The ruins settle in silence.
Tattered fragments of the manual flutter in the wind like dying leaves.
I watch one crumble between my fingers—its words meaningless now.
That book taught me how to take.
How to embrace the ash. To consume. To become.
But it never told me to resist.
It did not teach me what to reject.
I am not the same man who clawed his way to this shack, half-dead and choking.
This body—this weapon—it is durable. Too much so. A prison forged of strength. Containing within a madness so deep, so vast, becoming something beyond lifelessness.
I cannot undo what I've become.
But perhaps I can change why.
Maybe, I can become something else.
I stand among the rubble, bones sore, muscles tight, skin matte and dark like burned stone.
And I begin again.
From memory.
From instinct.
From pain.
A new manual.
I etch the first words into a piece of splintered wall with the tip of my nail:
"Breath of Rejection."
It begins not with inhalation—but exhalation.
Purge.
Push out the ash.
Expel what poisons.
I kneel, fists against the scorched ground, and breathe out until my lungs ache.
The ash fights to remain. It clings to my throat, to my ribs. But I force it out, again and again.
My vision blurs. I sway. My body craves the dust—but I deny it.
Next: motion.
Not the flowing, graceful worship of the old book.
But firm, purposeful stances.
Grounded. Solid.
I plant my feet wide. Stretch my arms to the horizon, as if casting off the sky.
I arch my back, mouth open, exhaling until it feels like I'm emptying my soul.
I fall to one knee, coughing violently.
Grey sludge spatters the dirt.
Good.
Let it out.
Let all of it burn.
By nightfall, I've written half a page.
Simple drawings.
Phrases etched in broken wood.
A new doctrine: not of submission—but of reclamation.
"Breathe not to consume. Breathe to cleanse."
"The ash will not define you."
"Pain is the passage. Silence is not surrender."
I sit beside the broken planter box, the soil still untouched since the night I buried the potatoes.
No sprouts. No sign of life.
Still, I watch it.
Because watching is hope.
Tomorrow, I will train again.
I will exhale.
I will refuse the ash.
Not because I know it will work.
But because the man I used to be would want me to try.
And that—
That is reason enough.