beyond the firelight, his posture defensive, his eyes hard. “You’ve only known him for two months. I’ve been his best friend since I was eight.”
Mica turned on him, voice trembling with quiet fury. “You don’t get to say his name.”
Wallace’s voice rose, brittle and bitter. “You think this is easy? Knowing what’s coming? Seeing how everything breaks, no matter what you do? I saw us, Mica. Me and Kai. We were old. We made it. Sitting under a tree with gray in our fur and peace in our hearts. We died together.”
His voice cracked. “I felt that. And I thought it justified what I did. I know I was wrong. But I thought if I could just steer us toward that ending... it would make it okay.”
Mica stared at him, disgust and disbelief warring across his face. “You saw peace, so you gave yourself permission to destroy everything before it. You didn’t earn that future, Wallace. You stole it.”
Kelvin’s voice was quiet, tired. “You thought suffering would teach you something. You thought you’d earn wisdom by walking through fire. But you dragged Kai into it to warm your hands.”
Wallace’s voice faltered. “He still talks to me.”
“Because he’s better than you,” Mica snapped. “He’s still trying to survive what you did. That doesn’t make you redeemed. It makes him a miracle.”
Wallace didn’t answer. He simply stood there, the silence after his presence deep and cold—like the stillness before an avalanche.
Then a voice broke it.
“What is everyone so upset about?”
Fiona stood near the entrance, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Kelvin turned, still taut from the firestorm of words that had just passed. The glow illuminated the edge of his face, shadowing the strain in his features.
“Nothing new,” he said. “Just ghosts clawing at the living again.”
Fiona blinked, her gaze sweeping over the three of them. Her eyes landed on Wallace last.
“…What’s he doing here?” she asked flatly.
“He was listening,” Mica muttered. “Like always. Like a coward.”
Wallace didn’t speak. He looked at Fiona, then lowered his gaze. It was the first time that night he didn’t try to defend himself.
“I had a dream,” Fiona said. “You were gone.”
She stared at him for a long moment. “I think I liked it.”
“Fiona,” Kelvin said gently, warning in his tone.
She raised a hand. “No. I'm not going to hit him again. Not with the Fiend so close. But don’t mistake my calm for forgiveness.”
“No one’s making that mistake,” Mica said.
Fiona stepped closer to the fire, her expression composed but grim. “Then let’s end this. We didn’t come here to relive the worst of each other. We came to put an end to something worse.”
She glanced once more at Wallace. “Stay behind. Or walk into the dark. But if you follow us into that fight… know that none of us are turning back for you.”
A low groan echoed from the stone corridor ahead—a pressure change in the air, like the cavern itself was exhaling after holding its breath too long.
Then, with a deep clang, the ancient iron door at the end creaked open.
From the darkness beyond, a shape emerged—rolling, pulsing, spinning in jagged, unnatural spirals. It moved like a child's top, but faster, heavier. Fire bled from its cracks in slow streams that ignited the ground beneath it.
The Fiend was a turtle—a creature of molten shell and hate, its limbs long and gnarled, curling inward like knives made of volcanic bone. As it spun, arcs of flame whipped outward, scorching the cavern walls and spraying bursts of ember through the air like shrapnel.
Its eyes didn’t glow—they dripped, thick and molten, as if the creature cried lava instead of tears.
And it was looking at them.
Kelvin stepped forward, shielding Mica and Fiona instinctively. His hand went to the hilt of his blade, and the metal near his side vibrated in response—already heating in the presence of the monster’s twisted energy.
“Get ready,” Kelvin murmured. “This thing’s born of memory. Regret. It feeds on our past. Don’t give it more than it already has.”
The Fiend let out a shriek—not a roar, but the sound of stone grinding against flesh, of time itself being scratched raw.
It charged.
