The Name You Buried
My hand touched the throne.
And the world… cracked.
Not shattered.
Not exploded.
Just cracked—like the first fissure on glass before it splinters into a thousand jagged pieces.
Because this wasn't just bone.
This was memory, petrified and stacked in layers.
Each skull a forgotten word.
Each femur a road I never walked.
And when my fingers curled around it—
I felt all of them.
All the lives I could've lived.
All the choices I didn't make.
All the things I buried to become something more than a man…
And less.
The city vanished.
The Reflections vanished.
Even Maren—
Gone.
And I stood alone in a place older than thought.
It wasn't dark.
It wasn't light.
It was the first grave.
A voice met me there.
Calm. Deep. Like stone eroding itself.
"You weren't the first."
"You won't be the last."
"But you are the only one who came back without remembering why."
The space pulsed.
And then I saw him.
Not the Reflection.
Not a god.
Myself.
At seven years old.
Sitting on cracked stone.
Holding a shovel too heavy for his arms.
And digging.
Endlessly.
I knelt beside him.
And he didn't look up.
He just whispered:
"I have to bury her. Or they'll take her soul."
"I have to hide her before the Reapers come."
"She said… don't let them find her name."
A memory detonated in my skull.
Sudden.
Total.
A rooftop. A girl.
Laughter.
Maren.
But not the Bound Soul.
The real Maren.
Alive.
We were both kids.
And we weren't digging graves.
We were digging to escape.
A city ruled by soul-tax.
A system where names were traded for food.
Where forgetting was survival.
And when they came for her—
When they tried to sell her name—
I took it.
I buried it inside myself.
Locked it so deep that even I forgot.
So that no one would ever be able to use her again.
So that no one could ever hurt her.
But I didn't just bury her name.
I buried mine, too.
So deep… I stopped being Kashan Idris.
And became the Graveborn.
The child me looked up finally.
His eyes wide. Tearless.
Dead calm.
"If you take this back," he said,
"You'll remember what you did to survive."
"And she'll remember too."
"Even the part you swore you'd never let her see."
⚠️ [Core Trait Unlock Available: Graveborn Ascension]
Trait Effect:
You are no longer partially Bound.
You and your soul are one.
Passive: Immunity to forced possession.
Active: ??
Side Effect: Truth Bleed – All souls connected to you will remember everything you've hidden.
I looked at the child.
At the tiny shovel.
And I reached into the grave he dug.
Pulled out—
A name.
Maren Alia Solin.
The whole of her.
Not the soul.
Not the fragment.
The person.
And when I opened my eyes—
I was back.
Standing in the City of Stillborn Souls.
Breathing hard.
Hands shaking.
And Maren?
Maren looked at me like she was seeing me for the first time.
Tears streamed down her spectral face.
"You remembered."
"You—you buried me to save me."
She stepped forward.
And for the first time—
She touched me. Fully.
Her hand in mine.
Not like a ghost.
Not like a weapon.
But like the girl I once loved.
✅ [Core Trait Gained: Graveborn Ascension – Full Synchronization]
You and Maren now share consciousness, memory, and will.
Fusion Ability Unlocked: Gravepulse – Release a shockwave that forces nearby Bound Souls to relive their death in real time.
Bond Status: Awakened.
Soul-Link: Complete.
The Reflection has vanished.
The throne is empty.
But something stirred beneath the monument.
Not memory.
Not bone.
A presence.
The city shuddered.
Because now that I had remembered…
So had it.
The thing that had watched from the pit.
The one even the Choir feared.
The soul that failed to die, then forgot it ever lived.
Far beneath our feet, in a layer no one ever dared to dig—
The Unburied One opened its eyes.
And spoke my name.
Both of them.