I crossed into the lowlands three days later, feet sore, boots chewed at the seams by roots that never slept. There was no trail. Only the absence of wild.
It started subtly — birds fell quiet, crickets stopped singing. The trees thinned, not naturally, but as though persuaded to forget they were once forest.
That’s when I found it.
A village.
Untouched by fire. Untouched by time. Perfect, on the surface. Homes of stone and moss, candles flickering gently in window panes. Children laughing.
And no one remembered anything.
I watched from the shadows for half a day, hoping to understand.
The villagers laughed, cooked, traded. But they did not know who they were. No names. No past. They repeated the same phrases, the same smiles.
A girl asked her mother what her name was.
The mother paused.
Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.
"You are mine," she said. "That is all."
The girl smiled, content.
My blood turned cold.
I stepped into the square at dusk. No one turned.
No one noticed me.
I asked an elder sitting by a fountain, "What do you call this place?"
He blinked. Laughed.
"We don’t. It simply is."
Serre-du-Vide throbbed against my back. Not violently — mournfully.
This was no sanctuary.
It was a severed dream.
A village whose soul had been bled until only function remained.
Names were forbidden here.
And I was a sin for remembering.
That night, I stood at the edge of their shrine — a hollowed tree carved with runes long scratched out. My hand hovered over one, and it burned at my touch.
The Reaper appeared beside me in the dark.
No words.
Only a slow shake of its head.
“They chose this,” I whispered.
And still — the silence.
The villagers were safe. Happy. Free of burden.
But they would never remember love. Nor grief. Nor meaning.
They would never know they were alive.
I walked away.
And behind me, for the first time in years — I heard a child cry.
Just once.
And I did not look back.
