The village did not move.
It listened.
The things that had come through the tear—those half-made figures—did not rush him.
They spread out.
Slowly.
Taking their places.
Not surrounding him.
Waiting.
Jun did not lower his hand.
The mark in his palm flickered like a dying ember.
“Start with you,” he had said.
Now he had to stand by it.
The one in front tilted its head.
As if studying him.
“You want to know what we are,” it said.
Its voice was quiet.
Too close.
Jun nodded.
“You’re not the ones the village took,” he said.
The figure shook its head.
“Those were kept,” it said.
It stepped closer.
“We were not finished.”
The air grew heavy.
Jun felt that sentence settle deep in his chest.
Behind him, his uncle let out a slow breath.
A wall nearby shifted.
A doorway slid out of place, as if it had never been fixed properly.
“You’re breaking it,” Jun said.
The figure shook its head again.
“No,” it said.
“We’re showing you where it was already broken.”
Jun’s fingers tightened.
The mark in his palm burned.
Another figure stepped forward.
Its shape could not decide what it was.
A woman.
A child.
Something in between.
“You remember wrong,” it said.
Its voice overlapped itself.
Jun’s vision snapped.
A table.
A bowl.
Someone sitting across from him—
Gone.
He staggered.
“That’s not mine,” he said.
“It is now,” his uncle said behind him.
Jun didn’t turn.
Because part of him knew—
that was true.
The figures moved closer.
Not pressing.
Drawing near.
“What do you want?” Jun asked.
The first one answered.
“To be carried through.”
A pause.
“To where you stopped.”
More shapes gathered behind them.
Dozens.
Then more.
Jun looked at them carefully.
Each one was missing something.
A face.
A voice.
A piece of time.
Not taken.
Left undone.
“You don’t belong to this place,” Jun said.
“You are here,” the figure replied.
That was enough.
Jun fell silent.
His uncle spoke again, low:
“They’re not coming in from outside.”
“They’re holding on to you.”
Jun’s chest tightened.
He could feel it now.
Every figure—
like a thread.
Pulling.
Not to tear him apart.
To be held.
“You can’t carry them all,” his uncle said.
Jun didn’t argue.
That wasn’t the problem.
“They don’t want the same thing,” his uncle added.
Jun looked up.
“What do you mean?”
The first figure stepped closer.
“I want a name,” it said.
Another voice:
“I want an ending.”
Another:
“I want to be forgotten properly.”
Jun’s breath caught.
That last one settled heavier than the rest.
“You didn’t erase us,” the figure said.
“You left us halfway.”
The village shifted.
A long, low movement beneath everything.
Jun closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again—
something in him had steadied.
“I can’t fix all of you,” he said.
None of them moved.
They already knew.
“But I won’t leave you like this.”
The air changed.
Not brighter.
Clearer.
Jun raised his hand.
The mark in his palm no longer flickered wildly.
It held.
Barely.
“This place won’t run the way it did before,” he said.
His uncle watched him carefully.
“Then how will it run?”
Jun looked at the figures.
One by one.
“If something needs a name,” he said,
“I’ll give it one.”
“If something needs to end,”
“I’ll let it end.”
“If something needs to be forgotten,”
“I won’t leave it half-remembered.”
A pause.
“Nothing stays unfinished.”
The village went still.
The figures stopped shifting.
For the first time—
they stood like people.
The one in front looked at him.
“Then begin,” it said.
Jun nodded.
This time—
he did not step back.
Far beyond the houses,
the grass stirred.
Not rushing forward.
Watching.
Waiting.
Because something had changed.
The village no longer lived by what must not be done.
An error was not a mistake.
It was something the village failed to finish.
Now—
it waited to see
what would finally be brought to an end.