Aurelian

The question echoes back at him only in the faintest ways—in the drip of water, in the low hum of the streetlamp, in the distant thud of a door closing somewhere blocks away. Nothing answers directly. The city does not recognize the language of falling stars. A breeze slips through the alley, thin and cold, tugging at loose paper and carrying with it the smell of rain-soaked asphalt. It passes over him without reverence, stirring feathers, cooling the blood on the stone. Where it touches the faint light still clinging to his form, the glow wavers, dimming further, as if the world itself is teaching it how to fade. For a moment, the air above him ripples—subtle, almost imagined. Not a tear, not an opening, just a brief distortion, like heat over stone. It vanishes as quickly as it appears, leaving behind a hollow sense of finality. Whatever path brought him here has sealed shut, erased so cleanly it might never have existed at all. He swallows, throat working visibly. The effort costs him; his brow creases, jaw tightening as pain pulls him back into himself. One hand lifts a fraction from the ground before sinking again, fingers curling as though grasping for something just out of reach. There is no instinctive reach for a weapon, no practiced movement of defense—only the raw, disoriented reflex of something meant to fall *toward* the sky, not away from it. The alley seems narrower now, its walls looming higher, their windows blind and dark. Whatever once separated him from this place has closed entirely. No seam of light remains above, no sense of distance between here and anywhere else. Just brick, stone, and the quiet persistence of gravity. His breathing steadies into a fragile rhythm. Each inhale draws the world a little closer; each exhale lets a thread of something ancient slip away. The faint sigil beneath him fades to nothing, leaving only cracked pavement and a shallow impression that could be mistaken for chance.