***
{Outside The Projection}
There was a pause, just long enough for everyone to process what they had seen. What they had heard.
Then, a flood of voices surged:
“Oh, fuck me! I forgot he saw things like that.”
“Right?! I got so caught up in all that happened I didn’t even—damn!”
“Man, that’s actually really fucking messed up.”
“It’s a damn nightmare.”
“Seriously… I can’t imagine living like that.”
“No wonder he’s such a grouch all the time. I’d be too if I had to deal with that.”
“I kind of feel bad.”
“Kind of? This’s arguably the most tragic thing that happened to him.”
“Heh~ and that’s saying something.”
“Like, only Black was black—damn. That hit.”
“Not going to lie, though, I was too busy laughing at Black bullying him. The way that owl judges him harder than God—”
“Brother, the ‘SOUND OF JUDGEMENT?!’ Ahahaha! I lost it.”
“I love this big bastard.”
“Same.”
“Wait, wait, wait—we’re glossing over the real crime here. The disrespect to him.”
“That’s a fact. Crimson, or well, Black, is carrying the whole emotional support role and still hasn’t gotten a proper name.”
“And somehow, Lady Huda’s even worse.”
They all turned, instinctively, to the girl in question.
Who, to no one’s surprise, was perched atop Crimson, relaxing like she wasn’t the very reason for half the nonsense they had to deal with.
Right now, she still felt her brother’s pain, but it was nothing compared to what she’d felt before. So she could easily manage, as could Crimson.
It was just that incomparable.
Especially not to that…
…
…
Most of the crowd glanced at her, now being reminded of where she had gotten her trash naming sense from.
Crimson hooted once. Then again, sharper. Then one last time, filled with the burden of knowing his fate.
“Oh, don’t hoot at me like that.”
Huda laughed, reaching out to scratch his head.
“You like your name. It suits you.”
Crimson ruffled his feathers dramatically, turning his head away in pure disappointment.
“Traitor.”
She whispered playfully while ruffling his feathers.
Another hoot—long, suffering.
“Oh, come on, you’re not the only one with a bad name. Big Brother did me dirty too.”
Crimson stared at her for a long moment before hooting once.
Huda grinned.
“I win.”
***
{Inside The Projection}
Malik reached into his pouch, fingers brushing over the rough edges of a few silvers before fishing them out.
He flicked them toward Faqir, who caught them with ease, the coins landing perfectly in his palm.
The soft clink barely stood out against the murmur of the crowd.
“That’s for the sermon and for a bit extra.”
“Which is?”
“Tell me about yourself. Your life.”
Malik tilted his head slightly.
“You’ve got some words in you. I want to hear more.”
After pocketing the coins, Faqir’s smile took a different stance.
A stance that had too much known in it.
“People like us… we’re just grains of sand stuck in the cracks of cobblestone. Nobody sees us, nobody cares—we’re just there. And when the wind blows? We don’t stand a chance. We scatter, we drift, maybe even soar for a second… but we always fall. Hell, sometimes we don’t even need the wind. We just fall on our own.”
Malik took in the words he paid for, nodding his head.
“So? Before this?”
Faqir continued, not caring for his constant urging:
“I was a glass miner. Worked at one of the towering shards just east of here. Good life. Hard, but good. Then the rebels came, took the mines. Said they were ‘liberating’ us… They killed the fucker we called king. Heh~ you ever been liberated, brother?”
He spat to the side.
“Funny thing about that. The ones who ‘free’ you always make sure they’re the ones in charge afterward.”
Malik listened, his golden eyes almost sparking with interest.
“The mines, the work, the food, the homes. They took everything. Every damn village. If you weren’t with them, you were against them. Simple as that. And people like me?”
He gestured to the others around them, a few still listening.
“We didn’t have a side. We just wanted to work. Feed our families. Live.”
One of the ‘others,’ an older woman wrapped in layers of cloth, grunted.
“And what did they call us, Faqir? ‘Collateral damage.’ That’s what they called us.”
A younger man sitting on an overturned crate scoffed.
“Yeah, and when they weren’t calling us that, they were calling us ‘necessary sacrifices.'”
Faqir shook his head.
“Necessary to who? That’s what I’d like to know.”
He turned back to Malik.
“Have you been here before? Do you know how it used to be?”
Malik shook his head.
“No, never left my hometown before this.”
An older man exhaled through his nose.
“I remember the old rule.”
“Then you must know.”
Faqir’s eyes turned to him, dark with something between anger and exhaustion.
“That bastard was no saint, but at least under him, people ate. Worked. Lived.”
He ran a hand over his graying hair.
“Way back then, we thought the rebels would bring something better. We were stupid. So fucking stupid.”
Malik raised a brow.
“Is it really that different?”
Faqir raised his hand, two fingers wiggling slightly, an invitation.
“You know what? I won’t just tell you; I’ll do you one better.”
Malik blinked.
“Huh? What are you on about?”
“Give me your hand.”
Now that was an odd request.
Malik frowned, glancing at Faqir’s palm—lined, worn, calloused by time and toil.
Something about it felt… off. But curiosity had a way of getting the better of him, so he shrugged, extended his own hand, and clasped it.
The moment their hands met, he felt something…
He felt something requesting access to his mind.
Malik didn’t know how that made sense exactly, but instinctively, he understood it.
As soon as he had accepted the ‘request,’ his world shattered.
White. Pure, unfiltered white swallowed everything.
No sound. No weight. No time.
Malik tried to move, but his body wasn’t there.
He tried to speak, but there was no voice.
Only whiteness, stretching endlessly in every direction, filling his mind, drowning his thoughts.
Then…
A ripple.
Color bled into the nothingness, shapes forming from the white void.
A city. Old, but not in the way ruins were old—this was a city in its prime, bustling, alive.
It was familiar. Very much so.
Streets stretched in every direction, people moving like waves, voices overlapping into a sea of noise. The scent of burning wood filled the air, thick and real.
Malik found himself standing in the midst of it all, fully formed again.
His fingers flexed instinctively, testing if he was whole.
He was. But something was different.
This wasn’t his body.
He was weak.
The hands he looked at were not his own.
The weight on his shoulders, the length of his stride, even the way his chest rose and fell—it was all different.
He wasn’t himself anymore.
And then, he heard it.
“Faqir!”