IX. An Unraveling

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He didn’t remember falling asleep.

 

He only remembered waking.

 

The stone was still on the table. 

The keys, untouched. 

 

The room exactly as it had been. 

 

Except he wasn’t alone.

 

Yama sat in the corner, legs crossed, back straight as a blade. 

His hands rested lightly on his knees, and he was watching Nico—not intensely, but patiently, 

like someone observing a fire take hold.

 

“You dream,” Yama said, 

“but not like most people. 

 

You don’t confuse it for something else. 

 

That’s rare.”

 

Nico rubbed his eyes. 

“Were you here all night?”

 

“I’m always here. Just not always seen.”

 

Yama stood and walked toward the table. 

 

He didn’t sit. Just looked down at the stone.

 

“You’re still holding on,” he said.

 

“To what?”

 

Yama looked up. 

“To yourself.”

 

He said it so plainly, it didn’t even feel like an accusation.

 

“Who do you think you are?” he asked.

 

Nico said nothing.

 

Yama tilted his head.

 

“Go on. Give me the story. 

The stitched-together thread you’ve been taught to call ‘me.’ 

 

I want to hear it.”

 

Nico’s jaw tightened. 

“I’m no one special.”

 

“Good start,” Yama said. 

“Now strip away your name. 

Your birthplace. 

Your memories. 

 

Take off each layer like clothing you forgot you were wearing. 

 

What’s left?”

 

Nico frowned.

 

“Nothing?” he offered.

 

Yama’s eyes lit, faintly. 

“Almost.”

 

He picked up the stone and rolled it between his palms.

 

“You think the self is made of memory. 

Of pain. 

Of choices. 

 

But those are just echoes. 

 

You are not the echo. 

You are not even the voice.”

 

He set the stone back down with care.

 

“You are the space it passes through.”

 

Nico shifted in his seat. 

“Then what dies?”

 

Yama smiled. 

“What dies is what never truly lived. 

 

The story. 

The mask. 

The puppet made of past and preference.”

 

“And what doesn’t?”

 

Yama stepped closer.

 

“The seer.”

 

They stood in silence.

 

Yama’s voice lowered.

 

“You’ve spent your whole life polishing the mirror. 

But you’ve never asked what’s looking through it.”

 

Nico looked away.

 

Everything in him wanted to argue. 

To hold onto something—anything—that proved he was solid, real, intact.

 

He thought of his father. 

His mother. 

The girl in the church. 

 

He thought of the street he grew up on. 

The sound of dogs at night. 

The warmth of his grandmother’s bread. 

 

He wanted to say, That’s me. That’s who I am. 

 

But the moment he reached for it, it slipped.

 

Like smoke.

 

Like a dream.

 

“You’ve done well to resist,” Yama said. 

“Most want comfort. Some want control. 

 

But very few want truth.”

 

“Why?”

 

Yama’s eyes darkened, just a shade.

 

“Because truth costs everything that isn’t real.”

 

He returned to the corner.

Sat cross-legged again.

 

“You’re not being tested anymore,” he said. 

“This isn’t a trial.”

 

“Then what is it?”

 

Yama looked at him.

 

“This is the remembering.”

 

Nico didn’t ask what it meant. 

 

He knew, in a way that bypassed language, 

that he had always known, 

 

That every unease, 

every longing, 

every question—

 

had been the pull of that remembering.

 

He exhaled. 

Long and slow. 

 

And the room, for the first time, felt spacious.

 

“You still have one more night,” Yama said.

 

“One more for what?”

 

“To die properly.”

 

He stood and walked to the door.

 

Paused.

 

Then turned back.

 

“When you wake,” he said, 

“you won’t be you.”

 

He opened the door. 

 

And this time, when he left, 

the room didn’t feel smaller.

 

It felt hollowed.

 

Like something had been carved out.

Something that had never belonged.

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Continue to Part X: The Last Night

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