What Comes Wearing Familiar Faces
Chapter 38 — What Comes Wearing Familiar Faces
The air smelled like burned wood and blood.
Lucien woke on his feet again, the feeling sudden and wrong—like time had rearranged itself without asking permission. There was no memory of rising, no shift from lying to standing. Just the weight of his body, the ache in his legs, and the rough press of earth beneath bare soles.
The world around him had changed.
The perfect grass was gone.
Ash and char marked the ground now. Not the aftermath of destruction, but its immediate echo. The soil was split in jagged veins, the terrain warped and uneven, as though the field had been set on fire and the fire had decided to stay. Burnt roots stuck from the cracked dirt like broken teeth. The scent of smoke clung to everything, thick and acrid. And still, above it all, the stars gleamed—clearer and brighter than any night sky had the right to be.
They should have felt distant.
But they watched. Each one sharp, fixed, and impossibly near, like glass eyes behind a thin curtain.
Lucien didn't move.
He couldn't.
His body still trembled beneath the surface, quiet shivers that came without rhythm. The grass—or what used to be grass—dug into his heels with each unconscious sway. His breath came, shallow and thin, but at least he could hear it now. Feel it. A return to something.
But the silence didn't comfort.
It waited.
He glanced to his left. Nothing. Just more of the same—cracked earth, glowing ash, thin, brittle stalks of half-burned weeds. The fire hadn't scorched it all evenly. The destruction had shape, and that shape looked deliberate.
Like someone had painted over a memory.
Then, ahead of him, two figures appeared.
No sound. No warning.
They just… were.
A boy and a girl.
About his age—or maybe older. Fifteen, sixteen at most. Standing side by side, dressed in simple, dark clothes that looked strangely untouched by the heat. Not a single thread was frayed. Their feet were bare, soles unburned. Ash swirled gently around them but never landed on their skin.
Lucien's gaze locked to theirs, unwilling.
They were smiling.
Both of them.
But it was wrong. A little too wide. Their lips pulled back just slightly too far. Their teeth didn't glint—they gleamed. Too perfect. Too even. Their cheeks barely moved. The corners of their eyes didn't crinkle.
And they didn't blink.
Not once.
Lucien stared, throat dry. He couldn't hear their breath. Couldn't even see their chests rise or fall. They weren't statues—but they felt like echoes of motion, like memories rehearsing the act of being real.
Still, there was something in their faces that pulled at him.
A familiarity he couldn't place.
Not a resemblance. Not recognition.
Just… gravity.
Like part of him had known them once. Or should have. Or would.
But the more he looked, the more that familiarity frayed. Their hair was the right length—but not the right shade. Their eyes held the same shape as someone else's, but none of the same warmth. Their expressions were carved, not felt. Polished versions of something broken.
Lucien's chest tightened.
The boy stepped forward first.
The smile never faltered. His steps made no sound.
The girl followed—just a half step behind, like they were attached at the spine, moving through a script older than language.
Lucien tried to take a step back, but his foot refused to lift.
His heart was beating. He could hear it now, loud and slow and deep, each thud echoing in the hollow space between his ribs. His arms felt too light, his legs too heavy. He wanted to run—but nothing in this place obeyed want.
The two stopped just a few feet in front of him.
Close enough that he could see the detail in their faces.
And that's when it hit him.
The wrongness wasn't in what was there—it was in what was missing.
Their eyes had no reflection.
The stars were blazing above, yet their pupils were black. Flat. Bottomless.
No catch of light.
No movement.
Like windows into a place that did not know how to make light.
Lucien's breathing turned ragged.
Still, they didn't move again. Just stared.
The girl tilted her head slightly, as if she were trying to understand something about him. Her hair fell across her face in a gentle arc, then stilled like a frame frozen mid-motion. The boy did the same a second later—mirroring her perfectly, beat for beat.
Then, together, they raised their hands.
Not fast. Not threatening. Just a slow, easy motion—two palms open, fingers spread. Like an offering.
Or a question.
Lucien didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
He was aware, now, of the heat rising off the scorched earth. Not hot enough to burn, but close. Enough to dry the air in his throat. To make his skin prickle.
But beneath that… something else stirred.
A weight in the air.
Like pressure building behind a wall that hadn't yet broken.
The stars seemed to dim.
Only slightly.
And the boy smiled wider.
Just a fraction.
The change made Lucien's stomach lurch. Something instinctive. Animal. A scream buried too deep to rise.
It wasn't just wrong.
It was hungry.
But still, neither of them stepped closer.
They just watched.
And he—frozen, stunned—watched back.
His mind tried to shape meaning from it. Tried to name what he felt.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Something colder.
Like being remembered by something that shouldn't know your name.
Like standing in front of a painting you'd seen once as a child, knowing it had changed when you weren't looking.
He wanted to ask—
Who are you?
But his voice never came.
And part of him knew it didn't matter.
They were never going to speak.
This was their speech.
This was their answer.
Lucien clenched his hands slowly at his sides.
He didn't know what they wanted.
But he knew what he felt now.
He wasn't alone.
And he wasn't safe.
Not here.
Not with them.
Not with himself.
Still, he didn't run.
He just stood in the middle of the burned field, beneath a sky far too beautiful for the nightmare beneath it, watching the two smiling strangers who knew his face too well.
And they stood with him.
Silent.
Still.
And smiling.