Arien's POV
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The temple didn't burn anymore.
But it remembered how.
Its walls — or what was left of them — rose like black ribs from the earth, scorched and skeletal, twisted by fire long dead. The stone was so charred it drank the moonlight instead of reflecting it, making the structure seem like a scar carved into the world itself.
Ash blanketed the cracked ground, whispering beneath our feet like dry snow. It clung to our boots, our cuffs, our breath — until we all felt dusted by the same ancient sorrow.
Even the wind dared not speak here.
We stood at the edge of it — the last temple, the final gate before whatever waited beyond.
Sixty-one of us had once entered this nightmare.
Now we were twelve.
I could hear their breath behind me. Shallow. Controlled. Jisoo's shoulders trembled, but his mouth remained shut. No quip. No sarcasm.
Even he could feel it.
This wasn't fear.
It was reverence.
Because this place wasn't sacred.
It was sentenced.
Something had happened here — long before we arrived — something so devastating the land still held its breath.
And I was about to step into it.
---
"I'm going in alone," I said.
The words came out dry, like sandpaper dragged over old wood.
A few gasps broke the silence like pebbles tossed into still water.
"What? No. That's suicide—"
"We go together, Arien—"
"You don't have to prove—"
"This temple doesn't accept company."
My voice was quiet. But final.
"It only listens to those willing to be judged."
That shut them up.
They didn't understand. Not fully.
But they saw something in my eyes. Maybe the burn. Maybe the break.
And they stepped back.
---
Inside
The entrance was a wound in the wall — no door, no gate, just an open mouth yawning into blackness. As I crossed the threshold, the air changed.
It pressed against me, not like wind, but like memory. Heavy. Familiar.
Ash crunched beneath every step like bones.
Inside, time forgot how to move.
The temple's interior was a wide, circular hall. The walls were smooth obsidian, streaked with the soot of forgotten centuries. Above, the roof had collapsed, or maybe it had never existed — leaving a wide gaping hole where stars should have been.
But there were none.
Only a sky of swirling grey.
No constellations. No moon.
Just void.
I walked to the center.
The second my foot landed on the middle circle, the stone beneath me cracked outward — a perfect ring, like a ripple frozen in time.
And then, the voice came.
---
> "Welcome, Arien."
"Bear your will… or be broken by it."
It didn't echo.
It didn't speak.
It rose from inside me, curling out of my lungs, coiling behind my ribs.
And then the ash moved.
It didn't fall — it rose. From cracks. From corners. From the seams of my skin.
Swirling upward.
A spiral.
A fog.
A form.
---
The fog thickened and built itself into a memory — a scene I'd buried deep.
My apartment.
Not the new one. The old one.
One bedroom. Leaky sink. Mold in the corners. The smell of microwaved noodles clinging to every surface like regret.
There was the fire-dancer poster — the one my sister had torn from a magazine and taped to the wall like it was treasure.
There was the photo frame. Cracked. Faded.
All three of us. Smiling like the world hadn't started burning yet.
Rain tapped against the window. Soft at first.
Then harder.
Just like that day.
> The day I ran.
---
My little sister was on the floor.
Crying.
She was maybe eight. Small. Too small for the weight she carried.
Mom wasn't home — working her third job, maybe her fourth. Bills stacked on the counter like unpaid apologies.
I was seventeen.
Old enough to understand responsibility.
Too angry to accept it.
I had dreams. I had fire. And I thought… they were holding me back.
I thought kindness was weakness.
I thought staying made me small.
So I told myself: "They'll survive without me. I have to become something."
And I walked out.
Without turning back.
---
But the temple didn't show just the moment I left.
It showed everything after.
My sister's hands trembling as she tried to boil water. Her tears soaking the kitchen floor.
The night the lights went out and never came back on.
The time she waited five hours in the rain for someone who never came.
Me.
---
> "If you had stayed…"
"She wouldn't have gone to the store alone."
"She wouldn't have stepped into the road."
"She wouldn't have—"
"ENOUGH!"
My voice cracked.
The illusion shattered — but not fully.
The room flickered. Memory and ash colliding in a storm of flame and guilt.
I fell to my knees.
It wasn't just grief.
It was judgment.
The kind only I could pass.
---
"I left," I said through my teeth. "I left because I thought I had to."
"I believed running made me strong."
"But strength isn't about leaving people behind."
"It's about carrying them — even when it breaks you."
"I know I can't change the past."
"But I can protect the future."
"I won't run again."
"I'll burn myself to keep the others alive if I have to."
"I don't need forgiveness."
"I need purpose."
---
The ashes roared.
The storm collapsed inward — a vacuum of silence.
Then — a spark.
Small.
Golden.
It dropped from the sky like a single falling tear.
It struck the floor.
And ignited.
---
Not with violence.
With rebirth.
Fire curled upward in coils, twisting into a shaft. A pole. A blade. A shape not quite a sword, not quite a spear.
A halberd.
Its shaft was deep crimson, veined with molten lines.
Its blade curved like a phoenix wing, wide and sharp, glowing from within.
When I reached out to grab it, the fire didn't burn.
It breathed.
Warm. Alive. Waiting for me.
And in the sky above, scrawled in invisible fire, words appeared:
> "She who accepts her scars… may command the fire to protect, not destroy."
---
I stepped out of the temple.
Alive.
Changed.
The weapon in my hand wasn't just steel.
It was memory, forged into purpose.
The others stared — jaws slack, eyes wide.
The phoenix halberd hummed softly.
I looked at them.
Jisoo swallowed hard.
No one dared speak.
I nodded.
"Let's go."
"To the final trial."
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