For a moment, no one moved.
The quiet between them stretched, heavy and trembling. A bird chirped somewhere far off, absurdly out of place in the weight of the moment.
Lucas stared at Eryx like someone trying to recognize a stranger in a mirror. "I'm sorry… what?" he repeated, slower this time.
Eryx didn't answer.
He couldn't.
His throat felt like it had closed up entirely. The image of Lucas, alive, standing there, real, warred with the memory of a casket, the sound of dirt hitting the lid, the echoing silence that followed the funeral.
Lunara watched the cracks forming in real time. Not just on Eryx's face, but in the air between the three of them. Something had broken. Or maybe something buried had clawed its way back to the surface.
Lucas rubbed the back of his neck, clearly uncomfortable. "Look, I didn't mean to cause any trouble. I just came to grab a key. That's all. I don't know what this is about, but… I think maybe you've mistaken me for someone else?"
Mistaken?
