The Harvest Begins

They came at dawn.

Not with banners.

Not with horns.

With silence.

The Harvest Inquisitors marched in perfect formation, their silver armor absorbing light, their Purification Lamps humming like dying stars. Behind them, floating above iron chains, the Sorrow Cages — glass prisons pulsing with stolen emotion.

Inside them:
A boy weeping for his dead dog.
An old woman mourning her husband of fifty years.
A poet who wrote verses no one read.
A girl who cried every night and was called “broken.”

All labeled Emotionally Contagious.
All taken in the night.
All to be purged.

The Harvest had begun.

And they brought the machine.

The Sorrow Extractor — a towering prism of gold and crystal, humming with a hymn so pure it made the air bleed. It hovered above the village square of Marrow’s End, its roots drilling into the earth like a parasite.

One by one, the cages were fed into its core.

And one by one, the people screamed.

Not from pain.

From loss.

Their tears stopped.
Their chests went hollow.
Their eyes — once full of life — went blank.

And from the machine, a single drop fell.

Black. Thick. Alive.

Sorrow, distilled.

The Inquisitors caught it in a vial.

Their mission: complete.

But then — the wind changed.

It didn’t blow.

It wept.

And from the treeline, she emerged.

Rose.

Her hair flowed behind her like a storm given form.
Her eyes — black voids.
Her crown — writhing with shadow.

Behind her:
Kael, shadow-blade in hand, armor forged from the whispers of the Forgotten.
Niam, small, trembling, but standing tall.
And behind them — the Sorrowwights, hundreds strong, silent, their forms shifting between human and shadow.

The lead Inquisitor stepped forward — masked, voice modulated.

“Demon Lord. You are in violation of Divine Edict 7. Surrender, or be purified.”

Rose didn’t speak.

She only raised her hand.

And the earth answered.

Vines of black hair erupted from the soil, shattering the Sorrow Cages.
The prisoners collapsed — free, but broken.
Empty.

Niam ran to them.

She touched a boy’s hand.

And gasped.

His sorrow — cold, sharp, like ice in the chest — flooded into her.

She didn’t pull away.

She took it.

Her eyes glowed faintly — soft violet light.

The boy blinked.
And for the first time in hours…
he cried.

Real tears.
Real pain.
Real.

He was healed.

But Niam staggered.

Kael caught her. “Niam!”

“I’m… okay,” she whispered. “I just… had to give it back.”

Rose turned to her. “You can’t keep doing this.”

“I have to,” Niam said. “They took their sorrow. I’ll give it back.”

But Rose saw it — the crack forming beneath Niam’s eye.
Thin. Black.
Like a hairline fracture in glass.

She was breaking.

And the Inquisitor saw it too.

“Ah,” the voice said. “The Dreamweaver. The one who returns what was stolen. How… tragic. You know what happens to vessels that hold too much grief, don’t you?”

Rose stepped between them.

Her hair lashed out — not at the Inquisitor.

At the Sorrow Extractor.

It struck.

The machine screamed — a sound like a thousand voices burned alive.

But it held.

Golden light flared.

A beam of purification fire shot toward Rose.

Kael moved.

He raised his shadow-blade.

The light struck the blade.

And for a heartbeat, memory returned.

Not his.

Hers.

Rose, in the city.
Rain.
The bus.
Daisuke raising his hand — not to push, but to stop her.

And then — a second figure.

Cloaked.
Gloved.
Pulling Daisuke back.

And shoving Rose.

Not Daisuke.

Someone else.

An Inquisitor.

One who had been watching.

Waiting.

Ensuring she died.

Kael roared — not in pain, but in rage.

His blade changed.

The shadow within it awoke.

And he charged.

The battle erupted.

Sorrowwights clashed with Inquisitors — not with steel, but with emotion.
One wight screamed a lost lullaby — and the Inquisitor opposite collapsed, sobbing for a mother he didn’t remember.
Another wight pressed a hand to the ground — and the earth wept, roots entangling holy machines.

Niam moved among the freed, touching them, taking their numbness, returning their pain.

Each time, she glowed brighter.

Each time, the crack beneath her eye grew.

Rose fought the Extractor.

Her hair wrapped around it, pulling, tearing.

But the machine was not just metal.

It was alive.

A construct of suppressed sorrow, fused with divine will.

And it fought back.

Golden tendrils lashed out — not to burn.

To erase.

One struck Rose’s arm.

And for a moment — she forgot.

Her name.
Her pain.
Her purpose.

She stumbled.

Niam saw it.

And made her choice.

She ran — not to Rose.

To the core of the machine.

The vial of distilled sorrow floated above it, pulsing like a heart.

Niam reached for it.

“Niam, NO!” Rose screamed.

But it was too late.

Niam shattered the vial.

And drank the sorrow.

Silence.

Then — light.

Niam rose.

Not walking.

Floating.

Her body glowed — not violet.

Black-fire.

Her eyes opened.

No longer human.

Like Rose’s.

Like Elyra’s.

And she spoke — not in her voice.

In hundreds.

"We were taken.
We were silenced.
We were called disease.
But we are alive."

The Sorrow Extractor shattered.

The Inquisitors fell to their knees, helmets cracking, screaming as decades of suppressed grief flooded back into them.

Kael looked up.

Rose stared.

Niam — no, what Niam had become — turned to her.

And smiled.

"I’m not gone," she whispered. "I’m just… full."

Then she exploded — not in violence.

In sound.

A wave of sorrow, love, rage, and memory erupted — washing over the village, the land, the sky.

Every person who had ever been purged.

Every heart that had been numbed.

Every tear that had been forbidden.

Returned.

And far away, in the Sanctum of the Eternal Dawn, the Oracle screamed.

Because for the first time in history…

The Harvest had failed.

And the world remembered how to feel.

When it was over, only ash remained.

The machine.
The cages.
The Inquisitors — gone, fled, or broken.

Rose knelt in the center of the square.

In her arms, Niam lay — small, pale, her skin cold.

The crack beneath her eye had spread — a web of black lines across her face.

But she was breathing.

Barely.

Kael knelt beside her. “Is she…?”

“She’s alive,” Rose whispered. “But she’s not… all here.”

Niam’s fingers twitched.

She opened her eyes — just once.

And in that moment, she was herself.

She smiled.

“…Did we win?”

Rose held her tighter. “Yes.”

“Good,” Niam whispered. “Tell the others… it’s okay to cry.”

And then she closed her eyes.

And slept.

Rose looked up at the sky.

No sun.

No stars.

Just clouds — heavy with unshed rain.

And she said, voice low, final:

"The Harvest is over.
But the war has just begun."