He shouldn't have left the village at night.
He knew that. Every instinct warned him not to follow the voice. But instinct was quiet compared to hope. And the whisper… it had sounded like Galen.
The snowfall had thinned to a soft dusting. Only scattered deer paths and the faint impressions of wild Pokémon disturbed the otherwise untouched forest floor. Echo walked silently at his side, posture alert, tail still.
The voice hadn't returned. But the pull hadn't stopped either.
"Are we being led somewhere?" he asked.
"Yes," Echo replied, her thoughts drifting clearly into his mind. "But I don't think it's trying to hurt us."
He glanced at her. "Then what is it doing?"
Echo stopped.
"Testing you."
The trees opened into a circular clearing surrounded by collapsed stone markers. Half-buried in frost and moss sat a small shrine, no taller than his shoulder. Its roof had caved in, and its carvings were worn by time and weather. Ancient runes spiraled down the base like broken vines.
He stepped forward and brushed snow from the shrine's face. The crescent eye symbol stared back, but this one curled inward—an inversion of the marks he'd seen before. It looked less like a symbol of watchfulness and more like a mouth trying to swallow light.
"Is this part of the seal?" he asked.
Echo circled the shrine slowly. "No. This is where they stored what couldn't be sealed."
He stiffened. "What does that mean?"
Echo didn't reply with words. Instead, she pressed her paw to the cracked stone.
The earth beneath his feet trembled gently—just once—and a pulse radiated from the base of the shrine. A faint blue glyph lit up on the stone. A hidden panel clicked and slid aside, revealing a narrow compartment. Inside sat a stone recorder, its crystal etched and weather-worn, but humming with dormant energy.
He crouched and lifted the device. It was heavier than it looked.
"Can it still work?"
"Let it speak," Echo said, stepping closer.
She touched her forehead to the glowing glyph. The recorder flickered to life.
"To those who find this… you walk where echoes sleep."
The voice was male, weathered but steady—an elder.
"We are the last of the Yukari Order. What we sealed in this land was not a beast. Not a curse. But a memory so vast, it began to believe it was alive."
"It called itself Amaranth."
He felt his breath hitch.
"It was born from forgotten pain. From the regrets we hide. And it fed on those who could not let go. We did not defeat it. We simply gave it no place to grow."
The crystal dimmed briefly before flaring again.
"But if it is speaking again… if it walks the edges of your dreams… then you must find the Threshold. You must close what was never meant to open."
"And beware the ones who remember it wrongly. For they are its hands now."
The device went dark.
He didn't move. He simply stood, staring at the stone beneath him. Amaranth had a name long before Galen found it. And others—monks, scholars, maybe even trainers—had known of its existence.
"They tried to lock it away," he murmured.
"They tried to forget," Echo corrected.
He slid the recorder carefully into his bag and turned his attention back to the shrine. The inverted eye felt different from the others—less symbolic, more like a doorway. Something behind it watched.
Or listened.
He stepped back, uneasy.
The village was quiet when he returned. No one stopped him. No one spoke. It was as if he'd never left.
But Elder Saki was waiting.
She stood beneath the eaves of the guest house, arms folded across her cloak, eyes sharp beneath her tangled silver hair.
"You followed it," Elder Saki said.
He nodded. "It wanted me to see something."
Elder Saki's gaze shifted to Echo. "And you let him go?"
"I guided him," Echo replied. "There is a difference."
Elder Saki narrowed her eyes. "You found the shrine, then."
"I did," he said. "And I heard the recording. Your people knew what Amaranth was."
"We knew enough to forget," Elder Saki said, voice quiet. "And enough to know forgetting wouldn't be permanent."
She stepped closer. "If you go on from here, you will hear things that sound true—but are not. You may even hear yourself."
He tilted his head. "Myself?"
Elder Saki's voice dropped to a whisper. "If you ever hear your own voice in the woods… do not answer it."
That night, he lay awake beside the flickering firelight. Echo slept curled near the door, her silver fur dimly glowing with each breath.
He stared at Galen's journal on the desk. Half the pages were filled with symbols. Names. Maps. Questions. But now a new one pressed at the edge of his mind:
What was the Threshold?
And had someone already crossed it?
He drifted toward sleep.
And then—
"Kael…"
His name.
Soft. Familiar.
His eyes snapped open. Echo was already awake. Her ears flicked toward the window.
He moved toward it carefully, but found nothing beyond the glass. No tracks in the snow. No light. No shadow.
But something had passed by.
And it had left nothing behind.