Chapter 5:
Echoes in the Dark
Neverland: The Demon Who Refused Salvation
1 / 11Shin limped deeper into the ruin’s shadows, the rusted sword tapping against moss-slick stone with every dragging step. His ribs throbbed with each ragged breath. Blood had dried along his arm in dark, crusted streaks, and his broken leg burned with a pain that made his vision flicker at the edges.The glyph-lit chamber narrowed into a tight passageway, forcing him to hunch as he shuffled forward. Broken pillars jutted from cracked tiles like jagged teeth. Somewhere far above, water dripped steadily, echoing through the oppressive silence.
As he shuffled onward, the oppressive dark seemed to press closer with each step. Faded murals lined the walls – ghostly images of robed priests summoning heroes beneath swirling glyph circles. Their faces were eroded by centuries of damp and moss growth, leaving only blank, eyeless outlines staring down at him with silent judgement.
2 / 11A toppled statue lay cracked the path, half-swallowed by thick roots coiling up its torso like constricting serpents. Its stone face was shattered, leaving only the lower half of a mouth twisted in agony. Shin paused, staring at it with a tightness in his chest. Heroes… sacrifices… all of them…His stomach cramped again, twisting so violently he nearly retched bile onto his boots. The taste of old blood still coated his tongue. Hunger gnawed at his insides, turning pain into nausea with every heartbeat.
How long… has it been…?His knees buckled and he caught himself against the wall, sucking in a sharp, wheezing breath. The stone felt damp and cold beneath his fingers. Darkness pressed down around him, thick and suffocating despite the dim red glow of the glyphs lining the walls.
I… I need to eat… anything… before I collapse…He staggered onward, eyes scanning the ruin’s depths desperately. Past a collapsed archway, he found a rusted metal door, half-rotted off its hinges. With trembling arms, he shoved it open. The smell hit him instantly – stale, dusty air laced with faint rot. Inside was a storage room. Dozens of broken crates and urns line the walls, collapsed shelves holding only shattered3 / 11pottery. But at the far corner, hidden beneath cracked jars, he saw a small woven basket, long collapsed inward.Shin crawled to it, pushing aside shards of ceramic. Inside lay a handful of shrivelled fruits, blackened with age. Flies buzzed around them. He gagged at the rancid sweetness but spotted something else beneath them – small wrapped packages, oil paper long yellowed with age but sealed tightly with twine.
His fingers trembled as he tore one open. Inside was a two-rice ball – dry, hard, edges darkened with mould. He stared at it, chest heaving. Hunger roared so loudly it drowned disgust.
“…I... I don’t care.”He bit into it. The rice tasted stale and bitter, but as it crumbled on his tongue, salty grains stuck to the roof of his mouth. He chewed slowly, forcing his throat to swallow despite dryness that burned like sandpaper. Tears pricked his eyes. He devoured the rest quickly, ignoring the sour taste and the ache in his jaw. The second rice ball was worse, but he ate it too, gagging slightly as old vinegar burned his tongue. When he finished, he slumped back against the stone wall, chest trembling with ragged breaths. His stomach still twisted with emptiness, but the sharp edge of hunger dulled to a4 / 11hollow ache. He wiped his mouth with his torn sleeve, smearing old rice grains and dirt across his cheek.“…Better… than nothing.”
He stared down at the empty oil paper in his lap, blinking slowly. A ragged laugh broke from his cracked lips – half-cough, half-sob.“…That… was definitely… a health code violation,” he croaked softly. “Guess I’m not dying from serpent bite… but from food poisoning instead… Great job, Shin. Really… great job.”The absurdity of it echoed softly in the silent ruin. For a fleeting moment, his shoulders shook with silent laughter until tears welled and felt, streaking lines through the dirt on his face.
He pushed himself upright again, ignoring the tremor in his legs. As he limped out of the storage room, a faint breeze brushed past him from deeper in the ruin, carrying scents of damp moss, rusted iron, and old ashes.It smelled nothing like Tokyo’s night streets, with their drifting exhaust fumes, stale convenience store fried chicken, and fleeting bursts of sweet bakery air at dawn. Here, everything smelled of stone, death, and silence.
I… miss the smell of melon bread…5 / 11His throat tightened painfully at the thought. He pressed a fist against his chest, feeling his heartbeat pound against his cracked ribs.Eventually, he reached another massive chamber, circular and lined with carved stone panels. In its centre stood a tall stone door, sealed with a swirling glyph pattern glowing faint crimson.
He approached cautiously, feeling the glyphs’ heat prickle across his skin. They twisted and shifted like living veins, their shapes forming symbols he almost recognised.> Essence… Awakening… Blessing… Chains…His head throbbed with each whispered translation echoing in his mind. Beneath those swirling lines, smaller glyphs flickered dimly – arranged in concentric circles, each containing pictographs of swords, staffs, shields, and broken chains.
Is this… a puzzle…?He reached out, pressing his palm against one of the sword glyphs. A low rumble vibrated through the chamber as the circle glowed brighter. Heart hammering, he pressed another glyph – a broken chain. The glow dimmed instantly, the floor beneath him trembling in warning.He sucked in a shaky breath, sweat dripping down his temple. His leg throbbed beneath him, threatening to collapse at any moment.6 / 11Focus… think… this is… like an exam, analyse the pattern… understand.
His eyes flicked rapidly between symbols. Sword. Staff. Shield. Broken chain. Sword. Shield. Staff. Unbroken chain.A memory flickered – his math teacher’s voice during combinatorial lectures.
> “Every problem has a pattern. Find it, and it becomes solvable.”He took a deep breath and pressed sword _ staff _ shield _ unbroken chain in that order.For a moment, nothing happened.Then the glyph circles began to spin slowly, glowing brighter with each rotation. The symbols blurred together into a ring of crimson light. Shin stepped back instinctively as the door rumbled, stone scraping against stone.Suddenly, a searing cold gripped his ankle. He screamed, stumbling as a skeletal hand erupted from the glyph-lit floor, its bony fingers clutching his leg with unnatural strength. Shadows twisted up its arm like living tar, crawling toward his knee. “N-No… let go… LET GO-!”He slashed at it with his sword, the blade scraping harmlessly against bone. The shadows coiled tighter around his calf,7 / 11biting into flesh with icy needles of pain. Darkness pulsed at the edges of his vision as his balance wavered. Then, as suddenly as it came, the hand froze. The shadows receded slightly, revealing faint red glyph lines burned into the skeletal fingers. The darkness flickered like a dying candle. In that instant, a memory not his own flooded in his mind.
He saw a knight in shining silver armour, standing within this same chamber centuries ago. Blood streamed from a wound across his chest as he raised his sword against an unseen foe.> ‘The Abyss… must remain sealed… or all… falls to shadow…”The knight staggered backward. Another body lay sprawled nearby – a mage with half her face burned away, robes soaked in blood. The knight reached for her with trembling fingers, choking out words through bubbling blood:> “Lyra… I’m sorry… I failed to save you…”A scream echoed in the vision. Dark tendrils erupted from the glyph-lit floor, wrapping around the knight’s arms and neck, dragging him downward. His sword fell with a clang that reverberated through Shin’s mind.
> “Forgive me… my king…”
8 / 11The vision shattered like glass, leaving Shin gasping, sweat dripping from his chin onto his torn uniform. The skeletal hand crumbled into dust, shadows dissolving into the floor. The glyph door before him rumbled once more, then slowly spilt open with a hiss of cold, stale air.He collapsed to his knees, chest heaving. His leg burned where the skeletal hand had grabbed him. When he pulled up his tattered pant leg, he saw faint black glyph lines burned into his skin, pulsing dimly with cold light.
“…What… is this mark…?”
It throbbed with each heartbeat, sending chills up his spine.Shin forced himself upright and limped forward through the now open stone door. Beyond lay a small chamber, almost like a shrine. At its centre knelt a skeletal clad in rusted armour, slumped against the stone pedestal behind it. A broken sword lay across its lap, its blade chipped and blackened with age. He approached cautiously, eyes scanning the skeleton’s surroundings. Besides its gauntleted hand lay a small leather-bound manual, edges curled with damp rot. Carefully, he picked it up, wiping away grime to reveal faded kanji.
> “Sword Forms of the Eastern Wind – basic to intermediate cuts and stances.”A sword manual…?9 / 11He flipped it open, skimming fragmented pages. Stances, guard forms, footwork illustrations. His chest tightened as he traced one sketch with a trembling finger. If… if I learn this… even without magic I can fight… survive.He braced his injured leg as best he could and tried mimicking the first stance – left foot back, right foot forward, blade angled at an opponent’s neck height. His arms wobbled with weakness. He felt ridiculous, like a manga character posing heroically without context.
“…If I survive this… I’m never laughing at shounen poses again…”He chuckled at the thought, until pain shot up his thigh and he gritted his teeth, collapsing back to his knees.Beneath the manual lay a scrap of torn parchment, edges burned. Scrawled upon it in ragged strokes were words that made his blood run cold.> “To the next summoned one: Blessings are chains. None of us were summoned to save anything. Remember… your life is your own.”His hands shook violently as he read it repeatedly. His throat tightened painfully. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes.
Chain…? Does that mean… I was never free to choose? Was… becoming a doctor just another chain? This world… my dreams were they ever mine?10 / 11He folded the note carefully and tucked it into his pocket along with manual. Then he turned back to the skeleton. Its empty eye sockets seemed to stare back at him with silent, hollow understanding.
“I…I’ll survive even if you couldn’t.”He bowed his head in silent respect before turning away. As he limped toward the far end of the shrine chamber, the glyphs lining the walls flickered with dim crimson light, illuminating an arched tunnel leading deeper into darkness.At the tunnel’s entrance, a single glyph pulsed brighter than the rest, casting a faint red glow across Shin’s bruised and bloodied face. The same twisted Abyss glyph from the serpent’s death circle.His chest tightened with a cold, gnawing dread. Why… why does this feel familiar…?The shadows beyond the tunnel swirled slightly, as if breathing. The stale air carried a faint scent of burnt blood and scorched stone. His leg trembled beneath him, threatening to collapse.A faint whisper brushed against his mind, so soft he almost didn’t hear it.
> “You’re almost home…”
11 / 11He shivered violently, tightening his grip on the rusted sword. No… I refuse… I’m not yours not now, not ever…But as the cursed glyph burned cold on his leg, felt a tiny pulse of warmth ripple up his spine. He clenched his jaw and stepped forward into the waiting dark.
As he shuffled onward, the oppressive dark seemed to press closer with each step. Faded murals lined the walls – ghostly images of robed priests summoning heroes beneath swirling glyph circles. Their faces were eroded by centuries of damp and moss growth, leaving only blank, eyeless outlines staring down at him with silent judgement.
2 / 11A toppled statue lay cracked the path, half-swallowed by thick roots coiling up its torso like constricting serpents. Its stone face was shattered, leaving only the lower half of a mouth twisted in agony. Shin paused, staring at it with a tightness in his chest. Heroes… sacrifices… all of them…His stomach cramped again, twisting so violently he nearly retched bile onto his boots. The taste of old blood still coated his tongue. Hunger gnawed at his insides, turning pain into nausea with every heartbeat.
How long… has it been…?His knees buckled and he caught himself against the wall, sucking in a sharp, wheezing breath. The stone felt damp and cold beneath his fingers. Darkness pressed down around him, thick and suffocating despite the dim red glow of the glyphs lining the walls.
I… I need to eat… anything… before I collapse…He staggered onward, eyes scanning the ruin’s depths desperately. Past a collapsed archway, he found a rusted metal door, half-rotted off its hinges. With trembling arms, he shoved it open. The smell hit him instantly – stale, dusty air laced with faint rot. Inside was a storage room. Dozens of broken crates and urns line the walls, collapsed shelves holding only shattered3 / 11pottery. But at the far corner, hidden beneath cracked jars, he saw a small woven basket, long collapsed inward.Shin crawled to it, pushing aside shards of ceramic. Inside lay a handful of shrivelled fruits, blackened with age. Flies buzzed around them. He gagged at the rancid sweetness but spotted something else beneath them – small wrapped packages, oil paper long yellowed with age but sealed tightly with twine.
His fingers trembled as he tore one open. Inside was a two-rice ball – dry, hard, edges darkened with mould. He stared at it, chest heaving. Hunger roared so loudly it drowned disgust.
“…I... I don’t care.”He bit into it. The rice tasted stale and bitter, but as it crumbled on his tongue, salty grains stuck to the roof of his mouth. He chewed slowly, forcing his throat to swallow despite dryness that burned like sandpaper. Tears pricked his eyes. He devoured the rest quickly, ignoring the sour taste and the ache in his jaw. The second rice ball was worse, but he ate it too, gagging slightly as old vinegar burned his tongue. When he finished, he slumped back against the stone wall, chest trembling with ragged breaths. His stomach still twisted with emptiness, but the sharp edge of hunger dulled to a4 / 11hollow ache. He wiped his mouth with his torn sleeve, smearing old rice grains and dirt across his cheek.“…Better… than nothing.”
He stared down at the empty oil paper in his lap, blinking slowly. A ragged laugh broke from his cracked lips – half-cough, half-sob.“…That… was definitely… a health code violation,” he croaked softly. “Guess I’m not dying from serpent bite… but from food poisoning instead… Great job, Shin. Really… great job.”The absurdity of it echoed softly in the silent ruin. For a fleeting moment, his shoulders shook with silent laughter until tears welled and felt, streaking lines through the dirt on his face.
He pushed himself upright again, ignoring the tremor in his legs. As he limped out of the storage room, a faint breeze brushed past him from deeper in the ruin, carrying scents of damp moss, rusted iron, and old ashes.It smelled nothing like Tokyo’s night streets, with their drifting exhaust fumes, stale convenience store fried chicken, and fleeting bursts of sweet bakery air at dawn. Here, everything smelled of stone, death, and silence.
I… miss the smell of melon bread…5 / 11His throat tightened painfully at the thought. He pressed a fist against his chest, feeling his heartbeat pound against his cracked ribs.Eventually, he reached another massive chamber, circular and lined with carved stone panels. In its centre stood a tall stone door, sealed with a swirling glyph pattern glowing faint crimson.
He approached cautiously, feeling the glyphs’ heat prickle across his skin. They twisted and shifted like living veins, their shapes forming symbols he almost recognised.> Essence… Awakening… Blessing… Chains…His head throbbed with each whispered translation echoing in his mind. Beneath those swirling lines, smaller glyphs flickered dimly – arranged in concentric circles, each containing pictographs of swords, staffs, shields, and broken chains.
Is this… a puzzle…?He reached out, pressing his palm against one of the sword glyphs. A low rumble vibrated through the chamber as the circle glowed brighter. Heart hammering, he pressed another glyph – a broken chain. The glow dimmed instantly, the floor beneath him trembling in warning.He sucked in a shaky breath, sweat dripping down his temple. His leg throbbed beneath him, threatening to collapse at any moment.6 / 11Focus… think… this is… like an exam, analyse the pattern… understand.
His eyes flicked rapidly between symbols. Sword. Staff. Shield. Broken chain. Sword. Shield. Staff. Unbroken chain.A memory flickered – his math teacher’s voice during combinatorial lectures.
> “Every problem has a pattern. Find it, and it becomes solvable.”He took a deep breath and pressed sword _ staff _ shield _ unbroken chain in that order.For a moment, nothing happened.Then the glyph circles began to spin slowly, glowing brighter with each rotation. The symbols blurred together into a ring of crimson light. Shin stepped back instinctively as the door rumbled, stone scraping against stone.Suddenly, a searing cold gripped his ankle. He screamed, stumbling as a skeletal hand erupted from the glyph-lit floor, its bony fingers clutching his leg with unnatural strength. Shadows twisted up its arm like living tar, crawling toward his knee. “N-No… let go… LET GO-!”He slashed at it with his sword, the blade scraping harmlessly against bone. The shadows coiled tighter around his calf,7 / 11biting into flesh with icy needles of pain. Darkness pulsed at the edges of his vision as his balance wavered. Then, as suddenly as it came, the hand froze. The shadows receded slightly, revealing faint red glyph lines burned into the skeletal fingers. The darkness flickered like a dying candle. In that instant, a memory not his own flooded in his mind.
He saw a knight in shining silver armour, standing within this same chamber centuries ago. Blood streamed from a wound across his chest as he raised his sword against an unseen foe.> ‘The Abyss… must remain sealed… or all… falls to shadow…”The knight staggered backward. Another body lay sprawled nearby – a mage with half her face burned away, robes soaked in blood. The knight reached for her with trembling fingers, choking out words through bubbling blood:> “Lyra… I’m sorry… I failed to save you…”A scream echoed in the vision. Dark tendrils erupted from the glyph-lit floor, wrapping around the knight’s arms and neck, dragging him downward. His sword fell with a clang that reverberated through Shin’s mind.
> “Forgive me… my king…”
8 / 11The vision shattered like glass, leaving Shin gasping, sweat dripping from his chin onto his torn uniform. The skeletal hand crumbled into dust, shadows dissolving into the floor. The glyph door before him rumbled once more, then slowly spilt open with a hiss of cold, stale air.He collapsed to his knees, chest heaving. His leg burned where the skeletal hand had grabbed him. When he pulled up his tattered pant leg, he saw faint black glyph lines burned into his skin, pulsing dimly with cold light.
“…What… is this mark…?”
It throbbed with each heartbeat, sending chills up his spine.Shin forced himself upright and limped forward through the now open stone door. Beyond lay a small chamber, almost like a shrine. At its centre knelt a skeletal clad in rusted armour, slumped against the stone pedestal behind it. A broken sword lay across its lap, its blade chipped and blackened with age. He approached cautiously, eyes scanning the skeleton’s surroundings. Besides its gauntleted hand lay a small leather-bound manual, edges curled with damp rot. Carefully, he picked it up, wiping away grime to reveal faded kanji.
> “Sword Forms of the Eastern Wind – basic to intermediate cuts and stances.”A sword manual…?9 / 11He flipped it open, skimming fragmented pages. Stances, guard forms, footwork illustrations. His chest tightened as he traced one sketch with a trembling finger. If… if I learn this… even without magic I can fight… survive.He braced his injured leg as best he could and tried mimicking the first stance – left foot back, right foot forward, blade angled at an opponent’s neck height. His arms wobbled with weakness. He felt ridiculous, like a manga character posing heroically without context.
“…If I survive this… I’m never laughing at shounen poses again…”He chuckled at the thought, until pain shot up his thigh and he gritted his teeth, collapsing back to his knees.Beneath the manual lay a scrap of torn parchment, edges burned. Scrawled upon it in ragged strokes were words that made his blood run cold.> “To the next summoned one: Blessings are chains. None of us were summoned to save anything. Remember… your life is your own.”His hands shook violently as he read it repeatedly. His throat tightened painfully. Tears burned at the corners of his eyes.
Chain…? Does that mean… I was never free to choose? Was… becoming a doctor just another chain? This world… my dreams were they ever mine?10 / 11He folded the note carefully and tucked it into his pocket along with manual. Then he turned back to the skeleton. Its empty eye sockets seemed to stare back at him with silent, hollow understanding.
“I…I’ll survive even if you couldn’t.”He bowed his head in silent respect before turning away. As he limped toward the far end of the shrine chamber, the glyphs lining the walls flickered with dim crimson light, illuminating an arched tunnel leading deeper into darkness.At the tunnel’s entrance, a single glyph pulsed brighter than the rest, casting a faint red glow across Shin’s bruised and bloodied face. The same twisted Abyss glyph from the serpent’s death circle.His chest tightened with a cold, gnawing dread. Why… why does this feel familiar…?The shadows beyond the tunnel swirled slightly, as if breathing. The stale air carried a faint scent of burnt blood and scorched stone. His leg trembled beneath him, threatening to collapse.A faint whisper brushed against his mind, so soft he almost didn’t hear it.
> “You’re almost home…”
11 / 11He shivered violently, tightening his grip on the rusted sword. No… I refuse… I’m not yours not now, not ever…But as the cursed glyph burned cold on his leg, felt a tiny pulse of warmth ripple up his spine. He clenched his jaw and stepped forward into the waiting dark.
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