Series Content Advisory
Scriptures of Nokternum is a dark fantasy story involving grief, trauma, violence, death, coercive control, forced experimentation, and bodily alteration. Some chapters address past suicide, abuse, blood, severe injury, and psychological manipulation. Additional chapter-specific warnings are provided when necessary.
Additional Chapter Warning
This chapter contains direct recollections of suicide, death and dying, traumatic grief, blood-related memories, and the aftermath of forced experimentation.
Chapter 14: “What the Dead Remember”
Event Date: May 24th, 2010 - 12:52 AM PDT, Earth
They traveled without speaking. Kaostar remained several steps ahead, moving toward the ridge while leaving enough space for Lightstorm to retreat in any direction. He deliberately avoided looking back too often. Each time he did, Lightstorm’s body tightened beneath the shroud as though expecting an attack.
But Lightstorm continued following. Lightstorm’s continued presence was not comfort. Trust had not returned. Neither of them knew what it would look like if it did.
The forest gradually regained its voice around them. Rainwater fell from leaves despite there having been no rain here, not naturally, not fully. Somewhere beyond the dense trees, a night bird gave a cautious call, waited for punishment, then called again. Wind moved through the upper branches, carrying away the burnt scent of electricity and replacing it with wet bark, moss, soil, and the cold green smell of disturbed roots.
Kaostar listened beneath those sounds. No pursuit. No mechanical movement. No footfalls beyond theirs.
No familiar shift in the dimensional seams that would have told him Metatronas had opened a door nearby. No voice from nowhere. No sterile light through the trees. If Metatronas was watching, he had chosen not to reveal himself.
The thought gave Kaostar no comfort. It meant only that whatever was happening had not yet reached its intended conclusion. Behind him, Lightstorm’s steps remained uneven. Not weak.
Measured. A body walking with pain it refused to name, conserving movement without ever surrendering readiness. Kaostar’s ears angled back once. Lightstorm stopped.
So did Kaostar. The silence tightened. Kaostar did not turn. After several seconds, Lightstorm said, “Why did you stop?”
“You stopped.”
“I know.”
“So I stopped.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Kaostar looked toward the trees ahead.
“Because if you run, I need to know which direction not to block.”
Nothing moved behind him. Then Lightstorm exhaled once through his nose. Not laughter. Not agreement.
Something too small to classify. Kaostar resumed walking. After a moment, Lightstorm followed.
The ridge rose in front of them, its slope broken by roots and stone. Kaostar climbed first, choosing each step slowly enough that Lightstorm could see the path without having to imitate him exactly. At the top, the forest opened briefly. Below them, the hollow where they had fought lay half-hidden beneath the canopy.
Beyond it, farther back, the rainline cut through the woods like an invisible wall still deciding whether it wanted to exist. Past that boundary, Silas remained somewhere out of sight. Kaostar did not search for him. This was still not Silas’s proof to carry.
Ahead, the ridge descended into another section of forest where the ground flattened beside a narrow stream. The water slid between stones in a silver-black ribbon, narrow enough to cross, loud enough to betray careless approach. Roots crowded the bank, forming a natural wall beneath an ancient tree whose branches bent low over the clearing like tired ribs. Kaostar stopped before entering.
Lightstorm halted immediately.
“Why are we stopping?”
“There’s water.”
“I’m not thirsty.”
“The ridge gives us visibility in three directions.” Kaostar pointed without turning his body toward Lightstorm. “The stream makes it difficult for something to approach from the fourth without being heard.”
Lightstorm said nothing. Kaostar stepped aside, leaving the descent open. He waited. Lightstorm’s gaze traveled around the clearing.
Trees. Stream. Slope. Broken trunk lying beside the water.
Dense brush to the left. Open ridge behind them. The ancient tree roots. Kaostar.
The stream again. The trees again. The slope again. Only after the third inspection did Lightstorm move closer to the water.
He did not remove the shroud. Kaostar lowered himself beside the ancient tree, careful not to block the paths leading away from the clearing. He kept both hands visible. The blood on his torn coat had dried into blackened stains except where the impossible rain had washed it thin. His skin beneath it was whole again.
Lightstorm noticed. His eyes lingered on the places where his claws had entered Kaostar’s body. Kaostar covered none of them. Far beyond the ridge, the forest pressure shifted once.
Neither of them spoke of it. Both of them heard it. The stream murmured between them. “You said it still hurts,” Lightstorm said.
Kaostar looked toward the water.
“It does.”
“But it closes.”
“Yes.”
“How quickly?”
“It depends on the injury.”
Lightstorm’s mouth tightened beneath the hood.
“If I tore your throat open?”
“It would close.”
“If I stopped your heart?”
“It would probably restart.”
“Probably?”
“I have not tested every possible way Metatronas made me difficult to kill.”
Lightstorm stared at him. The current beneath the shroud gave one uneasy flicker. Kaostar glanced down at his hands.
“I stopped trying to find the limit.”
Lightstorm’s head tilted.
“You tried?”
“For a while.”
There was no pride in Kaostar’s voice. No challenge. Only exhausted acknowledgment. Lightstorm took one step backward.
Kaostar looked up at him.
“That was years ago.”
“That doesn’t answer why.”
“No.”
“Then answer.”
Kaostar’s claws pressed against the soil. The stream moved. Wind moved through the branches above them.
“Because you were gone.”
The words landed wrong in Lightstorm’s body. Not accusation. Not quite. But close enough that the electricity beneath the shroud forgot how to stay hidden.
A thin violet-white line crawled over one shoulder, flickered around the edge of his hood, and vanished before it became a weapon. Kaostar immediately looked away. The silence between them hardened. Water moved over stones with a soft, ceaseless murmur.
Lightstorm remained standing.
“You keep saying that,” he said.
Kaostar’s ears shifted toward him.
“That I was gone.”
“You were.”
“I remember dying.”
Kaostar went completely still. The words did not strike like lightning. They did not explode. They entered him quietly, and that was worse.
Lightstorm’s gaze lowered to the stream.
“Not everything,” he said. “Not in order.”
Kaostar did not breathe.
“I remember where we were.”
His voice tightened.
“And I remember you.”
The final word emerged almost resentfully. Kaostar’s fingers curled into the earth. Lightstorm looked at him.
“You want me to say it.”
“No.”
“You do.”
“I want you to say only what you choose.”
“You want to know whether I remember you being there.”
Kaostar’s jaw tightened.
“I already know I was there.”
“But you want me to confirm it.”
Kaostar looked toward the dark water.
“Yes.”
Lightstorm’s shoulders rose and fell beneath the shroud.
“I remember your voice.”
Kaostar closed his eyes. The claws of his right hand sank farther into the soil.
“You were talking too fast.”
“I was afraid that if I stopped—”
“I know.”
Kaostar looked at him. Lightstorm’s expression was obscured by the hood, but his eyes had lost some of their aggression. What remained was not peace. It was exhaustion.
“You kept trying to fill every silence,” Lightstorm said. “You thought silence meant I was leaving.”
“It did.”
“No.” Lightstorm’s voice weakened around the correction. “It meant I couldn’t answer.”
Kaostar swallowed.
“I know that now.”
“You should have known then.”
“I was terrified.”
“So was I.”
The words struck the clearing with more force than any blast. Kaostar’s face tightened.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Lightstorm turned away. Electricity crawled faintly over the fabric covering his shoulders. Not a weapon this time.
Not yet.
“You know what it looked like from where you were,” he said. “You don’t know what was happening inside me.”
“No.”
“You keep speaking as though I had already decided before that night.”
Kaostar slowly stood. He did not approach. The question escaped before he could make it gentler.
“Hadn’t you?”
Lightstorm’s head turned sharply. Kaostar held his ground.
“You asked me whether people could become too damaged to come back,” Kaostar said. “You apologized for things that did not require apologies. You kept giving objects away and pretending they no longer mattered to you.”
Lightstorm said nothing.
“You started avoiding places we had planned to visit together.”
“I was tired.”
“You stopped talking about the future.”
“I didn’t have one.”
“You did.”
“No.”
“You had one with me.”
Lightstorm spun toward him. Lightning flashed along both arms.
“That was the problem!”
The stream flashed white for one instant. Not because lightning struck it. Because the current under Lightstorm’s shroud had nowhere else to go. Kaostar recoiled as though the words had struck his chest.
Lightstorm’s breathing accelerated.
“You kept giving me a future,” he said. “Every day. Every time you talked about the next week, the next season, the next place we would go. You kept building rooms in a house I already knew I would never enter.”
Kaostar stared at him.
“I thought it would help.”
“I know.”
“I thought if you could see something ahead—”
“I could see it.”
Lightstorm’s voice cracked.
“That was what hurt.”
The electricity around him weakened.
“I could see you waiting for me to become better. I could see how patient you were trying to be. I could see how carefully you watched me whenever I became quiet. Every kindness became another thing I was going to destroy.”
“You didn’t destroy it.”
“I destroyed you.”
“No.”
Lightstorm gestured violently toward Kaostar’s transformed body.
“Look at yourself!”
Kaostar looked down. Black fur. Rust-red bands. Claws.
A body that had survived too much and resembled mercy in none of the ways Metatronas had promised.
“Metatronas did this.”
“After I gave him the opportunity.”
“You did not give him anything.”
“If I had stayed alive, you wouldn’t have been alone.”
“Lightstorm.”
The name came out low. Not warning. Not plea. A boundary before both of them fell into an old grave and called it logic. “That does not make what he did your fault.”
“If I had stayed—”
“You were in pain.”
Lightstorm’s eyes narrowed. Kaostar’s voice softened but did not lose its firmness.
“You were drowning. You were not conspiring with Metatronas. You did not arrange for him to find me. You did not ask him to turn me into this.”
“I knew what losing me would do to you.”
Kaostar’s throat moved. The question rose before he could kill it.
“Then why?”
Lightstorm went silent. Kaostar’s anger vanished immediately. He looked stricken.
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“I should not have—”
“You finally asked.”
Kaostar’s mouth closed. Lightstorm looked toward the stream again. The hood hid most of his face, but not the tension along his muzzle.
“For years,” Lightstorm said, “I thought the answer was simple.”
Kaostar waited.
“I thought I died because I wanted the pain to stop.”
Kaostar’s claws curled.
“That is not simple.”
“It felt simple then.”
Lightstorm crouched near the water but did not drink. His clawed hand hovered above the stream as he watched the current distort its reflection.
“I was tired of waking up already exhausted,” he said. “Tired of every ordinary task feeling like something I had to survive. Tired of hearing people describe the future as though it naturally belonged to everyone.”
Kaostar lowered himself several paces away. Lightstorm allowed it.
“Some days, I wanted help,” Lightstorm continued. “Other days, I wanted everyone to stop noticing. I hated when no one saw what was happening. Then I hated anyone who did.”
“You never hated me.”
“I resented you.”
Kaostar absorbed the words without defending himself. Lightstorm glanced toward him.
“You made it harder to disappear.”
“I would apologize,” Kaostar said, “but I am not sorry for that.”
“I know.”
“I am sorry I made you feel trapped.”
“You didn’t.”
Lightstorm’s voice lowered.
“That was inside me before you.”
Kaostar studied him carefully.
“Then what did you resent?”
“That you kept proving I still cared.”
Kaostar’s eyes glistened. Lightstorm turned back to the water.
“I wanted to believe I had become empty,” he said. “Empty people don’t hurt anyone when they leave. Empty people don’t leave anything behind.”
“You were never empty.”
“I know that now.”
The stream carried a cluster of leaves between them. Lightstorm followed them with his gaze until they disappeared into the darkness. The forest seemed to hold itself still around what he was about to say.
“I loved you.”
Kaostar stopped breathing. Lightstorm’s hand clenched above the water.
“I need you to understand that before I say anything else.”
Kaostar’s voice came out scarcely above a whisper.
“I know you did.”
“No.” Lightstorm forced himself to look directly at him. “You need to hear it from me.”
Kaostar’s face twisted as if the words were both gift and wound. Lightstorm’s blue eyes shone beneath the hood.
“I loved you.”
Kaostar’s claws dug into his legs.
“Not weakly. Not only when I was well. Not as something that had already faded by the end.”
Lightstorm’s voice shook, but it did not stop. “I loved you while I was planning to die.”
Kaostar made no sound. That made the sentence worse.
Lightstorm continued before he could respond. “That is what made it unbearable. I could not make the pain smaller, so I started trying to make myself smaller instead. I convinced myself that eventually there would be little enough of me left that you could survive losing it.”
Kaostar shook his head.
“You were everything.”
“I know.”
“You were not a burden I could subtract from my life.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
“I knew you would say it.”
“That is not the same.”
“No.”
Lightstorm’s voice grew unsteady.
“But I was no longer measuring truth by what was true. I was measuring it by what allowed me to reach the end of the day.”
Kaostar stared at the soil between them.
“What did you believe?”
Lightstorm’s gaze dropped.
“That you loved the person I used to be.”
Kaostar looked up sharply.
“That you were waiting for him to return,” Lightstorm said. “That every time you comforted me, you were trying to preserve something that had already died.”
“I loved who you were in every moment.”
“You say that now.”
“I said it then.”
“I couldn’t hear you.”
Kaostar’s expression broke. Lightstorm lowered his eyes.
“That is not your failure.”
“It feels like it.”
“It was mine.”
“No.”
“Kaostar—”
The name silenced them both. The name remained between them longer than the stream noise could cover. It was the first time Lightstorm had used it without contempt. Not Darkshyne.
Not accusation. Not the name of a thing built from the dead. Kaostar. Lightstorm seemed to realize it only after the sound had left him.
The current beneath the shroud flickered once, uncertain as a startled breath. Kaostar’s ears lowered.
“You can call me either,” he said quietly.
“I don’t know which one you are.”
“Neither do I.”
The answer unsettled Lightstorm more than a confident claim would have. Kaostar looked at his black-furred hands.
“Darkshyne died in more than one way that night,” he said. “Part of him died with you. Part survived long enough for Metatronas to take apart. Kaostar is what remained after he finished.”
Lightstorm’s fingers tightened around the edge of the shroud.
“Then why do you want me to believe you’re Darkshyne?”
“Because I remember loving you as him.”
“That doesn’t make you him.”
“No.”
“And your memories could have been altered.”
“Yes.”
“Implanted.”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you so certain?”
Kaostar considered the question.
“I’m not certain of everything.”
Lightstorm’s gaze sharpened.
“I don’t know how much of my mind Metatronas touched,” Kaostar said. “I don’t know whether some of my memories were sharpened, suppressed, or rearranged. I know he used grief as an instrument. He knew that when I remembered you, I became easier to direct.”
Lightstorm’s electricity returned as a thin nervous glow.
“He used me against you.”
“He used my inability to let you go.”
“That isn’t different.”
“It is to me.”
Kaostar looked at him.
“He did not own you simply because he weaponized my grief.”
Lightstorm’s hand lowered into the stream. Water passed around his fingers. The electrical current disappeared before touching it. For a moment, both of them watched the water move over his hand as though the stream had done something neither of them knew how to ask for.
The forest was not safe. Neither were they. The thing beyond the ridge had not become less unknown. Metatronas had not become less possible.
The past had not become less dead. But Lightstorm’s hand was in the water. Kaostar was several paces away. No one moved closer.
No one ran. No one called that healing. Lightstorm did not take the sentence back. Kaostar did not survive it cleanly.
The stream carried leaves into the dark.
~ To be continued ~
