Aarav stared at the empty chains on the stone and felt the sweat on his face that hadn't been there before the hooded figure had swung at him. His heart had mostly slowed down. Mostly.
Damn it. Will they know I helped catch that guy? No. I haven't seen anyone suspicious nearby. No one was watching.
He kept his face still and breathed.
"Young man," the inspector said, turning to Aarav. "What's your name?"
"Arlan, Sir." Aarav gestured to Rajan and Veer. "And they are my friends Raja and Von."
The inspector nodded once. "Arlan. You need to be careful going forward. I'm not seeing anyone suspicious in the area right now. It's likely no one saw you help us. But they might target you if word gets out." He paused. "If you get into any trouble, go to the nearest police station immediately."
How am I not supposed to worry when you just told me they might target me? And there are barely any police in the North West Borough. The nearest station might be completely empty at this hour.
Aarav nodded calmly. "Understood, Sir. Thank you."
The inspector's eyes moved downward slightly and settled on the Magic Translator at Aarav's collar. His expression shifted into something more procedural.
"Are you a refugee?"
Aarav felt a small pull of unease. "Yes Sir. I am."
"Your refugee ID."
Aarav didn't fully understand why the inspector was asking but he reached into his jacket and produced the ID without hesitation. Calm hands, calm face. The inspector took it, looked it over carefully, checked something on the back, checked something else. His eyes moved between the card and Aarav once.
Then he reached into his own coat, made a small notation on the card with something Aarav didn't see clearly, and handed it back.
"I've added some social points to your record. Here is your ID. Safe journey home."
Aarav took the card back.
Social what? What kind of points are those exactly? And aren't you going to give me an actual reward for helping you catch a serial killer? I nearly got stabbed. Hypocrites.
He kept all of this behind his face, thanked the inspector, and walked.
---
They didn't speak much on the way back. Rajan walked with the focused quiet of someone processing something. Veer kept glancing behind them at irregular intervals, the specific behaviour of someone who had been told they might be targeted and had taken that information very personally.
Aarav kept his eyes forward and thought about the empty chains on the stone.
Rust Street was quiet when they reached it. They climbed the stairs, said nothing to each other in the corridor, and went inside. Aarav shut the door behind him and locked it.
---
Aarav let out a long slow breath the moment the door was shut.
No footsteps on the stairs behind them. No sound from the street below that didn't belong there. He stood still for a moment and listened to the building's ordinary quiet and felt the tension in his shoulders begin to release by degrees.
No one had followed them. He was increasingly certain of it.
They washed their hands and ate dinner on the floor of the living room. What remained of the packaged food from home, rationed carefully, spread between three people. It was minimal in the specific honest way of food that existed purely to get through the night rather than to satisfy anything. The moonlight came through the window in a pale wide bar across the floor. Two candles on the small shelf threw enough light to see by without fully pushing back the dark in the corners.
After eating Aarav washed his hands at the basin and told Rajan, "I'll sleep late tonight. Don't wait up."
Rajan looked at him briefly and nodded. No questions.
Aarav went to the toilet and locked the door behind him.
---
He sat down on the toilet with a thud, as though something very heavy had been resting on his shoulders all evening and had finally been set down. For a moment he just sat there with his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands.
Damn it. Damn it. I shouldn't have helped the police. Now they might target me. But wait, they didn't see me clearly. No one was watching. So they probably don't know. Probably.
I never expected there would be several killers. Why are they even doing this? What is the purpose of taking heads and organs? There has to be a reason. People don't do something like that without a reason.
And there is a Goddess who can give nightmares. Several serial killers operating in my neighbourhood. A coming of age ceremony in two days that is bringing government officials into a manor I just spent three days cleaning. This world is genuinely too dangerous.
I miss my computer. I miss sitting in a chair that didn't smell like hay. I miss electricity.
He sat with that for a moment.
Then he thought about the gun. The inspector had looked him over thoroughly and never noticed it. And the killer, when he had come around that corner, had not crossed paths with them directly. If he had, if the timing had been even slightly different, they would not have been the ones doing the catching. They would have been something else entirely.
He was lucky. He needed to remember that and not confuse it with competence.
He flushed the toilet, washed his hands at the small basin, and came back out.
---
One of the candles had already burned out. The other was low, its flame small and steady, throwing a narrow circle of warm light that barely reached the walls. The moonlight through the window did the rest, falling across the hay mattresses where Rajan and Veer were already asleep.
Veer had his arm thrown over his face as usual. Rajan lay straight and still, the way he always slept, as though even unconscious he maintained a kind of order.
Aarav stood in the doorway and looked at them for a moment.
His lips curled up slightly.
He lay down on the floor, pulled his blanket up, and closed his eyes.
---
Sleep took him quickly.
Then the chapel appeared.
The same grey barren land, the same dead trees standing at wrong angles in the fog. The same pale interrupted moonlight. The blood came from the door gaps slowly and steadily, finding the cracks in the dry soil, spreading outward with the same patient certainty as before.
Aarav woke up with his heart already moving fast.
He lay on the floor in the dark and stared at the ceiling.
The same nightmare. Again. Is the Goddess still not satisfied? Come on. I'm a completely ordinary person. Why are you giving me nightmares? I already apologised.
He clasped his hands together in the dark.
I'm sorry. I will read the Bible sincerely. I will attend every class. I promise. Please just let me sleep properly.
He lay back down and closed his eyes.
This time sleep came without the chapel and held until the sky outside the window began to change colour.
---
He woke in the early dawn before Rajan and Veer had stirred. He lay still for a moment, considered trying to sleep again, and decided against it. His sleep had been broken enough that lying on the floor waiting for it to return felt worse than simply getting up.
He rose quietly, washed his face and brushed his teeth at the basin, then opened his bag and took out the gun. He tucked it into his hip belt, pulled his shirt over it, and clipped the Magic Translator at his collar.
He slipped out of the apartment and locked the door softly behind him.
---
Sean was in the corridor, also just leaving his apartment, jacket on, looking mildly surprised to see someone else awake at this hour.
"Good morning," Aarav said. "What's about waking up so early?"
"Just taking a stroll," Sean said. "You?"
"Same."
This was half true. The nightmare had broken his sleep and the dawn air seemed more useful than lying awake on the floor thinking about chapels and blood. He didn't say any of this.
They went down the stairs together and came out onto Rust Street.
The North West Borough in the early dawn was quieter than any other hour. The smell was still there, sewer water and old stone and the particular staleness of a neighbourhood that was never quite clean, but Aarav had stopped noticing it the way he had in the first days. It had simply become the smell of the street he lived on.
They walked at a steady unhurried pace, the lampposts still burning low, the sky above the rooftops shifting from dark blue to something lighter at the edges.
"Yesterday we helped the police catch the serial killer," Aarav said after a while. "But apparently he is one of several killers."
Sean looked at him. "You helped catch him? That's some genuinely heroic work, Arlan. I'm proud of you."
Aarav said nothing to that.
"One of several," Sean said, turning it over. "I thought there might be more than one. I guess I was right." He paused. "What happened after?"
"The inspector asked for my refugee ID and said he gave me some social points. What exactly are those?"
"Social points show how good a standing you have as a refugee. High social points mean a greater chance of becoming an Elorian citizen eventually." Sean glanced at him. "Getting them from an inspector for helping catch a killer is not a small thing."
"I see," Aarav said.
They walked on. A cat crossed the street ahead of them and disappeared into an alley. Somewhere in one of the buildings above, someone was already moving around, floorboards creaking with early morning routine.
Aarav had been carrying a question since the night they first arrived in this world. He had been waiting for the right person and the right moment and both were standing beside him now.
"This might be a strange question," he said. "But since you were an adventurer I thought you might know. Have you ever seen a purple hued glowing crystal? Like a stone but it glows and has a crystalline quality to it."
Sean was quiet for a moment, thinking. "A purple glowing crystal stone." He shook his head slowly. "I've heard of purple coloured stones but nothing that glows or looks like a crystal. Not personally." He paused. "There are many types of magic stones, especially resonator stones of different elements and properties. It's hard to know what each one does without proper knowledge. But a glowing purple crystal, I genuinely haven't come across that description before."
"It might be a magic stone of some kind," Aarav said.
"High chance," Sean agreed. "But I can't tell you more than that."
"Thank you anyway."
They walked in comfortable silence for a stretch. The sky was properly lightening now, the first pale suggestion of sunrise visible above the rooftops to the east.
"Will you be free this evening?" Aarav asked.
"Sorry, Arlan. Date with my fiancée tonight."
"My bad. Enjoy."
Sean smiled. "I intend to."
---
They came back to Rust Street as the borough was beginning its slow morning process of waking up. A few more people on the street now, early workers heading out, a woman opening the shutters of a ground floor window two buildings down.
Aarav went back upstairs, unlocked the apartment quietly, and washed his legs, hands, and face at the basin. Through the doorway he could hear Rajan beginning to stir on his hay mattress.
He dried his hands and sat down.
He sat cross legged on the floor and closed his eyes.
He had picked up meditation years ago for no particularly serious reason and had dropped it just as casually. Right now it was the most useful thing he had available. He focused on his breathing, slow and deliberate, and let the chapel and the blood and the empty chains on the stone move through his mind without grabbing at any of it. It took a few minutes to settle. Then it did.
When he opened his eyes the dawn light through the window had strengthened into proper morning.
He got up and woke Rajan and Veer.
"Wash up and get ready. We're leaving early today."
Veer made his usual sound. Rajan was already sitting up.
Early work, early money.