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 detailed discussion of suicide and traumatic death, resurrection, forced medical experimentation, captivity and restraint trauma, grief, and violent revenge ideation.
Chapter 19: “Harrow's Kept Door”
Event Date: May 24th, 2010 - 6:42 AM CDT, Earth
Kaostar knew every turn of the cave path, even after six years. His body remembered the route before he wanted it to. The familiarity hurt, but the path still led him home.
Damp earth gave softly beneath his boots. The trees along the outskirts still leaned toward the same narrow trail as if six years had not passed through them carrying fire, blood, laboratories, arenas, and impossible weather. Spring clung to the branches in thin gray silence. The city beyond the trees had begun waking somewhere behind him, but out here the morning moved more carefully.
Kaostar walked alone. Behind him, where the path curved out of sight, Silas remained at the edge. Not following. Not leaving.
Holding the boundary exactly where he had said he would. Before Kaostar took the last bend alone, he had confirmed that Silas should wait. Silas had released the toolkit strap and put both hands into the hidden pockets of his faded charcoal jacket, accepting the limit instead of remaining poised to intervene. Where it becomes yours and his.
Kaostar had not asked him to stay. Silas had stayed because he chose to. That difference followed Kaostar down the path more gently than any command could have. His shoulder still remembered Silas’s shoulder.
His upper back still remembered the loose shape of arms that had not trapped him. His palm still remembered fingers over cloth. In his coat pocket, the rinsed cloth sat folded around nothing. It smelled faintly of metal, tea dust, bad towels, and the kind of care that did not know how to announce itself without ruining the work.
Kaostar’s uncovered palm felt too visible. The mapped scar crossed it in pale, uneven lines. Metatronas’s access. Kaostar’s severance.
Silas’s question.
Still allowed?
Kaostar closed his hand. The scar disappeared into his fist. That did not make it gone. He kept walking.
The cave waited ahead. Not far now.
He knew every bend in the trail and hated that knowledge for surviving him. The old leaning oak still split the path like a choice. The stone shelf still collected rainwater in a shallow hollow. Moss still grew along the north-facing rock where Darkshyne had once slipped, cursed, and accused the earth of plotting with Lightstorm.
Idiot Dark, Lightstorm had said then, laughing too hard to make the insult sharp. The memory struck without warning. Kaostar stopped. For one second, the morning fractured. Lightstorm behind Ashbell. Lightstorm at the creek. Lightstorm beneath a shroud. Lightstorm looking at him and seeing what Metatronas had done after him.
Kaostar’s claws pressed into his palm. Pain answered correctly. He breathed once. Then again.
Silas was not beside him now. That was right. This part was not his to stand inside. Kaostar moved forward.
The cave entrance came into view through the trees. It looked smaller than grief had made it. Of course it did. Places were always smaller than what they survived.
The repaired door sat beneath the overhang, dark wood patched in two places where weather and age had tried to enter. Someone had sanded the old scrape marks near the handle. Someone had replaced the hinge that used to complain in spring. Someone had swept fallen leaves away from the threshold.
Harrow. Kaostar stood before the door. The cave smelled faintly of stone, old smoke, dried herbs, and a kind of patience that made his throat hurt. He lifted his hand.
Stopped before knocking. The mapped scar faced the door. For one brief, irrational moment, he expected the wood to know the difference between Darkshyne’s hand and Kaostar’s. Before he could decide whether to knock, the door opened.
Harrow stood inside. He was already awake. Of course he was. Beneath the low overhang, he had to raise his face to take in the figure waiting at his door.
He wore a dark robe hastily tied, gray at the edges, with one sleeve pushed up and the other hanging loose. His hair was uncombed. His eyes were tired in the particular way that belonged to people who had gone to sleep expecting trouble and woken before it had the courtesy to arrive. For a moment, he did not speak.
His gaze moved over Kaostar. The mud that washing had not removed. The torn coat. The healed marks.
The hand clenched too tightly. The face. Whatever was left of the face. Harrow’s expression changed before he knew what had happened.
Not fear. Recognition of impact.
“Kaostar,” he said.
Then, softer, as if neither name should have to stand alone this morning:
“Darkshyne.”
Kaostar almost turned around. The path behind him held. Silas held the edge somewhere beyond sight. Kaostar remained.
Harrow stepped back from the doorway. Not reaching. Not asking. Only making the opening visible.
“You came early,” Harrow said.
Kaostar stared at him.
“That is what you’re starting with?”
“It seemed safer than asking why you look like morning had to drag you here by the throat.”
Kaostar’s mouth moved. No sound came. Harrow’s gaze sharpened. Then softened immediately, not from pity, but from discipline.
“Come in,” he said.
Kaostar looked past him into the cave. The main chamber remained almost offensively intact. The table was still there. The old shelves.
The blankets folded near the wall. The stone basin. The repaired lamp. The back alcove where Darkshyne had once covered walls with questions too large for chalk.
Some things had been moved. Some things had been cleaned. Some things had been left where memory needed them to be. The cave still looked like home, despite everything Kaostar had become.
He stepped inside. The door closed behind him. Not locked. He noticed.
Harrow noticed him noticing. Neither commented. For several breaths, they stood in the entry chamber while morning gathered outside the repaired wood. Harrow did not ask what happened.
That made the first true thing harder. Kaostar looked at the floor. There were scratches near the threshold that had not been there years ago. New ones.
Harrow’s work. Harrow’s living. Proof that the cave had continued as a place, not only a shrine. Silas’s voice returned without sound.
Tell him the first true thing. Kaostar’s mouth opened. Nothing came. Harrow waited.
Kaostar tried again.
“I saw him.”
Harrow’s face changed. Not enough for most people to read. Enough for Kaostar.
“Who?”
Kaostar’s claws flexed. The name pressed behind his teeth, bright and dangerous.
“Lightstorm.”
Harrow did not move. The cave seemed to lose sound. Kaostar lifted his eyes.
“He’s alive.”
The words entered the cave and did not know where to stand. Harrow’s hand moved toward the doorframe.
Stopped.
Then gripped it anyway. His knuckles tightened. For a moment, the only sound was the low burning of the small stove somewhere deeper in the cave. Harrow closed his eyes.
Not long. Only enough to keep the first reaction from falling onto Kaostar. When he opened them, they were wet. He did not wipe them.
“Are you certain?”
The question struck exactly where Kaostar expected and still hurt. His lips pulled back slightly. Harrow did not retract it.
“I have to ask.”
“I know.”
“Because of Metatronas.”
“I know.”
“Because of grief.”
“I know.”
“Because I remember what wanting him back did to you.”
Kaostar looked away first. That was the one that cut deepest. Harrow’s voice lowered.
“Are you certain?”
Kaostar looked at the old table. The cave wall. The repaired hinge. Anything but Harrow.
“Certain enough to let him leave.”
Harrow’s grip on the doorframe tightened. Then loosened. He understood too much.
“He left?”
“Yes.”
“Alive?”
Kaostar’s head snapped toward him. Harrow held his gaze. The second word had mattered more than the first. Kaostar swallowed.
“Yes.”
Harrow breathed out. The breath shook. He turned away for one moment, not hiding, only choosing where to place the force of the news. His hand rested against the cave wall. Stone took what his face did not.
“Good,” he said.
Kaostar stared. Harrow looked back at him.
“Not simple,” he said. “Not safe. Not clean. But good.”
Kaostar’s claws curled.
“He is afraid of me.”
“I would expect him to be.”
The bluntness hit like cold water. Kaostar’s eyes flashed. Harrow did not soften.
“Kaostar. If Lightstorm is alive, then he is alive after death, after Metatronas, after whatever was done to return him, and after seeing you as you are now. Fear is not an insult. It may be the first honest thing his body had left.”
Kaostar’s anger faltered. Harrow’s voice gentled by one degree.
“Did he know you?”
Kaostar’s mouth tightened.
“Yes.”
“Did he know Darkshyne?”
Kaostar looked down at his hand.
“Yes.”
“Did he know both?”
Kaostar closed his eyes.
“He doesn’t know what I am.”
Harrow was quiet. Kaostar opened his eyes again.
“Neither do I.”
The cave received the confession differently than Moonleaf had. Moonleaf had held it like a table held weight. The cave absorbed it into stone. Harrow stepped away from the doorframe.
“Sit down.”
Kaostar’s head lifted.
“No.”
“That was not a request.”
The old tone entered the room before either of them could stop it. Kaostar went still. Harrow heard himself. His face tightened.
He corrected immediately.
“Sit down, if standing is making you prepare to flee from a conversation you came here to have.”
Kaostar stared at him.
“That is very different.”
“Yes.”
“You did that on purpose.”
“The correction or the mistake?”
“Both.”
Harrow looked tired.
“Possibly.”
Kaostar almost huffed.
Almost.
He sat. The chair did not fit him well anymore. It had fit Darkshyne. Kaostar’s knees sat too high.
His shoulders made the old cave table seem smaller. His tail had nowhere comfortable to go. Harrow saw all of it. He did not apologize for the furniture.
The lack of ceremony steadied him. Instead, he crossed to the stove and lifted a kettle.
“Tea?”
Kaostar gave him a flat look.
“I came from a tea shop.”
“Then your standards are already damaged.”
“Harrow.”
“Water, then.”
“I don’t need—”
“You do.”
Kaostar’s claws tapped once on the table. Harrow paused. Then set a cup on the table within reach. Not in his hand.
Kaostar stared at it. Harrow’s expression shifted.
“Someone has been teaching you well.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed.
“Do not.”
“I did not say who.”
“You know.”
“I can infer.”
Kaostar looked away. Harrow did not press. He poured water and moved the cup slightly closer, still not touching Kaostar.
“Did Lightstorm touch you?”
The question came quietly. Kaostar’s breath stopped. Harrow waited, then added, “I am asking because touch was not simple for him, and it is not simple for you.” Kaostar’s hand closed around the cup.
The water was warm. Not hot.
“He attacked me.”
Harrow went still.
“I let him.”
Harrow’s eyes sharpened.
Kaostar continued before the question could become bigger. “Not entirely. I defended. Redirected. Moved. But I would rather have taken every wound he gave than risk giving him one he could not survive.”
Harrow sat across from him.
“Did he know that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you tell him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he believe it?”
“I don’t know.”
Harrow absorbed that. Kaostar looked down into the cup.
“He hit me with electricity. Not storm. Wrong. Sterile. Like a laboratory pretending to be weather.”
Harrow’s face hardened.
“Metatronas.”
“Yes.”
“Did Lightstorm say that?”
“He remembered him.”
Harrow’s jaw tightened.
“He remembered underground. Metal walls. Restraints. Lights. Metatronas telling him things about me. About Darkshyne being dead. About this body.”
Harrow’s eyes moved over Kaostar once, carefully.
“What did Metatronas tell him?”
“That I stole what was left.”
Harrow’s hand flattened on the table. The movement was quiet. The anger beneath it was not.
“He told Lightstorm you were wearing Darkshyne.”
Kaostar nodded. Harrow’s eyes closed again. This time longer. When he opened them, the wetness had not left.
“Did Lightstorm believe it?”
“At first.”
“And then?”
Kaostar’s throat moved.
“He remembered.”
“What?”
“The creek.”
Harrow did not move.
“My hand.”
The cave went very still.
“He remembered that I was there.”
Harrow’s face changed. This time he could not hide it. He looked away. One hand lifted to his mouth, then lowered before it could cover anything.
Kaostar watched him with frightened intensity. Harrow’s voice emerged rough.
“Good.”
The word broke. He swallowed.
“Good.”
Kaostar’s eyes burned. Harrow looked back at him.
“That mattered.”
Kaostar’s face twisted.
“It did more than matter.”
“I know.”
“No.”
Harrow nodded once.
“No. I don’t. Not truly.”
The correction resembled Silas enough to hurt and comfort simultaneously. Harrow breathed in.
“Did he know you loved him?”
Kaostar’s claws dug into the cup.
“He said he knew.”
Harrow’s face softened and broke around the edges.
“Did he believe it?”
“He said he loved me.”
Harrow’s eyes closed. Kaostar’s voice thinned.
“While he was planning to die.”
Harrow went completely still. For several seconds, neither of them moved. Harrow had not belonged inside that love, but he had lived beside the crater it left. Then Harrow opened his eyes and did something Kaostar did not expect.
He stood. Not abruptly. Not dramatically. He turned away and walked to the far wall, placing both hands on the stone. His head lowered.
Kaostar froze.
“Harrow?”
“One moment.”
The words came strained. Kaostar stood halfway. Harrow lifted one hand without turning.
“Stay seated.”
The old command almost landed wrong. Harrow corrected without looking back.
“Please.”
Kaostar remained half-standing for a breath. Then sat. Harrow’s shoulders moved once. He was not sobbing.
Not quite. But grief had reached him, and for the first time in the room, he was not able to hold it entirely upright. Kaostar did not know what to do. So he did nothing.
Silas had taught him that sometimes nothing was a form of not making the wound worse. Harrow drew one breath. Then another. When he turned back, his face was controlled again.
Not untouched. Controlled.
“I am going to feel that later,” he said. “Not on top of you.”
Kaostar stared at him. Harrow returned to the table. Sat. His hands folded once, then opened.
“I am glad he told you.”
Kaostar’s mouth trembled.
“It didn’t fix anything.”
“No.”
“It made some things worse.”
“Yes.”
Harrow leaned forward slightly.
“But the truth matters even when it cannot fix us.”
Kaostar looked sharply at him. Harrow studied his face.
“Someone said that to you?”
“I said it to him.”
“Then listen to yourself when another person repeats it.”
Kaostar looked away. The cave smelled like warm stone and old smoke. Harrow let the silence breathe before asking the next question.
“Where is he now?”
“Gone.”
Harrow’s face changed too quickly. Kaostar corrected, harsh and immediate.
“Not dead.”
Harrow’s breath caught. Kaostar’s voice lowered.
“He left.”
Harrow closed his eyes briefly. Then opened them.
“Then he chose something.”
Kaostar stared.
“He chose distance,” Harrow said. “That is not nothing.”
“It feels like losing him again.”
“I imagine it does.”
“Do not make that sound reasonable.”
“It is reasonable.”
Kaostar snarled softly. Harrow did not retreat.
“It is also not the same.”
Kaostar’s eyes flashed with pain. Harrow’s voice gentled.
“It is not the same.”
The second time, the words entered. Not fully.
Enough.
Kaostar looked at his hands.
“He said he does not intend to die tonight.”
Harrow’s expression tightened.
“Tonight.”
“Yes.”
“That is a hard answer to receive.”
“It was honest.”
“Yes.”
“I accepted it.”
Harrow looked at him for a long time. Then said, “That may be one of the hardest things you have ever done.” Kaostar almost denied it. Could not.
His hand moved toward his pocket. Felt the folded cloth there. Loose. Allowed.
Over.
Not gone.
Harrow noticed the motion.
“What is that?”
Kaostar’s hand stopped.
“Nothing.”
Harrow lifted an eyebrow. Kaostar hated him for still being able to do that.
“It is a cloth.”
“I gathered that much from the shape of the lie.”
Kaostar’s ears lowered. Harrow waited. Kaostar took out the folded cloth and placed it on the table. Harrow looked at it.
“Silas?”
Kaostar’s face went still. Harrow did not smile. He did not pounce on the name. He did not ask with the wrong kind of curiosity.
Kaostar said, “He wrapped my hand.” Harrow glanced at Kaostar’s palm. The mapped scar was visible again. Understanding moved across his face.
“Did that help?”
Kaostar’s jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
Harrow nodded.
“Good.”
“That is all you have to say?”
“No.”
Harrow looked toward the cave entrance.
“But it is all I have the right to say first.”
Kaostar’s throat moved. Harrow’s gaze returned to him.
“Is he nearby?”
Kaostar stilled.
“How did you—”
“You came steadier than you would have alone.”
The answer landed without judgment. Kaostar looked toward the door. His awareness moved instinctively toward the path. Silas remained where he had promised: not close enough to overhear, not far enough to become absence.
“He walked to the edge.”
“Of the path?”
“Yes.”
“And stopped?”
“Yes.”
Harrow’s expression softened.
“Good.”
Kaostar studied him sharply.
“You are not bothered.”
“That someone cared carefully enough to bring you here without taking the conversation from you?”
Harrow shook his head.
“No.”
Kaostar’s claws flexed.
“He is not replacing—”
“I know.”
The answer was immediate. Kaostar stopped. Harrow’s eyes held his.
“No one who matters can be replaced by someone who cares differently.”
Kaostar looked down. The cloth sat between them. Small. Ridiculous.
Important.
“Care is not a throne,” Harrow said. “It does not only have room for one name.”
Kaostar’s chest tightened. Harrow continued, “And someone caring now does not erase someone who cared before.”
“Silas said he knows what he is not.”
“He sounds wise.”
“He is irritating.”
“Those often overlap.”
Kaostar almost smiled. It failed before it fully formed. Harrow let it count anyway. For a while, they sat with the cave around them and the morning beginning beyond the door.
Then Kaostar said, “You weren’t there when they took him.” Harrow’s face changed.
“No.”
Kaostar kept his eyes on the cloth.
“After the sirens. After the uniforms. After the world had finished being late.”
Harrow’s gaze lowered.
“Yes.”
“But you found what was left.”
Harrow’s expression became very still.
“Yes.”
“I said that to him.”
“Lightstorm?”
“Yes.”
Harrow waited.
“I told him you were not there at the creek. Not when they took him. Later.”
Harrow looked relieved and wounded at once.
“Good.”
“I had said it wrong in my head before.”
“Grief often misplaces witnesses.”
Kaostar looked up. Harrow’s voice was quiet.
“It tries to put everyone important in the worst room, because then the worst room feels less alone.”
Kaostar absorbed that. The cave seemed to shift around the sentence.
“I hated you for not being there,” Kaostar said.
Harrow’s breath stopped.
Kaostar continued, rough and low. “Not rationally. Not fairly. Not always. But sometimes. I hated everyone who was not there soon enough. Everyone who arrived after. Everyone who lived outside the moment where he stopped breathing.”
Harrow did not speak. Kaostar’s eyes burned.
“And then I hated you for staying afterward, because staying gave me something to refuse.”
Harrow’s gaze lowered.
“I know.”
Kaostar flinched. Harrow looked back at him.
“I did not know all the shapes of it. But I knew some.”
“You stayed anyway.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Harrow’s answer came without performance.
“Because you were still here.”
Kaostar looked away. The cave blurred. Harrow’s voice followed, steady and worn.
“Not well. Not reachable most days. Not kind. Not safe in every way. But here.”
Kaostar’s claws pressed into his leg.
“You should have left.”
“Probably.”
Kaostar looked at him. Harrow shrugged faintly.
“I have made several impractical choices. Keeping this cave habitable was one of the less dramatic ones.”
Kaostar’s mouth twitched despite himself. Then the pain returned.
“I did terrible things after.”
“I know some.”
“Not all.”
“No.”
“You don’t want to know all.”
Harrow looked at him carefully.
“I want to know what you need me to know so that I do not help you lie to yourself,” Harrow said. “Not so I can make it clean.”
Kaostar stared. Harrow’s voice hardened slightly.
“I do not need every wound opened on this table to prove you trust me. Trust is not measured by how much blood you can produce when asked.”
The words landed deep. Silas again. Harrow differently. Kaostar looked down.
“I don’t know what comes next.”
Harrow leaned back.
“Good.”
Kaostar’s head snapped up.
“Good?”
“Yes.”
“You are all becoming very fond of terrible responses.”
“Certainty would worry me more.”
Kaostar’s eyes narrowed. Harrow continued, “If you knew exactly what came next, it would probably be revenge, pursuit, or self-destruction wearing a strategy.” Kaostar looked away. Harrow had hit too close to the ridge.
Too close to the pressure that had waited. Too close to Metatronas’s patient shadow.
“I want to find him.”
“Lightstorm?”
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
Harrow waited. Kaostar’s claws curled.
“No.”
The correction came from somewhere painful.
“I want to. I should not.”
Harrow nodded.
“That is a useful distinction.”
“I hate useful distinctions.”
“Most people do.”
Kaostar stared toward the door.
“I want to kill Metatronas.”
“I assumed.”
“I wanted that before.”
“Yes.”
“This is different.”
“Yes.”
“You’re not telling me not to.”
“Would it work?”
“No.”
“Then I am saving breath.”
Kaostar almost laughed. Harrow’s expression remained serious.
“I will say this instead. If Metatronas returned Lightstorm altered, frightened, and uncertain of you, then Metatronas has already planned for your rage.”
Kaostar’s jaw tightened.
“He expects it.”
“Yes.”
“He expects Lightstorm’s too.”
“Likely.”
“I told him that.”
“Good.”
Kaostar looked at Harrow.
“He said he should kill him.”
Harrow’s face hardened.
“Of course he did.”
“He was shaking.”
“Of course he was.”
Kaostar closed his eyes. The image returned. Lightstorm under the shroud, furious because anger could stand where terror kept collapsing. Harrow said, “He will need somewhere to put that rage.”
“I know.”
“You cannot become that place.”
Kaostar’s eyes opened. Harrow held his gaze.
“Not because you do not love him. Because you do.”
Kaostar looked down. The statement settled like stone. Not heavy enough to crush. Heavy enough to build on.
Harrow stood. Kaostar watched him cross to the storage shelf and remove a small pan, a cloth-wrapped loaf, and something preserved in a jar. Kaostar stared.
“What are you doing?”
“Breakfast.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Harrow.”
“You have been awake all night.”
“I do not need—”
“You have been awake all night after seeing the dead return, fighting him, letting him leave, walking to someone else’s edge, being walked here, and telling me a sentence that just altered six years of grief.”
Harrow set the pan down.
“You can endure breakfast.”
Kaostar stared at him.
“That is absurd.”
“So was keeping the cave warm for six years.”
Harrow looked at him over his shoulder.
“Eat.”
Kaostar’s mouth opened. Closed. The old defiance rose. The newer exhaustion stepped on it.
He stayed seated. Harrow lit the stove properly and began making something simple. Bread warmed in the pan. The preserved jar opened with a soft pop. The smell of fruit and smoke and old mornings entered the cave.
Kaostar hated that his body reacted. Hated that hunger still existed. Hated that life kept making small arguments for itself. Harrow placed a plate before him.
Within reach. Not in his hand. Kaostar looked at it.
“You are all conspiring with tables.”
“Yes.”
“Harrow.”
“Eat first.”
“I said I don’t know what to do.”
“I heard you.”
“What do we start with?”
Harrow sat across from him. Old questions still covered the cave walls. Morning showed through the repaired door’s edges. Food, cloth, water, and impossible news crowded the table.
Harrow looked at him.
“You came home,” he said.
Kaostar’s throat closed. Harrow pushed the plate a fraction closer.
“For now, that is enough to begin.”
Kaostar stared at the food. Then at Harrow. Then toward the door, beyond which the path curved back toward the edge where Silas waited. Lightstorm was alive somewhere.
Metatronas was patient somewhere. Harrow was here. Harrow had kept the door open all these years. Kaostar picked up the bread.
His hand shook. He ate anyway.
~ To be continued ~
