Looking at Myself, Hoping It’s Me

The stars glittered through the ink-black sky.

Kael sat still, the sword resting across his lap. His eyes stared into the cold remains of a fire long dead.

Smoke still curled from it like lazy ghosts drifting toward nothing.

He didn't move when the others began to stir.

He didn't flinch when Silas shot him the usual suspicious glare, like he was still trying to figure out if Kael was cursed, possessed, or something worse.

Kael only said one thing.

"The gate shut behind me."

Riven rubbed sleep from her eyes.

"Figured. You nearly fried your brain. Again."

Finn crouched by the ashes, poking them with a stick.

"Can we not do any more brain-frying today? Just for once?"

Kael shrugged.

"No promises."

He told them everything after that. About what he saw. About what he felt.

Nobody argued. They didn't question him either. Maybe they were tired. Maybe they already knew arguing wouldn't change anything.

Maybe they saw the way he looked.

He didn't mention everything—not the memories trying to claw their way into his head. Not the ache inside that pointed him toward a place he didn't even recognize.

"So…" Finn broke the awkward silence. "Does that sword of yours have a name or what?"

Kael looked down at it again. The blade was black as void, dull yet reflective, like a pool of night water. He lifted it slowly.

"Yeah," he said."Nightfall."

He turned to Finn and repeated it.

"This sword is called Nightfall."

They packed up and left before sunrise.

Ruins always felt more haunted after the sun came up—like light didn't belong there, like it exposed something that should've stayed hidden.

In the distance, a massive wall divided the sector. Sector 9.

As they approached the entrance, Kael stared at the structure—walls that stretched into the sky and ran all the way to the horizon, like someone had tried to cage the world.

Sector 9 waited ahead like a throat ready to swallow them whole.

"Do we even know what we're looking for?" Finn asked.

"Signs of activity," Riven replied. "Old scavenger trails. Leftover supplies. Anything that shows what went wrong here."

"And if we find the reason?" Silas grunted.

"We avoid it. Or kill it," she said.

Silas snorted. "Right. Easy."

Kael said nothing.

He knew better than to trust silence. Gates never left you the same. Something had shifted inside him since the last one.

He didn't feel stronger.

He felt like a bottle filled with ocean water. Overfilled. Ready to crack.

The ruins narrowed into a corridor, flanked by jagged stone walls and shattered windows like broken teeth.

Then Kael stopped walking.

Riven noticed first. "What is it?"

Kael's voice was quiet.

"We're being followed."

Silas gripped his rebar. "How do you know?"

Kael didn't answer right away. He just pointed.

About fifty yards behind them, in an open space littered with debris, the dust was… shifting.

There was no wind.

But something was crawling through it.

Slow. Deliberate.

Riven cursed and pulled a knife from her belt.

"Finn, get to cover."

Finn obeyed without question, ducking behind a collapsed wall.

The thing stepped into view.

Kael's brain stalled.

Too many legs. Too many eyes. Its skin looked like tar, stretched and pulsing with heat, like it was barely holding itself together.

It didn't hunt.

It waited.

"Tell me that's not what came out of the gate," Riven said.

"No," Kael replied."But I think it smelled the gate on me."

The creature hissed—a disgusting sound, like someone squeezing a wet sponge.

"Okay," Silas muttered."That's gross."

"Should we run?" Finn whispered, aiming a rusted pipe like a gun.

Kael gripped his sword tighter.

The blade hummed in his hands. Not a voice. Not a system message.

Just a vibration. Like the sword wanted blood.

"Stay behind me," Kael said.

"You sure?" Riven asked.

"Nope."

He stepped forward.

The thing moved first.

Too fast. Too many legs. It closed the distance in a second.

"Shit—!"

Kael barely got his sword up in time.

CLANG!

His blade hit its skin—but it didn't cut. The impact made his arms tremble.

"Ugh!"

He ducked a second strike, sidestepped, then charged forward. This time, he moved faster, close enough to smell the sulfur on its breath.

The sword thrummed again.

Kael brought it down in a single, clean arc—

SPLURT!

Black blood exploded from the creature like a bucket overturned.

"UGH—seriously?!"

He wiped his face with his sleeve, but it was already soaked with tar-like blood.

"That better not be poisonous."

"That was... amazing," Finn whispered.

"Messy," Kael muttered. "But thanks."

They didn't celebrate.

Another hiss echoed from the shadows.

Then more of them came.

The shadows birthed them, crawling from cracks in the stone like nightmares.

"Pack," Riven said, going pale.

"Back to back?" Silas asked.

"Always."

The next wave hit fast.

Kael didn't think. He just moved.

The sword guided him. Each slash, each parry—it didn't feel like him. It felt like someone else's hands were moving through him. Someone better.

But that was the problem.

Kael didn't know who that someone was.

"WHY DO THEY SMELL LIKE BURNT EGGS?!" Finn shouted mid-fight.

"I DON'T KNOW!" Kael yelled back. "ASK THE GUY WHO INVENTED THEM!"

A creature leapt onto Silas. Riven tackled it mid-air before it could land.

"Hey!" Silas barked. "I had that!"

"You had death," Riven shot back. "Say thank you."

Kael was bleeding. Not bad. A cut on his cheek. A tear through his shirt.

He didn't care.

He just kept going. Slicing. Dodging. Blocking. Everything that moved—died.

Eventually, it ended.

The street was painted black with blood. The corpses twitched no more.

Kael stood in the middle, his sword at his side, chest heaving.

Finn approached, careful not to step on anything still leaking.

"You okay?"

Kael didn't answer at first. He stared at his hands. Then at the sword.

The grip didn't feel foreign anymore.

It felt like it belonged.

"I'm fine," he said.

Riven joined him, her arms streaked in gore.

She stared at the blade.

"You didn't use your abilities."

"Didn't need to," Kael replied.

"But you have them. From the gate."

He nodded.

She tilted her head. "Why not use them?"

Kael glanced at the corpses. At her.

"Because I don't know what's mine anymore."

They made camp in a ruined pharmacy, the smell of rot buried beneath dust and broken pills.

Kael sat by the window, resting against the wall.

Finn gnawed on dried jerky. Loudly.Silas cleaned his weapon like a caveman chiseling a rock.Riven walked over.

"You're different."

Kael sighed.

"So are you. You didn't try to stab me when we first met."

She smirked.

"I still might."

She sat beside him. Close enough to share warmth, if not comfort.

"Talk to me," she said. "Just me. No one's listening."

Kael leaned back and stared up at the cracked ceiling.

"I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"That I'm just a tool. That every time I remember something... I stop being me."

She didn't reply right away.

Then softly—

"Maybe. But you're the only tool I've ever seen use sarcasm as a defense mechanism."

Kael laughed.

For real this time.

They didn't sleep much that night. Again.

They camped far from the creature den, hidden deep in rubble.

Before lying down, Kael picked up Nightfall and looked at the blade.

For the first time, he really saw his reflection.

Soft black hair. Blue eyes. A scar across one cheek that made him look like a thug.

"No matter where I am," he muttered to himself,"Still handsome as ever."

He set the blade down beside him and sighed.

"I'm still me. I have to be."

But somewhere in his chest…

He wasn't sure anymore.