Sightless had transmigrated many times before.
Each time, a new illusion. A new body.
Always the same: pale. Weak.
Twenty-one, with dull eyes—eyes that saw only what others did not.
But Lyne…
She was different.
Born of primordial celestial blood.
Her true form remained steadfast, unchanged by the realms.
When she crossed worlds, she called upon her skill. She did not surrender to the illusion.
---
She approached him quietly.
Her footsteps left no mark in the snow.
"Sightless…" Her voice was gentle, but carrying the weight of many questions.
"What is it you must do in the Illusionary World?"
---
He exhaled softly, the breath seeming to disappear before it could even be seen.
"Do you know what my work is?" His voice held a layer of heaviness. Like a weight he carried without ever acknowledging.
---
She stood still for a moment, her eyes clouded with thought.
"I think so," she murmured. "The Illusionary World… it's different for everyone, isn't it? Some climb mountains, others run from them."
---
Sightless looked ahead, his gaze lost in the endless white.
He nodded slowly, barely aware of her. "I'm a poet.
The path I walk is a harsh one.
I must witness the peak of the Forgotten Mount—and record it."
---
"I will climb that mountain with you," Lyne said. There was no hesitation. Only certainty.
---
Together, they approached the mountain's piedmont.
Snow fell thick and slow, each flake a quiet whisper in the cold.
No matter how far they walked, the towering face of the mountain never drew closer.
Its peak, obscured by the pallid sky, loomed—unreachable.
---
Sightless took his first step onto the mountain.
An ordinary mountain this was not.
It breathed cold secrets—silent and unmoving.
---
They circled its base, but the path was never clear.
And then—through the blizzard's dance—
a dark figure emerged. His outline blurred against the swirling white.
---
Lyne stepped forward. "Hello! Do you know how to climb this mountain?"
---
The figure held a candle—its flame flickering an unnatural blue in the frozen air.
He seemed human, yet… hollow, as if shaped from ice itself.
---
"You who step foot on the mount," he whispered, his voice a crackling echo, like ice breaking in winter's grasp,
"Shall be forgotten."
---
Then, as quickly as he appeared, the candle went out.
The figure dissolved into the cold silence, swallowed whole by the endless snow.
Not even footprints remained.
---
For a long time, neither spoke.
The wind howled. The silence grew heavy with unspoken weight.
---
Lyne's voice broke the stillness, softer now, uncertain.
"Was he… real?"
---
Sightless didn't answer immediately.
Instead, he looked up at the mountain once more—its peak still hidden, unreachable.
"Everything is forgotten here," he said quietly. "Even the ones who try to remember."
---
With that, they continued to climb, but the weight of the words—forgotten—lingered, the air thick with something unsaid, something buried deep beneath the snow.