The forest was unnaturally still—the kind of stillness that followed blood.
Asher stood alone in the clearing, watching the man twitch once before going limp. His blade—cold, efficient—dripped once before he wiped it clean against the dead man's coat.
> [+1.2 KP | +0.5 XP | Entropy: 7.1%]
The numbers flickered in his vision, then faded.
No alarms. No screams. A clean kill.
Asher turned from the corpse, scanning the woods. Quiet didn't mean safe. Something prickled along the edge of his senses.
Then he saw her.
A girl stood just beyond the clearing's edge. Small—eight or nine, at most. Her pink dress was stained with mud, puffed sleeves wrinkled, and her long brown hair curled into loose, tangled ringlets. She held a teddy bear by its arm. One button eye missing.
She didn't leave footprints.
Asher froze.
"I thought you might be scary," the girl said. Her voice was soft, curious more than afraid. "But you're not."
He tilted his head slightly. "You don't look scared either."
"I've seen worse." Her eyes flicked toward the corpse. "That one was loud. Most people are."
He stayed silent, fingers still loosely wrapped around the knife's hilt. The girl stepped closer, watching him with unsettling calm.
"You're quiet," she said. "Like me."
"Who are you?"
She blinked. "Sally."
Asher's breath caught.
That name.
It echoed in the empty hallways of a past he didn't fully remember. Not from this life—but from something before. A fragment. A whisper.
A file. A story. A ghost.
"You have the same round face and adorable look," he murmured. The words slipped out, unguarded. A sister's smile flickered in his mind—cracked and faded like a photograph left in the rain.
Sally tilted her head. "You talk funny."
He almost smiled.
She glanced over her shoulder toward the dark treeline. "I woke up out here. Don't remember walking here. Just... woke up."
"You were somewhere else before?"
"Yeah. I made someone stop. He was hurting me." Her voice dimmed, but no tears came. Just a quiet finality. "Then I went to sleep. Then I was here."
Asher didn't ask more.
She looked down, tightening her grip on the bear's paw. "I don't like being alone."
He studied her.
No fear of the blood on his hands. No flinch in her voice. Just stillness. Trusting. Like the dead had already made peace with him.
"Can I go with you?" she asked. "Please?"
Asher looked down at her, silent for a long time.
She looked up. Eyes wide. Waiting.
A ghost without fear.
"...Fine," he said.
Her smile was small and strange—but warm.
She fell into step beside him. And together, the killer and the ghost walked deeper into the dark.