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The brush still trembled in my hand, even if there was no canvas in sight. Another match, another morning, another possible series of humiliations carved into my memory. Yesterday, the Hunter had torn through the rest of us like waterlogged paper. I could still hear the laughter, sharp and mocking, echoing through the halls of the game.
I refused to let today be the same.
The moment the match began, I hurried to the nearest cipher machine, setting down my paints with practiced motion. My hands worked quickly, each press of the key a rhythm, almost like I was composing a piece of art through motion rather than color. My mind wandered, as it always did, to brushstrokes, textures, and the Manor itself.
And then-
music.
A thin, long, and piping melody, cutting through the static hum of the cipher. High and shrill, yet not unkind. Notes tumbling over each other, playful, insistent, weaving around my thoughts until I grit my teeth.
“Really?” I muttered under my breath, pressing on with the decoding. “As if matches couldn't get more annoying." The silence was more bearable than this unnerving music.
But the strange thing was the machine’s pace quickened beneath my hands. My fingers seemed to fly with unnatural ease, the chimes driving me forward, until the final click resounded far sooner than it should have. I stared at the cipher, bewildered.
Finished already?
The music still trailed after me as I ran, searching for Florian. I’d seen him dart toward the graveyard earlier as he was kiting the hunter. My steps echoed faintly, along with an airy tune.
I rounded a corner
.
.
.
and nearly collided with someone.
Not Florian. Nor Matthias.
A stranger.
He stood there clutching a small flute–no, a piccolo, half-hidden in his hands. His clothes were plain, his eyes bright with a nervous kind of warmth. He looked nothing like the people I knew.
Nothing like who’s supposed to be in this match with us.
Nothing like Mr.Orpheus.
None of the calculated smirks, none of the deliberate polish. Just…like someone who had stumbled in from another world entirely.
I froze, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.
“…Who are you supposed to be?”
———
???
The piccolo was warm in my grip, the wood worn smooth from years of use. I hadn’t meant to play it so loudly, but the melody had slipped out before I could stop myself. It always did, when I was nervous.
And I was nervous now.
The man in front of me.
sharp-eyed, paint smudges on his sleeves, staring at me as if I were some counterfeit, clearly expecting someone else. That was fine. But the weight of his gaze still pressed heavy on my shoulders.
So I smiled, awkward and polite. “Ah–! H-hello. Sorry if it was too loud.” My fingers tightened around the piccolo. “I was only trying to help…”
———
Help? The word snagged in my mind. Mr.Orpheus never stammered. And he certainly never carried a piccolo. this boy seems..too young.
The figure before me looked like him. Or at least some softer sketch of him, unfinished and lacking the sharp lines the other has grown accustomed to. His voice was light, uncertain, almost… playful. There was no edge to it, no hidden layer of meaning to unravel.
For a moment, I simply stared.
“…You’re not him.”
The boy tilted his head at me, almost like a child caught in mischief. His smile didn’t fade, but it didn’t reach his eyes either.
“I'm August. August blanche.” he said softly.
The name rang hollow in my ears, like a brushstroke of the wrong color ruining a canvas. Not-Orpheus. A stranger wearing the shape of someone I knew.
And yet, the melody still lingered in the halls around us, making the cipher machines hum just a little quicker.
—
The final cipher churned beneath my hands, the piccolo’s melody weaving through its gears. And then, soft footsteps , not hurried, not afraid, but measured and deliberate.
Matthias.
He shuffled forward with a tilt, eyes catching the afternoon lights. His gaze flicked past me, straight to August. For a heartbeat he said nothing, only watching, his fingers twitching lightly as if testing invisible strings.
Then, softly, almost with curiosity,
“…You are not Mr. Orpheus.”
August stiffened, piccolo clutched like a talisman. “I’m–,” he said, voice small, almost swallowed by the Manor’s walls.
Matthias’s gaze locked onto August, his whole body stiffening like a marionette caught mid-step.
Matthias muttered under his breath, words slurred and uneven. “No…,. Just another… plan of the manor. Another–” He stopped himself, voice catching, as though the thought itself had teeth.
“Will everyone gets a turn?,” Matthias whispered finally, tone sour and uneven. “ It's always better. Always… brighter.” He half-choked on a laugh, but it came out brittle, almost painful.
August, confused, said nothing and only clutched his piccolo tighter.
The cipher clicked open beneath my hands, but I hardly noticed until the lights went up.
We tied that match.
…perhaps some of it was my fault. I suppose I should've focused more.
—
Florian stumbled into the halls a few moments later, brushing ash from his sleeve as if he’d really just walked out of a blaze. His bandaged face made it hard to read his expression, but the exaggerated sigh told me enough.
“Alright, I’ve got to ask,” he said, voice muffled but carrying a touch of theatrical despair. “Who popped the cipher early? I had it all lined up–hunter on me, I was in a good kiting spot too, Instead…” He flopped his arms like a disappointed stage actor. “Flat on the floor. Dreadful timing.”
I shrank back, guilt coiling in my stomach, but before I could speak, Florian’s head cocked to the side. His visible eye blinked.
“Uh… wait a minute.” He pointed toward August, tilting his head like someone who’d just spotted smoke where it shouldn’t be. “Who’s that supposed to be? ’s definitely not Sir Orpheus!, unless he went and shaved at least 8 years off and picked up a flute for a hobby.”
August shifted uncomfortably under the sudden attention, the instrument pressed to his chest.
“It's a piccolo, not a flute Mr…uh..”
“Florian's my name!, Florian brand.” He smiled at the Not-Orpheus.
“Right…” was his only answer.
The silence thickened. Matthias seethed faintly, head tilting toward August. My brush wavered in my grip.
Florian, apparently undeterred, brightened with a sudden thought. “Well, whoever you are, you play a mean tune. Got my legs moving faster than they have in weeks.” He let out a short, easy laugh, looking between us as though expecting agreement.
No one joined him.
August smiled faintly, polite but small, and Matthias muttered something under his breath.
Florian only scratched his head, baffled. “…What? Did I say something wrong?”
—
We were back at the manor . The walls were the same, the portraits unchanged, the long corridors stretching on in their usual silence. Yet, something was off.
And the boy, August, was still here.
We walked together through the dim halls– Florian leading, Matthias behind him with August keeping pace a step too close to me. Orpheus should have been there. But he wasn’t. Only the kid, clutching his only item like a lifeline.
He finally broke the silence, voice hesitant.
“Um… where are we going?”
Florian straightened, his tone cheerfully decisive. “To the dining room, of course! We’ve got to figure out this predicament.” He gestured broadly, as if the word explained everything. “You don’t just stumble out of a match looking like someone else and expect us to shrug it off.” He waved vaguely toward August.
August’s lips pressed into a small, uncertain smile, but he said nothing more.
Matthias walked with his head bowed, muttering soft, broken words that I couldn’t quite make out.
And I… I gripped my brush a little tighter.
A predicament, Florian had called it. He made it sound like smoke to be cleared, an inconvenience. Something lingered in my mind. This is not the first time we had seen this.
Alice, the journalist, had the same set of problem.
But post match?
She never lingered.
She always reverts back.
And he didn't.
Something told me this was not the kind of problem a cheerful declaration could solve.
Florian cleared his throat, trying to take the attention of the other survivors.
“Right then! Everyone, uh… predicament time. This–” he gestured broadly toward August, “ –is not Orpheus, Unless Sir Orpheus has found a way to roll back the years and trade his pen for a piccolo.”
I rolled my eyes, he said the exact same thing before.
The survivors stirred. It wasn’t the sight of August’s face that unsettled them but the gentleness in his posture, the nervous curl of his fingers around the piccolo.
Eli’s owl shifted on his shoulder, feathers puffed as though it, too, sensed something wrong. His gaze was steady, quiet. “No, that’s him,” he murmured. “But not the him we know.” He tilted his head slightly, as if listening to some far-off echo. “Just like with Ms.alice...”
Andrew leaned forward on his elbows, brow furrowed beneath his cap. His voice came muffled, but steady. His words hung in the air like damp soil. Heavy, but not unkind. “I-It's different. he's still here…outside of the match. Then… what happened to Mr.Orpheus?”
The metallic clink Norton's magnet broke the silence. He rolled it lazily between his fingers, smirking without mirth. “Figures. The Manor loves its tricks.” He scoffed.
August flinched at that, though his smile stayed thin, uncertain. He clutched the piccolo closer to his chest, as if it might anchor him.
Florian, ever eager to lift the mood, raised his hands. “Well, let’s not get grim about it! He did make decoding easier. Lovely tune, I say. If the Manor insists on tossing us things like this, at least this one’s helpful.” He laughed lightly, though the sound fell flat.
No one joined him.
The journalist, Alice, glared at him as if he offended her whole being. But that hadn't lasted long as she then kept staring at August like he would vanish in the middle of the dining room if she didn't.
The owl’s talons clicked faintly against Eli’s shoulder. Andrew’s fingers drummed on the table as if digging for answers. Norton just leaned back further, clinking his magnets with a scowl on his face.
And August,
August only looked down at the only thing able to keep him brave, his reflection warped in its polished surface.
August shifted in his chair, gathering a thin breath.
“My name is August.” he began, voice small but steady, “August Blanche. I… I know I look like someone you’ve already met, but I–”
“Do you think I’m familiar?”
The words cut through the dining room like glass. Alice’s voice is calm, firm, yet tinged with something raw, so raw it halted him mid-sentence. Every eye turned as she stepped forward from the far end of the long table, her poise masking the tremor beneath.
Her gaze locked on August, not with suspicion like the others, but with a searching intensity. “Look closely,” she pressed, softer now, though the edge in her tone betrayed her. “Do I remind you of anyone?”
August blinked, startled. The piccolo trembled in his hands. His lips parted, but no answer came. Only the faint melody of silence, as if his memory reached for something just out of grasp.
For a moment, he looked less like a stranger and more like a boy cornered by a question he should know the answer to.
Prospector’s chair scraped against the floor as he leaned forward, the magnet at his belt clinking softly , the metal whispering. Norton had no patience for Orpheus, never had. The man was all polish and shadows, the kind that left scars you couldn’t scrub out. But this boy–August
…
–wasn’t wearing that mask. And that unsettled him more than he cared to admit.
“So… spill,” Norton said, voice low, words roughened by grit and ash. He ran a calloused hand down his arm, brushing over old scars. “There’s history here. Thick enough to choke the room. Ms. Alice–” his eyes narrowed, catching light, “ –you owe us a story.”
The silence stretched. Alice’s jaw worked, hesitation trembling at the corners of her lips. “…We were childhood friends,” she confessed at last, her voice small.". Before the incident. Before everything changed.”
August’s breath caught. His eyes widened, confusion and relief tangling in his expression. He stepped forward, almost afraid to break the moment. “Alice…?”
Her chin lifted, eyes glistening. “Of course, August.”
The name cracked the air like stone splitting under a miner’s pick. Norton stiffened. He hated Orpheus
hated what he was, what he does.
–but this wasn’t him.
This wasn’t the smug shadow he’d learned to despise. Watching August stumble forward, arms wrapping Alice in a fragile, desperate embrace, Norton felt sadness nothing.
His jaw clenched. He looked away, then back again, the weight in his chest heavier than before. For the first time, he couldn’t pin this… kid down.
The magnet at his belt caught the lights flickering, glinting cold and sharp, but his thoughts weren’t nearly as steady.