Author's Preface
The scythe did not whistle.
It screamed.
A thin, splitting vibration tore through the air where my head had been a heartbeat before, and every remaining pane of glass in the square shattered at once.
I didn't think.
I dropped, scrambling backward across the dirt, palms tearing open against something sharp beneath the soil.
The old woman did not walk.
She skipped through space—jerking forward in broken intervals. Her shadow lagged behind her, struggling to keep up, as if it had been cast by something moving faster than light.
“The debt is old, Jun Liu,” the voices inside her said.
Not one voice.
Many.
Layered.
Worn thin by repetition.
“This village was not built. It was agreed upon.”
A step closer.
“We gave you silence.”
Another.
“We gave you a place where time would not find you.”
She raised the scythe again.
“Now time has come to collect what was hidden.”
The square was coming apart.
Not collapsing—
unfastening.
The houses sagged, their beams softening like wet wood, folding inward as if something beneath them had withdrawn its support.
Smoke leaked from every crack, thick and black, as though the village itself was burning from the inside out.
And the grass—
The grass was no longer grass.
It spilled into the streets in long, searching strands, each blade moving with intention, grazing the ground, tasting for warmth.
I looked for the tally post.
It was gone.
Not broken.
Not removed.
Gone.
In its place—
A hollow.
A jagged opening in the center of the square.
Raw earth.
Wet.
Breathing.
The realization hit me all at once.
“It wasn't a marker…”
My throat tightened.
“It was a seal.”
“Jun!”
I turned.
The man with the cigarette stood near the edge of a collapsing house.
Or what was left of him.
His skin had stiffened, grain running through it like aged timber. When he shifted his weight, something inside him creaked—not bone, but wood settling under strain. His jaw no longer moved correctly, each word cracking through him like stress in wood.
“Jump,” he said.
Not shouted.
Not begged.
Stated.
“It's the only place below the agreement.”
The old woman lunged.
The scythe tore sideways, slicing through the air with a force that sent chimneys snapping and scattering ash into the sky.
I ran.
The ground resisted me.
Soft.
Clinging.
Each step sank just slightly too deep, as if the earth had begun to recognize me as something it could reclaim.
Behind me, something entered the square.
Not one thing.
Many.
From the grass.
From beneath it.
Forms that shouldn't hold shape—stitched from straw, from thread, from something that used to be bone.
They moved too quickly.
Too precisely.
I reached the edge.
It was not a well.
It was a throat.
A vertical tunnel of raw, red earth, pulsing faintly, as if something deep below was breathing through it.
“You cannot leave the record!” the old woman shrieked.
Her body stretched as she moved, lengthening unnaturally, her outline tearing into strips of shadow and bone.
“You are the witness!”
The scythe rose above her.
“If the witness falls—nothing ends!”
I didn't jump.
I let go.
The world dropped away.
The noise of the village collapsed into a low, distant vibration.
The air grew colder.
Heavier.
Thicker.
As I fell, my hand brushed the wall.
It wasn't earth.
It was covered.
Layer upon layer.
Endless.
Red cloth.
Each strip damp.
Each one marked.
Each one once tied above ground—
Now lining the inside of the village itself.
I hit the water.
It swallowed me whole.
Cold.
Thick.
Not water.
Not entirely.
It was thick with something that had once been warmer. And something moved within it—not swimming, but drifting. Hands. Too many to count. Brushing past me in the dark.
I broke the surface, gasping.
The light above was gone—reduced to a dim, distant stain.
Down here, the glow came from below.
A faint, green luminescence, pulsing slowly through the liquid.
I wasn't alone.
Tablets drifted around me.
Dozens.
Hundreds.
Turning slowly in a silent current.
Names carved into each.
Some fresh.
Some worn smooth.
All of them moving toward a dark opening at the far edge of the pool.
Something surfaced in front of me.
I flinched.
A face.
My uncle.
But not the one I had seen above.
Not the one dissolving.
This one was whole.
“Jun,” he said, grabbing my shoulder.
His grip was real.
Warm.
Shaking.
“You opened it.”
“I had to,” I said. “We need to get out—”
He shook his head.
Fast.
Desperate.
“They can't come down here,” he whispered.
“This place isn't part of the village.”
A glance upward.
“This is what the village buried.”
He pointed toward the tunnel.
“That current leads out. Beneath the hills. If we follow it—”
He hesitated.
“We won't be recorded anymore.”
The words hung between us.
Heavy.
Final.
“Not remembered,” he said quietly.
“But not owned.”
A sound cut through the water.
Not above.
Behind us.
Click.
Click.
Click.
We turned.
Something was descending.
Not falling.
Not climbing.
Lowering itself.
Thread by thread.
The thing from above.
The one made of red cloth.
Unraveling itself as it came.
“It's not counting anymore,” my uncle whispered.
“It's correcting.”
A strand touched the water.
The surface trembled.
Then began to boil.