It was nearly dusk when the stranger arrived.
Not through the south trail or the broken bridge.
He simply appeared.
Not magical.
Not dramatic.
Just… present.
Wrapped in a long scarf. No satchel. No badge. No companion. Only a piece of paper clutched in both hands.
Kael saw him from the hill and walked down slowly, Echo beside him. The man didn't move until they were only a few steps apart.
Then, he raised the paper.
On it, in dark, deliberate handwriting, one word:
Why?
Kael didn't answer right away.
He looked at the man's eyes — not demanding, not lost. Just heavy. Like the word had taken years to carry here.
Echo padded forward and sat between them, her tail curled gently around her paws.
Kael nodded once.
"Come sit," he said.
They walked in silence to the fire.
Tama and Sera paused their sketchwork and gave quiet nods of welcome.
The man sat slowly.
Kael took the paper, folded it once, and placed it on a stone.
Then he said:
"You're not asking what happened."
The man shook his head.
"Or how."
Another shake.
Kael leaned back.
"You're asking why it was allowed."
The fire crackled.
Echo shifted beside him.
Kael looked into the flame.
Then answered:
"Because if it hadn't been, we wouldn't be here."
"We wouldn't have asked. We wouldn't have walked. We wouldn't have found each other."
He looked back at the man.
"Not to justify it."
"But to give it somewhere to go."
The man said nothing.
Just stared at the fire.
Then, softly:
"I lost someone to the part of the world that doesn't speak back."
Kael nodded.
"I lost myself to it, once."
Tama whispered, "We all did."
Kael reached into his satchel and pulled out the blank book.
He opened to a new page.
And turned it toward the man.
"Write her name," Kael said.
The man hesitated.
Then took the pencil.
And wrote:
Ilia.
Nothing shimmered.
Nothing cracked.
But the fire bent slightly toward the page.
Kael smiled.
"She's part of the story now."
The man looked up, eyes wet.
"You mean memory?"
Kael shook his head.
"No."
"The story."
Sera brought a small stone from the archive.
She handed it to the man.
"This one hums," she said. "Not loudly. But enough that you'll remember she existed, even when you forget the shape of her face."
The man took the stone.
Held it close.
Then asked again:
"Why did I survive?"
The question settled differently this time.
Not bitter.
Just bare.
Kael breathed in slowly.
"Because someone had to carry the story to us."
Tama added, "Because endings need witnesses."
Echo looked at the man.
And said:
"Because the ones who don't survive still want someone to stand where they can't."
The man stayed by the fire for hours.
He said little.
But when he left, he pressed the stone into the center of the archive and whispered:
"Thank you."
Kael didn't ask if it was for them.
Because it wasn't.
It was for her.
That night, Kael sat at the top of the hill while the others slept.
He opened Galen's journal again.
And found something he hadn't seen before — a folded scrap, tucked into the binding near the front.
He opened it.
A single sentence in Galen's writing:
"The question isn't what we remember. It's who gets to rest in it."
Kael read it twice.
Then looked at the field below — trails glowing faintly under moonlight.
A world made of chosen memory.
A place that didn't erase pain.
Just gave it company.
He wrote in his own journal:
Tonight someone brought a question.
Not for an answer.
But for a place it could live without unraveling them.
He paused.
Then added:
We are that place now.