The shadows whispered his deepest fears-failure, loss, regret-each word curling into his thoughts like poison. Faces formed in the mist: friends he had lost, companio

as drifting snow. Instinct drove him forward. He chased it through tangled roots and collapsing paths, leaping fallen logs and weaving between twisted trunks. His lu

l gazed into it, he saw not his reflection, but fragments of his life-past mistakes, present st

his mind. One fi

eathing. He had faced monsters, memories