A Missing Place

The fire had dwindled to a patchwork of embers, their glow barely strong enough to hold back the surrounding dark. Shadows stretched long and distorted, the skeletal remains of trees twisting in the dim, breathing with the flicker of dying light.

No one moved. No one spoke.

The night had not been kind to them.

At the edge of the camp, Riven stood stiff, gaze locked onto the forest. He wasn't looking at anything in particular—because there was nothing to look at. No shapes, no movement, only the eerie, endless static of trees that felt wrong. Not unnatural. Not monstrous. Just… displaced. Too still, too silent, too uncertain. Like the ground itself couldn't decide if it had always been here.

And behind him, the others sat—not sleeping, not even resting. Just existing.

Erasmus watched them, his expression unreadable, fingers tapping lazily against his sleeve as he listened to the weight of their collective silence. It was a fragile thing. Brittle.

It would take so little to break it.

Riven exhaled sharply, arms still crossed over his chest. "We should leave at first light."

The words hit the air with an immediacy that felt misplaced, a plan made out of instinct rather than logic. The response, however, was silence. No argument. No agreement.

No one wanted to say it.

But the truth lingered between them like an unwelcome guest.

Where would they go?

Erasmus said nothing. Not yet.

Instead, he watched, let the idea struggle in their minds, let Riven shift beneath the weight of uncertainty he himself had created.

After a moment, Riven's jaw tightened. "We can't stay here."

That, at least, was true.

But that wasn't the problem, was it?

Erasmus finally tilted his head, speaking at last, his voice smooth, deliberate. "And where, exactly, do you plan to go?"

A pause.

A hesitation.

Riven's shoulders tensed, his mouth pressing into a thin line. "Away from here."

Weak.

Erasmus let the silence stretch just long enough to be uncomfortable. Then, with slow, quiet precision, he spoke again.

"And do you know the way?"

The shift was instant.

A ripple of unease. A stirring of unspoken tension. The smallest doubt was often the most corrosive.

Riven didn't answer immediately, and that alone was a victory.

The knights and squires exchanged glances, faces drawn, expressions tightening as the question settled into their bones. They hadn't thought about it, not really. Because they had assumed the world still worked the way it was supposed to.

But what if it didn't?

What if the world had changed while they weren't looking?

The realization crawled over them slowly, the understanding that they had been moving forward under an assumption that was no longer certain.

Their landmarks were gone.

Their memories of the path they had taken were—intact, but hollow.

Something was missing.

Not forgotten. Missing.

Rei sat on a fallen log, his hands clasped tightly together, his knuckles white. He had been silent since the fire started dying. The bags under his eyes were deep, his hair disheveled, but it wasn't simple exhaustion that weighed on him.

It was something worse.

He looked up at Erasmus then, and his voice was sharper than before, tinged with something raw.

"You already know, don't you?"

Erasmus met his gaze, the faintest flicker of amusement in his eyes.

Rei exhaled sharply, shaking his head. "The erased. You saw them disappear. You saw what happened. And yet you're sitting there, acting like you're the only one thinking about it."

Erasmus's lips curved just slightly.

"Go on, then," Rei pressed, his voice hoarse. "Say it."

Erasmus tilted his head. "Say what?"

Rei's fingers curled against his knee. "Say that they're gone. Say that there's no getting them back."

A strange tension filled the air.

Not just dread.

Something deeper.

Something unspoken.

And then—

"Are the erased people really gone?"

The words came from Riven, his voice low, slow, as if he himself wasn't sure why he had asked.

No one answered.

Because how could they?

What did "gone" even mean in a place like this?

They had seen it happen. Had watched people vanish, not into thin air, not into death, but into something else.

A missing place.

Not forgotten. Not erased.

Just—absent.

Erasmus shifted slightly where he sat, letting the moment build, letting the horror ferment within them before he struck the final blow.

"If places can be erased," he mused, his voice low, "then does it not stand to reason that our path back may no longer exist?"

A hush fell over them.

Not an ordinary silence. Not simply the absence of words.

This was the kind of silence that left something behind.

A stain.

Garrod—one of the younger knights—shifted uncomfortably, his voice quieter than before. "No, that's—not possible."

Not possible.

That was what they had said about the others disappearing.

And yet, here they were.

Erasmus turned to him, his expression soft, almost sympathetic, as if he were about to grant him a kindness.

He didn't.

"Then tell me, Garrod—where was the clearing we camped in two nights ago?"

Garrod frowned.

He opened his mouth.

And then… nothing.

No image came to mind.

No direction. No recollection of the trees, the layout, the way the firelight had danced against the bark.

It was simply missing.

Not a blank space, not a forgotten memory—just gone.

The realization struck like a physical blow, rippling through the group, drawing something deeper than fear—a kind of terror that did not yet have a name.

Rei looked away, his fingers pressing against his temple, as if trying to grasp at something that wasn't there.

Riven's breath came slower now, more measured. His stance hadn't changed, his expression hadn't cracked—but Erasmus saw it. That flicker of hesitation.

Even he wasn't immune.

Erasmus let the weight of the silence settle, let it sink in, let it change them.

Then, gently, like offering them something to hold onto, he spoke again.

"I may not know the way back," he admitted, voice measured, thoughtful, "but I do know this—wandering aimlessly will not bring back what has been lost."

He had them.

Not through force. Not through deception.

Through certainty.

And slowly, unconsciously, they turned toward him.

Not in allegiance.

Not in surrender.

But in necessity.

And that was all he needed.