Time passed strangely. Kael became dimly aware of voices eventually. They were not heard through his ears but drifted softly through the dark emptiness surrounding his thoughts.
“…another one of his fits…”
“…Elara can deal with him…”
“...Red panties... seriously? Blue should be much better...”
The words floated by without pain attached to them. Kael could not remember ever hearing voices that did not hurt. Even unconscious, part of him waited for the usual assault to begin. He waited for reality to shatter itself into unbearable detail again.
It never came. Blue text flickered gently within the darkness.
Kael stared blankly into the void of his own mind. Or perhaps he merely felt himself staring. His body seemed impossibly far away now, distant and irrelevant. He felt light. Not energetic. Not healed. He just felt like he was no longer drowning.
Suddenly, the weightless peace vanished. Kael felt a violent, abrupt pull on his side, as if an invisible hook had snagged his ribs and yanked him backward through the dark. The void collapsed. The silence was replaced by the sudden, heavy pressure of gravity and the texture of cold marble against his cheek.
Kael was forced awake.
He gasped, his eyes snapping open as his consciousness slammed back into his physical form. He didn't twitch. He didn't thrash. He simply lay there, staring at the dust motes beneath the desk with a clarity that felt like a cold shower.
Warmth reached him first. Kael surfaced from unconsciousness slowly. He drifted upward through layers of deep, dreamless silence. Usually, waking felt like being dragged through broken glass. Light became knives. Sound became violence.
But now, nothing attacked him.
His body felt heavy beneath thick blankets. Soft fabric rested against his skin without causing revulsion. Nearby, wood crackled gently in a fireplace. It was just a fireplace. It was not an explosion of layered frequencies.
It was just a sound.
Kael’s eyes opened. He stared upward at the canopy above his bed and froze. The silence remained. The world still lived around him with small noises, but they no longer tore through him like starving animals. They arrived in order now.
Kael swallowed hard. His throat tightened with emotion.
He had slept.
He actually slept.
There were no fragmented nightmares or violent awakenings.
Movement near the bed snapped him from the thought. Kael turned his head slowly, and for the first time, he didn't recoil at the sight of the spirits.
The Valor, the Northern Ghost stood closest, his spectral armor flickering. Beside him was Dr. Chloe, the mage ghost; she was adjusting a hovering slab of light that looked like a glowing glass tablet, her eyes analytical as if reading a chart. In the corner, the Murim martial artist, the man wearing an elegant, flowing dress that seemed far too delicate for a warrior, stood in a perfect, silent stance, his hands tucked into his sleeves.
All three were staring at Kael with identical expressions of concern.
The Northern Ghost narrowed his eyes. “You stopped vibrating.”
“…What?” Kael’s voice was a rasp.
The Murim ghost in the dress drifted nearer, his movements fluid and weightless. “The chaotic Qi that used to scream around him has settled into a stagnant pool,” he whispered.
The mage ghost tapped her slab of light, the glow reflecting off her translucent face. “The epidermal tremors have subsided considerably,” she remarked, her tone clinical yet relieved. “He's doing better... I think?”
Normally, their overlapping voices would have been piercing agony. Now, Kael could distinguish the warrior’s gravel from the doctor’s precision and the martial artist’s lilt.
Kael snorted before he could stop himself. The ghosts recoiled.
“He laughed,” the martial artist whispered, his hand going to the hilt of a spectral sword hidden in his skirts.
“Little mouse,” the Northern Ghost said carefully, “what happened to you?”
Kael opened his mouth, then stopped. For years, they had watched him scream in silence. They had been the audience to a tragedy they couldn't influence. Now, the barrier was gone.
"I can hear you," Kael said. It was the first time he had ever spoken directly to them without a fit of hysteria. "I can hear all of you. Clearly."
Dr. Chloe froze, her light-slab flickering. The Murim warrior’s eyes widened, his calm stance faltering for a split second. The Northern Ghost let out a breath that sounded like a winter gale.
"You speak to us?" the warrior asked. "Truly?"
"Yes," Kael said, his eyes moving from the doctor to the warrior. "I think... I think my mind finally stopped trying to kill me."
The room fell into a heavy, stunned silence. The dead were speechless. The bedroom door slammed open.
“Elara incoming,” the Northern Ghost announced, his voice regaining its gruff edge. Dr. Chloe deactivated her light slab with a flick of her wrist, and the Murim warrior glided back into the shadows of the wardrobe.
Elara burst into the room carrying a tray overloaded with medicine bottles and an entire loaf of bread. Her eyes locked onto Kael and widened.
“My Lord!”
She crouched beside him, breathless. Her hands hovered near his shoulders, trembling.
“You collapsed. You fell over and wouldn’t wake up and—”
She stopped.
Kael was looking directly at her.
“Elara,” he said softly.
She inhaled sharply.
His voice wasn't fragmented.
His gaze remained steady.
“My lord?” she whispered in shock.
Kael blinked. Then, slowly and carefully, he smiled.