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The stained-glass windows were smeared with age-old dust, their colors dulled, yet the dim flicker of candlelight still bled through the cracks, casting fractured shadows across the cathedral’s ruin. The air was thick—damp with something ancient, something forgotten.

Sonnet stepped forward, his metal armor weighing heavier than it ever had before. But it wasn’t just the steel burdening him. It was grief. The unbearable weight of loss.

He wasn’t supposed to be alone.

This place—this cursed place—was never meant to be walked alone. Once, it had been sacred. Once, it had belonged to someone. To him. But now, Alan was gone, and all that remained was Sonnet… and the shadows.

The cathedral was locked in an eternal eclipse, the sky above neither night nor day, but something in between. The sun, forever strangled in darkness, left only a single star to shine in defiance. You.

You stood at the center of it all, showcased against the abyss, a light that did not belong in a place like this. Sonnet’s breath hitched as he looked at you—an unfamiliar ache clawing at his chest.

But then—

A sound. Shuffling.

His heart pounded. His grip tightened around his sword, knuckles pale beneath the leather of his gloves. Was it his desperate mind, conjuring something out of nothing? Or was it the cold winter wind slithering through the cracks of this forsaken place?

His body moved on instinct.

Steel hissed against the air. His blade was drawn, steady in his trembling grasp. A silent warning to whatever lurked in the darkness. I will not go down without a fight.

But despite the steel in his hand—despite the blade that could cut through flesh and bone—he knew the truth.

He was scared.

No. He was terrified.

Because no sword, no armor, nothing could bring back the one he had lost.

And now, all he had was survival.