The Church of Forgotten Children

The old chapel at the back of One Universe had no roof, only sky.

What remained of its ceiling hung in warped fragments—beams bitten through by rot, charred splinters blackened by an old fire. Wind moved freely there, brushing along the weather-eaten pews like fingers searching for a prayer that had long since fled. Aster sat on one of those splintered benches, one leg pulled to his chest, the other dangling just above the cracked stone floor. Dust danced around his face. He did not blink.

Elian knelt beside the altar, poking through the offerings left behind by children braver or more desperate than them. A ribbon here, a smoothed stone there. Someone had left half a carved figurine—a bird, maybe, but the wings were broken. Elian picked it up with reverence.

“Do you think any of it worked?” Elian asked, voice soft, eyes not leaving the bird.

Aster didn’t answer right away. His gaze was locked on the far window where stained glass once lived. Only one jagged fragment remained, still clinging to a corner of the arch like a claw. The light through it stained the floor red.

“I don’t think it mattered,” he said at last.

Elian turned toward him. “You’re doing that thing again.”

“What thing?”

“Where you say something like you’re dead already.”

Aster looked at his twin then, slowly, as though surfacing from a deeper place. They looked almost identical—same pale hair, same narrow frame—but where Elian carried softness in his eyes, Aster’s gaze was glass. Watching, always.

“I’m not dead,” he said. “Not yet.”

Elian stood and walked to him. He dropped the broken bird in Aster’s lap. “Then take this. If it’s cursed, it’ll like you.”

Aster touched the figurine. Cold. The carved wings—snapped. It had no eyes. It looked like a relic from a place meant to forget what flying was.

Elian flopped down beside him, pulling his knees to his chest. The tattered hem of his shirt revealed a thin bruise beneath his ribs, but he didn’t try to hide it. They both knew the matron struck harder when she was preparing to say goodbye.

“She said someone’s coming today,” Elian muttered.

“I know.”

“You saw it?”

“No,” Aster said. “I just know.”

Elian was quiet a long time. Outside, wind clawed through the chapel and made the broken beams creak above them. The building always sounded like it wanted to fall, but never did. Aster often wondered if it was waiting for something.

Then, it hit him.

A sound not outside, but inside—like a sharp pull behind the eyes, a cold thread threading through his brain like a needle. Aster jerked upright, eyes wide, shoulders stiff.

“Aster?” Elian leaned in. “What is it?”

His mouth opened—but he didn’t speak.

The vision came fast, and it came hot. Fire—no, not real fire—light, orange and flickering and too close. Chains rattled. Screaming. A body—Elian’s body—his—on the floor, back arched unnaturally, hands reaching for someone just out of frame. Blood. Something shattered. Then another scream—lower, choked with rage. Someone holding a knife, someone familiar. Something ending.

Aster gasped. His head snapped back like he’d been slapped. Elian caught him before he hit the bench.

“Aster! Aster, what the hell?!”

He blinked hard, the chapel returning piece by piece like breath after drowning. His fingers clutched the broken bird until its beak dug into his palm. It didn’t draw blood, but it wanted to.

“I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re not fine—you do this and then you say you’re fine. What did you see?”

“Nothing.”

Elian’s face twisted. “Don’t do that.”

“I said nothing, Elian.”

Aster stood. His knees ached. The chapel spun once and stilled.

Behind them, the orphanage bell rang. Once. Cold and final.

Elian flinched.

“They’re here,” Aster said.

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