The Trace of What Left

The descent wasn't stairs. Not a slope, eithre.

It was something in between.

Like a fall that forgot how to land.

Cael didn't speak. Didn't breathe loud. He wasn't trying to be stealthy—just didn't want to hear his own breath bouncing off the stone like it mattered.

The trench was close again.

Not close like walls or danger. Close like... guilt. A shape pressing in from the wrong side of the skin.

Behind him, Helser walked like he'd always been here. His boots knew the rhythm of this kind of descent. Like weight had taught him how to walk down lies without slipping.

They didn't talk.

The walls bent the wrong direction. Downward curves where there shouldn't be curves. Ceilings too low for someone who hadn't bowed already. The trench didn't punish posture—it just made uprightness expensive

Eventually they reached the base. Not a room. Not a hall. Just—

—flat.

The kind of flat that meant something had happened here once, and the trench scraped it clean after. The floor was smoother than it had a right to be. Like glass pretending to be stone.

Cael's hand hovered near his Galieya.

He didn't remember drawing it. Just felt the heat in his wrist, like his body had decided it was time.

Helser stopped beside him.

Looked left.

Didn't say anything.

But Cael saw it.

A mark.

Thin. Vertical. Like a blade dragged through thought instead of surface. It pulsed, barely.

Not with light.

With... permission.

He moved toward it.

Didn't think. That was the only way the trench let you act.

It opened.

No sound. No blast. No friction.

Just absence.

The room inside wasn't empty. It was wrong.

There were no walls. Just space pretending not to collapse.

One figure stood at the far end.

Not a Core.

Not a mimic.

Not even a person, maybe.

It had no face. No weight signature. But it had presence, the kind Cael recognized from trial vids they made you watch before activation. The kind that didn't belong to the trench—but didn't not belong either.

It raised a hand.

Only one.

Five fingers.

No weapon.

Just a question.

Not asked.

Projected.

Cael flinched.

The Galieya in his hand dimmed.

Then brightened.

Then flickered.

It didn't know what to do either.

Helser stepped forward.

Paused halfway between Cael and the figure.

"Do you know what this is?"

Cael shook his head, slow.

"Memory gate," Helser said. "Not yours. Not mine."

"Then whose?"

Helser's eyes narrowed. "The trench's."

The figure moved.

Walked like it had knees, but no muscle. Body made of posture and regret.

It stopped in front of Cael.

Raised its hand again.

This time, it wasn't a question.

It was a demand.

Behind it, the space folded.

Opened.

Showed something—

A room.

That room.

From before.

Where Cael had nodded.

Had consented.

The figure pointed at him.

Then at the image.

Then held out its hand.

As if offering something Cael had dropped.

Helser whispered. "Take it."

"I don't want it."

"It's already yours."

Cael reached forward.

Fingers shook.

Touched the offered shape.

Which wasn't a thing. Wasn't even light. It was just—

—knowing.

And then it was in his chest.

Memory he didn't remember forming.

Weight he didn't realize was missing.

And pain that didn't belong to him—

—but stayed anyway.

He gasped.

Staggered.

Helser caught him.

Again.

No surprise.

The figure was gone.

The gate behind it closed.

No doors.

No warnings.

Just absence again.

And a word burned across Cael's HUD:

[YOU CANNOT GIVE BACK WHAT YOU AGREED TO CARRY.]

He looked at Helser.

"I didn't know what I said yes to."

Helser nodded, once.

"That's what makes it binding."

They turned.

The trench opened ahead.

Not down.

Not up.

Just forward.

Cael walked.

And didn't ask where it led.

(The Descent That Walked Itself)

The slope didn't end. It just gave up.

Somewhere halfway down—if there even was a halfway—Cael stopped counting steps. The numbers slipped sideways in his head, tangled with old coordinates he hadn't reviewed since the second breach.

He muttered the same three words over and over, under breath.

"Not too far."

_

He wasn't sure who that was for. Maybe himself. Maybe Helser. Maybe Maren, if ghosts could still hitch a ride this deep.

Behind him, Helser's boots made no sound. Not quiet—absent. The kind of nothing that made your spine twitch because you didn't know if someone was behind you or if you'd finally gone alone.

The walls breathed. He was sure of it. Not wind. Not vents. Breathing. Like someone older than war was dreaming just behind the stone.

At one point, Cael slipped.

Not far. Just enough.

His foot caught a bad edge—like the trench had grown tired of pretending it was a path—and he fell sideways. Hit hard. Shoulder jarred. Fingers scraped.

Blood? Maybe. It felt warmer than the rest of him.

"You good?" Helser asked eventually. Not right away. Not like a friend. Like someone logging damage.

Cael didn't look back.

"Still here."

He didn't say still me. He wasn't sure that was true anymore.

—

The slope finally spat them into a chamber.

Wider than it needed to be.

The kind of space that felt... designed, but wrong.

Square, but with no clean angles. Everything almost matched. But not quite. Like a memory redrawn too many times by a tired hand.

At the far side—an altar.

Or maybe a chair.

Or maybe a scar.

Cael didn't go to it. Helser did.

"You know what this is?" Cael asked.

"No," Helser said. Then: "Yes."

Which meant: it doesn't matter.

Helser knelt. Not in reverence. In exhaustion.

His Galieya clinked against the edge of the stone.

"You ever think," he said slowly, "that maybe the trench didn't break us?"

Cael said nothing.

Helser looked over his shoulder.

"Maybe we were already broken. And the trench just made us honest."

Cael stared at the walls. Every groove was filled with something between dust and ash. Maybe names. Maybe not.

He didn't want to know which.

"I think I was better before this," Cael said finally. "Before the Galieya. Before the weight."

"No," Helser said. "You were softer. That's not the same."

Cael sat down.

Not because he was ready. Just... because the floor didn't fight him anymore.

—

His HUD pinged.

A single line of trenchscript.

[REINTEGRATION PENDING: SUBJECT—CAEL]

"What does that mean?" Cael muttered.

Helser stood.

Walked back to the altar.

And placed something down.

Not his Galieya.

His name.

Cael could feel it.

A weight lifted—slightly.

[WEIGHT OFFSET: -2.1]

[PARTIAL RECONCILIATION ACHIEVED]

He blinked.

"Did you—"

"I gave it back," Helser said.

Cael rose.

Stepped forward.

"What did you give?"

Helser looked hollow when he said it:

"My part in what happened. I don't want it anymore."

"And the trench just took it?"

"No. It always had it. I just stopped pretending I didn't know."

They stood in silence.

Then the platform they'd entered on began to rise again.

Not because of victory.

But because the trench had taken what it wanted.

And let them go.

For now.

Cael didn't speak as they ascended.

He didn't look at Helser.

Because in some awful, quiet way—

They were the same again.

Just burdened differently.

(What It Felt Like to Keep Going)

The shaft ride took longer than it should've.

Longer than any trench lift had any business being. It wasn't a mechanical failure. It wasn't a delay. It was something worse.

The trench was stalling.

Cael could feel it. Could tell. Not in his skin, not in his HUD— though that flickered a few times, just enough to fake glitch—but in the way his ribs stayed tight. Like the pressure was growing somewhere just outside his hearing, and if he turned his head the wrong way it might whisper something permanent.

Helser stood behind him, arms crossed. Not rigid, not ready. Just there.

He hadn't said anything since the corridor. The one with the mimic. The one that almost felt like memory except too accurate, too angled, too willing to be cruel. Cael had swung his blade like it wasn't his, and maybe it wasn't. Maybe none of it was.

His hands still smelled like heat.

There hadn't been any heat.

That was the worst part.

The platform hit soft.

Not like metal on stone. Like cloth.

Or ... skin.

Cael nearly lost balance.

Helser didn't.

Of course he didn't.

He stepped forward first, eyes already adjusting even though the light hadn't changed. Cael thought for a

moment about not moving. About staying on the platform just long enough for it to forget he existed. Let Helser walk on, become whatever the trench needed, and he'd stay behind. Weightless. Unnamed. Untouched.

But then the platform hissed behind him. Not a warning. A reminder.

He stepped off.

The new corridor wasn't new. Not really.

They'd been here before. Not here, here. But this kind of place. A liminal hallway. Clean edges, no source. Air just a little too even.

But this one was longer.

Like someone had stretched a normal trench walk too far. Like if you turned around, you'd see your footsteps never happened.

He tried. Turned quick. Looked back.

Floor was clean.

No prints.

Just distance

The HUD blinked again. Not aggressively. Just… tired.

[CAEL – PERSONAL IDENTITY: DEGRADED]

[COHORT LINK: MINIMAL]

[REASON FOR PRESENCE: UNCONFIRMED]

He stared at that last line.

Unconfirmed.

"I don't know what that means," he muttered.

Helser heard him. Maybe.

Didn't answer. Or maybe he did. With silence. Which was probably worse.

—

They walked another two minutes. Three?

No sound.

No texture.

Cael's boots touched stone, but the stone didn't respond. No echo. No vibration. Just step. Step. Step.

Helser finally stopped.

There was a door.

Of course there was.

Not a dramatic one. Not glowing. Not huge.

Just a door. Like a hatch someone forgot to decorate.

It opened when Helser looked at it.

Not when he touched it. Not when he gave a command.

When he looked.

The trench respected him.

That scared Cael.

inside was a room.

Smaller than it should be.

Walls were covered in what looked like code—but wrong. Like someone had tried to make a memory out of syntax. And failed.

The Galieya on Cael's back throbbed once.

No threat.

Just recognition.

This was a room for remembering. Or forgetting. Or choosing between them.

Helser stepped inside.

So did Cael.

The door closed.

No sound. Just pressure. Like it exhaled.

There was a screen on the far wall. Faint. Flickering. It didn't play a message. It played moments. Not video. Not log.

More like—pressure snapshots.

A hand. A hallway. A signature flickering.

Maren's voice, but muffled.

And Helser's silence.

Cael's fingers curled.

Helser spoke without turning.

"You saw it. The mimic. The one made from him."

Cael nodded.

"I didn't stop it," Helser said.

Cael blinked. "I know."

Helser turned now.

Not angry. Not calm.

Just… empty.

"Do you?"

"I think so."

"You don't," Helser said.

And it wasn't cruel.

It was just true.

Cael felt his knees lock. His hands twitched. "I didn't ask you to—"

"No," Helser cut in. "You didn't. But that doesn't change what I did. Or what I let happen."

Cael looked at the screen again. "Why show me this?"

"Because the trench needs you to understand what happens next," Helser said. "It doesn't move forward unless one of us stays behind."

Cael stared.

"No."

"You thought this was just about trials? About memory?"

Cael's voice cracked. "You're not leaving me down here."

"You're not staying," Helser said.

"I didn't survive all this to just—"

"You didn't survive," Helser said. "You changed. That's different."

Cael's chest hurt. Like something under his sternum was pulling backward.

A memory.

Another mimic.

Another scream.

A corridor that closed when someone didn't make it out.

"I can carry it," Cael said.

"No," Helser said.

"You don't get to decide that."

"I already did," he said.

And the floor pulsed.

Not dropped.

Pulsed.

Cael's HUD flashed a final time.

[WEIGHT REDISTRIBUTION ACCEPTED]

[HELSER: STATIC]

[CAEL: ASCENDING]

"No—wait," Cael shouted.

But the room was already folding.

Not physically.

Conceptually.

Like the walls were being rewritten while he still stood in them.

Helser stepped back.

Not smiling.

Just finished.

"You're not supposed to walk out, Cael."

Cael reached toward him.

Didn't reach far enough.

He blinked.

And Helser was gone.

The room gone.

The trench gone.

Only up.

He was rising.

Weightles.

But not free.

Not this time.