Single for Eternity
Chapter 106: Satiated

Chapter 106: Satiated

I opened my eyes slowly, surfacing from the depths of a slumber far too tranquil for this place. But tranquility was an illusion, and illusions never lasted long—not in my world.

The moment I awoke, memories surged—unwanted, unwelcome. They came not like a gentle tide, but like a storm crashing into fragile walls.

A sharp jolt ran through my body as fragments of my childhood flooded my mind, vivid and merciless.

’Those memories... I wanted to forget them.’

A soft weight shifted beside me. My sudden motion had disturbed the boy who had fallen asleep while curled against me. He stirred faintly, his small hand grasping weakly at my tunic as though clinging to a dream.

I caught him before he could tumble over. My arms instinctively wrapped around his frail form, holding him steady, protecting him.

His face was peaceful, innocent—like an angel untouched by the cruelty of the world.

But I knew better.

I knew who he really was.

Malthorn.

The child in my arms—so full of laughter and purity—was destined to become the Undead Lord. And all because of one death.

One person.

The man in the fur coat.

His ’big brother.’ His guardian. His closest friend. The only person who had shown him unconditional love.

The boy’s world revolved around him, and when that world was destroyed, so too was his soul.

I had watched it unfold, piece by piece. Not directly, but in shadows and nuances. In the way the villagers once looked upon me with fondness, only to grow colder with each passing day.

Their gazes, once warm and welcoming, had dimmed—became distant. And eventually... void of warmth altogether.

It wasn’t hard to guess why.

I was replacing him.

I had unknowingly stepped into the role of the fur coat man. And the child... he accepted it. Welcomed it.

And just like before, his parents couldn’t stand it.

They resented me—him. Resented the bond between the child and the stranger. The affection they could never replicate.

In their eyes, the fur coat wasn’t just a friend. He was a thief. A usurper who stole their son’s love.

And so, they retaliated.

They murdered him.

Their jealousy birthed a monster.

I couldn’t claim to support either side. The pain of the parents, watching their child slip away emotionally, must have been unbearable. But the fault wasn’t the child’s—it was theirs.

They created a home so cold that he sought warmth elsewhere. Is that not the parents’ failure?

I sighed softly and looked around, the boy still resting soundly beside me. My gaze drifted toward the fur coat man who sat a few feet away, as still as ever. A perfect actor cast in an endless, repeating play.

I shifted carefully, lowering the child onto a patch of soft grass. My hand lingered on his hair a moment longer, brushing it aside with a gentle affection I hadn’t expected to feel.

Then I stood.

And realized something.

Einar was gone.

I scanned the glade in all directions, but there was no trace of him. The past few days he had been deteriorating.

His steps slowed, his words few and dry. His eyes always on the horizon. He was starving, and there was nothing here to feed on.

A cold pit opened in my stomach.

"Einar..." I whispered.

Without another second of hesitation, I bolted.

The wind roared past me as I sprinted across the meadow, down the gentle slope that led toward the village. I could already smell it—smoke.

My heart thudded faster.

A thick plume was rising in the distance, darkening the perfect blue sky like ink spreading across a canvas. The sight alone quickened my pace. My feet struck the ground harder, faster, as I raced toward the heart of the memory.

The village came into view.

And my breath caught in my throat.

It was gone.

Not literally, but spiritually. The charm, the joy, the fabricated peace—it had all been gutted.

Silence greeted me, but not the kind that soothed.

This silence was unnatural. Dreadful.

The kind that hummed beneath the surface of a massacre.

Houses had been reduced to rubble. Roofs caved in. Structures that once held love and laughter now stood burned and broken.

Charred wood crackled under my boots as I stepped through the remnants. Doors had been torn from hinges, windows shattered, stone scorched.

The few buildings that remained intact were stained with blood.

No bodies.

But signs of struggle were everywhere—scars carved into the earth by chaos and hatred.

The villagers were gone. Fled? Killed? Assimilated? I couldn’t be sure.

But one name surged to the top of my mind.

Einar.

I clenched my fists. My jaw tightened.

’You idiot... What did you do?’

This wasn’t the work of an illusion. This wasn’t a shift in the memory’s tone. This was real—his doing. His hunger had finally broken him.

I ran, faster than I ever had before. The wind howled past my ears as debris crunched and scattered under my boots.

The scent of smoke and ash clung to my clothes, curling into my lungs, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t. I had to find him.

"Einar..." I whispered breathlessly as I darted past the crumbling remnants of the village, dodging shattered wooden beams and scorched stone.

I didn’t even realize when the ruined village had faded behind me. My feet had carried me beyond its outer edge, past the twisted fences and into the open, where the illusion of serenity stubbornly persisted.

A gentle breeze whispered through the trees, the sun hanging motionless in the sky—frozen at that eternal hour of calm.

And there he was.

Sitting beneath the wide shadow of an ancient tree, its roots curling into the dirt like a throne carved from the earth itself. Einar leaned against the trunk, his gaze fixed skyward, eyes seemingly lost in the distant endless blue.

He looked... different.

Peaceful. Satiated.

It unsettled me.

My eyes narrowed, drifting toward the shifting shimmer of the living armor that pulsed and crawled over his form—ever hungry, ever alive. He didn’t look wounded. Didn’t look desperate. He looked content.

How?

How did he find food in this place.

Questions swirled in my mind like a storm, but I shoved them down for now. I stepped closer, my boots crunching against fallen leaves.

He noticed me immediately—of course he did—and exhaled with a long, slow sigh, dragging his eyes down to meet mine.

"What?" he said flatly. "Don’t give me that look. I haven’t gone feral or anything. I’m not possessed. I was starving, now I’m not. Simple."

My jaw tightened. I didn’t stop walking until I was only a few feet away from him.

"Did you eat them?" I asked, voice barely above a whisper.

He arched a brow, almost amused. "What? Why would I? And also—how, exactly? Aren’t they just figments of someone’s twisted dream? Fake people in a fake world?"

"They may be fake," I snapped, "but they feel real. They have emotions. They smile. They cry. That little boy—"

He rolled his eyes hard enough I thought they might fall out. "Here we go again. Playing house with the memory kid has clearly rotted your brain."

I glared. "That boy is Malthorn."

He didn’t even blink. "Yeah. I know."

I blinked. "You... knew?"

Einar pushed himself to his feet, brushing flakes of scorched bark from his armor. His movements were slow, deliberate, like someone who had just weathered a storm inside his own body.

"This whole place," he muttered, "isn’t a memory. Not really. It’s more like a thought. A dream. A dying whisper of someone’s mind caught between grief and hatred."

He turned his eyes to me. There was no mockery there now—only tired clarity.

"These villagers, they turned on me. Out of nowhere. Told me I didn’t belong here. Called me filth. Like they were made to hate me."

He shrugged, but it was hollow.

"One of them even pulled a knife. Tried to stab me. That’s when I realized—this isn’t some happy little world. It’s Malthorn’s fractured perception. A biased, broken view of his past. Twisted by grief. It only looks perfect on the surface."

My voice dropped, low and cold. "So you retaliated... by killing them?"

He met my gaze without hesitation. "Not just that. I escalated it."

I stared, trying to make sense of the emotion—or lack of it—on his face.

"Why?" I asked softly. "Why push it that far?"

He looked past me, toward the horizon. The sun hadn’t moved. It never did.

"Because I wanted this illusion to break," he said quietly. "I wanted it to end. And I knew that if I stirred the hornet’s nest hard enough, the cracks would show. Maybe then we could escape."

He paused, his voice growing even lower. "And... I was starving. Seren. You’ve seen me. I couldn’t breathe without my ribs aching. I could feel my mind slipping."

The living armour on his body twitched at his words, a silent echo of his suffering.

I didn’t speak.

Because part of me understood.

The hunger. The illusion. The desperation.

Einar finally sighed again. "I didn’t enjoy it. I just... endured it."

His words hung between us, carried by the wind, heavier than steel.

I crossed my arms, not out of defiance, but to stop my hands from trembling. "What do we do now?"

He gave me a sideways glance. "Now? We get ready. Because if this place is breaking... if Malthorn’s dream is unraveling..."

His expression hardened with a slight amusement.

"Then he’s going to wake up."

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