NOT ALIVE. NOT DEAD. SOMETHING IN BETWEEN.
Silas Rourke sits in a cell, locked away for crimes the records don’t name. What’s left of his life sits in a battered storage crate, gathering dust. Letters stained in blood. A creased photograph. A pistol that saw more rust than use.
Why not take a look? No one’s watching. No one’s stopping you.
Photograph of Ellie Winters and Silas Rourke
A worn, creased photo of a young woman, taken before Silas left. There's a look in her eyes—something between sadness and inevitability. There's a letter here.
I told myself I joined for the right reasons—duty, honor, a future. But if I’m being honest, I was running. From the long nights, from the fights, from the look in Ellie’s eyes when she realized I’d already made up my mind. The GDRD promised purpose, a clean break. Instead, I traded one kind of fear for another. Orders that sent good men into the dark, knowing what waited there. The Kleining don’t flinch, don’t hesitate. They don’t regret. I wish I could say the same.
Bloodied Letter.
Found among Silas Rourke’s old belongings, this letter was never sent. The paper is torn, the ink smudged, but the words remain. Frantic, desperate. It belonged to someone on the Line..
I hear it. I don’t hear it. That’s the problem. A thing that big should make a sound; footsteps, breath, anything. But it doesn’t. Haven't you noticed the fog comes when its nearby? Then the dreams come. I swear I haven’t slept, but I keep waking up.
I saw its face. A human face. That’s the worst part. Empty eyes staring through me like I’m already gone. And the hair—long, black, I see stars trapped inside it, little pinpricks of light swallowed up in something vast.
I’m not making it through the night. I know that now. It’s close, and I can’t move, can’t breathe. There’s nothing left to do but write. Maybe someone will find this. Maybe you will. Maybe it’s-- [the letter is too bloody to read]
Standard Issue Service Pistol
A regulation GDRD sidearm, cold and unremarkable. Fires a small-caliber round, just enough to make noise. The kind of thing officers carry but rarely fire. Most soldiers won’t even see one outside a requisition ledger. By the end of their first day, most will be fighting with whatever’s left in their hands. A broken rifle. A rusted spade. A rock, if they’re lucky.
Propaganda Leaflet
Found among Silas Rourke’s belongings, this leaflet is one of thousands distributed to keep morale high. The edges are worn, the ink smudged, but the message is clear: The GDRD Keeps You Safe. Someone—maybe Silas, maybe not—has scrawled over it in red. Something is written on the back.
They handed these out like rations. Slipped them under doors. Plastered them across barracks walls, pinned them to message boards, folded them into kits for the new recruits.
I used to believe it. Used to think those words meant something. That safety was something you could hold, something the uniform would grant you. But I’ve seen men torn apart in the fog. I’ve seen entire units scrubbed from the records, their families told they never existed. I’ve heard the Kleining whisper my name in dreams I don’t remember.
They told us to hold the Line. They told us we were winning. They told us the enemy was afraid.
They lied.
A Stone of Concentration
A relic from a different time, when the Arcane Artists still walked among us. Supposedly, these pendants helped them focus, drawing power from the unseen threads of the universe. This one is cracked. Whatever energy it once held is gone, lost with the last of those who knew how to wield it. Now, it’s just another dead thing in a dying world.
Strange Device
Found half-buried in the sand, crusted with salt and time. Smooth glass on one side, strange metal on the other. Cracked, lifeless. It fits in the palm like it was meant to be held, but there are no markings, no mechanisms, nothing to say what it does—or what it once did. Silas Rourke kept it, turning it over in his hands on long nights, wondering who lost it, where it came from, and why it feels like a relic from a world that was never his.
You know better than to mess with something like this.
The Welcome Stranger Coaster
You could lose a whole night in that place and wake up with nothing but a headache and a lighter purse. Eir had a thousand bars, but only one that felt like home, even to the worst of us. You could sit shoulder to shoulder with deserters, smugglers, even an off-duty officer or two, and no one asked questions. Not unless you wanted to answer them.
I kept this coaster. Don’t know why. Maybe to remind myself there was a time before the war. Before the Line. Before I knew the shape of the things that hunt us.
Or maybe I just liked the whiskey.
Military Requisition Forms
Yellowed with age, stamped and re-stamped. The handwriting grows more frantic in the margins.
Requested: 100 rifles, 50,000 rounds, 12 crates of rations, 4 tents.
Received: 9 rifles (damaged), 1,200 rounds (mixed calibers, unusable), 6 boxes of moldy biscuits, 1 crate of blank forms.
Final Note: If this is the best we can do, tell the men to start digging graves instead.
Missing Person's Report
Standard issue, printed on thin, government-grade paper. The name: Elizabeth Badem. The date? Too smudged to read. Below, a grainy, low-quality image: a woman with sharp eyes and a knowing smile. The kind of face that makes you feel like you’ve met her before, even if you haven’t.
The report is brief, clinical:
Last Seen: The city of Eir.
Description: 5’6”, brown hair, light complexion. Wore a dark coat.
Distinguishing Features: A scar above the left eyebrow.
Additional Notes: Subject was reported missing under unusual circumstances. No witnesses. Mother insists on investigation. All investigations are blocked by higher. This goes beyond any of our pay grades.
At the bottom, a signature and a closing remark:
Case Status: Closed. No Further Action Required.
Someone—Silas, maybe—has underlined the last words in red.
The Legionnaire's Vow
Silas Rourke found this dusty old book on some island. Its spine is cracked from years of handling and many of the pages are missing. Most are illegible, but the final page has a space where each soldier inscribes their vow.
The oath is signed in dried blood. But in the space where the Legionnaire should write their name, there is only a single word:
"NO."
