Chapter 4: Echoes of the Past

**Chapter 4: Echoes of the Past**

The oasis shimmered in the distance, no closer than it had been hours ago. Ray's body screamed in protest with every step—his muscles frayed, his wounds festering, his skin weathered into the leathery texture of a man twice his age. The desert's curse had hollowed him out, aging him into a middle-aged shell while leaving his strength untouched. His shoulder, torn by the beast's claws, throbbed with infection, and his vision blurred at the edges.

Just… keep… moving.

He stumbled, catching himself on a half-buried rock. The sun still hung motionless, its heat baking the sand into a furnace. Ray's throat was parched, his lips cracked and bleeding. He'd stopped sweating hours ago—a dangerous sign.

"Ray…"

The voice was soft, familiar. A woman's voice.

He froze, his heart lurching.

No. It's not real.

"Ray… over here. I have water."

He turned against his better judgment. A figure stood a few meters away—a woman with dark hair and a gentle smile, her arms outstretched. Her face was achingly familiar, pulled from the fog of his earliest memories.

Mother.

The word lodged in his throat. She looked exactly as she had in the faded fragments of his childhood: warm eyes, a faded scar on her cheek from the slum riots, hands calloused but kind.

"Come, Ray," she said, her voice soothing. "You're safe now."

It's a mirage. A trick.

But his feet moved anyway, drawn by a hunger deeper than thirst. The woman—the *thing*—smiled wider as he approached, her form flickering faintly at the edges.

"That's it," she coaxed. "Just a little closer."

Ray's vision swam. He could almost feel her arms around him, smell the faint scent of herbs she'd carried when he was a child. She'd died when he was three, her face blurred by time, but here she was—whole, alive.

She's not real. She's not—

Her hand brushed his, cold and rough. "I've missed you."

The illusion shattered.

Her fingers sharpened into claws, her face melting into a featureless void of sand. Ray jerked back, but not fast enough—the beast's claws grazed his chest, reopening the wound on his shoulder.

"Damn you!" he snarled, swinging the jagged rock still clutched in his hand.

The mirage beast—a shifting, snarling mass of sand and malice—dodged, its form rippling like water. It lunged again, mimicking his mother's voice.

"Why are you hurting me, Ray? Don't you love me?"

"Shut up!" he roared, swinging wildly. The rock struck the creature's side, scattering sand, but it reformed instantly.

The core. Find the core.

He feinted left, baiting the beast to lunge. When it did, he dropped low and stabbed upward, aiming for the faint glow in its chest. The rock pierced the core, and the creature dissolved into a harmless pile of sand.

Ray collapsed to his knees, gasping. The wound on his shoulder burned, and his head spun.

*Ding.

*You have slain a Mirage Weaver. Your trial continues.*

He didn't acknowledge the voice. His hands trembled as he pressed them to his face, the weight of the illusion crushing him.

She's gone. She's been gone for years.

A memory surfaced—fragile, half-formed. He was small, maybe two or three, clinging to his mother's skirt as smoke filled their shack. Shouts echoed outside, the clang of swords, the smell of burning straw. She'd shoved him under the bed, her voice frantic.

"Stay here, Ray. Don't make a sound."

He never saw her again.

Tears blurred his vision, mixing with the sweat and sand on his face. The pain of loss was fresh, raw, as if the desert had peeled back the scar tissue of years.

Why show me her? Why?

But he knew. The trial fed on weakness, on longing. It would use every weapon to break him.

Ray forced himself to stand, his legs shaking. The oasis still shimmered ahead, a taunting beacon.

I must… for those two.

He began walking again, each step heavier than the last. The desert stretched endlessly, but he no longer cared. His mother's face lingered in his mind, not as the mirage had shown her, but as she'd been in life: fierce, loving, *gone*.

I'll survive. Even if its just to spite this Accursed world.

The shadows of more beasts circled in the distance, but Ray didn't look back.

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