At the jolt of the train coming to a halt, the oil lamp inside the carriage gave a faint, thin hum.
The doors slid open. Upon the stark white platform, glyphs were raining down.
They weren't scraps of paper. The glyphs themselves were descending like rain. Shifting their forms the moment they were touched, they piled up around their feet.
“A flood of names…”
Kuon murmured. In the margins of his ledger, the same words surfaced and dissolved.
Koyoi stepped onto the platform. Tiny glyphs were flowing into the crevices of the cobblestones. Half of them were legible; the other half were not.
There was a sound that resembled her mother’s name. There was even the name of the old well in her village. Her heart gave a start.
In the next instant, they crumbled into different glyphs.
“Don’t pick them up.”
Asahi caught Koyoi by the wrist.
“If you take them now, you won't be able to let them go later.”
Koyoi nodded, keeping her fist clenched. Inside her drawstring pouch, the Shizuku—the droplet—pulsed rapidly. It was growing warm.
Kuon knelt and pressed his fingertips to the cobblestones. A pale blue light seeped into the crevices, visualizing the direction of the flow.
“It looks like they’re falling from above, but they’re actually being sucked up from below. The core is filtering the names.”
“Filtering them where?”
“I don’t know yet. But the leftover names will destroy the town.”
A breeze blew. The rain of glyphs swirled, shifting its course only around the three of them. A single glyph brushed against Koyoi's shoulder and vanished, leaving a trace of heat behind.
She couldn't read it. Yet for a fleeting second, someone else’s memory flickered deep within her chest.
A sob. A light. The scent of damp wood.
Koyoi exhaled. Even when she resolved not to take them in, they still seeped in.
“Where’s the exit?” Asahi asked.
Kuon pointed further down the tracks. In the distance, three lanterns stood in a vertical line, their lights blinking rhythmically.
“We need to reach those lights before the flow of names overwhelms us.”
The three of them broke into a run. Glyphs bounced beneath their feet, clinging to their heels. To try and read them was to be slowed down; to ignore them was the only way through.
Koyoi focused solely on the Shizuku’s beat. Its steady pulse sliced through the roar of the flood.
The lanterns drew closer. Behind them, the accumulated names had formed small mounds that were beginning to collapse in on themselves.
When they reached the flashing lanterns, they found an old slip of paper pasted behind a stone pillar.
Take no names back with you. Take only your breath.
It wasn’t elegant calligraphy. They were thick, hurried strokes.
Koyoi didn’t peel the slip off; she committed it to memory right there. She felt those words belonged to this place.
Asahi gave a panting laugh. “Someone else passed through here once, too.”
Kuon nodded. “Even in different sectors, the traps follow similar patterns. The words left behind become weapons for the next traveler.”
Koyoi looked back just once. The flood of glyphs was still raging, but a sentence had been left there to ensure no one would be swallowed by it.
Just before leaping back onto the train, Koyoi stared at the lingering warmth of that single glyph in her palm. The glyph she couldn't read had already lost its form.
And yet, the heat didn't fade for some time. Even if she didn't bring the name back, her body remembered the weight of having passed through it.