EPILOGUE

Smile For Me

Recommendation: For a better understanding of the Epilogue's context, I recommend first re-reading ECHOES OF TIME: No One Dies Tonight then CHAPTER ELEVEN: On the Edge of Trust (the scene with Delilah in her study).

The hero's greatest paradox
is to survive.
Real pain comes
when those you saved
beg you to stop dying.

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO

SEBASTIAN

Suspicious silence. Far too quiet for a busy base to mean anything good. My feet carried me on their own. The door to my sister’s apartment was mysteriously half-open. I knew something was wrong before I even pushed it all the way open.

The air inside smelled of iron and cold smoke, as if someone had snuffed out candles with bare fingers. The room was no longer a room. It was an altar. On the ceiling—his symbol. A smile painted in blood.

He came back...

He stood there beside her. His coat spotless, fresh blood gleaming on his gloves. The mask twisted into something grotesque.

“So you did come after all,” he spoke softly, almost tenderly. “I knew she would break you.”

She was kneeling in blood—no, drowning in it. Her body torn open, slow, methodical torture performed with time and pleasure.

Her back had been opened in long, deep cuts. Her ribs, severed from her spine, spread apart and shaped into an arch... eagle wings made of flesh. A mockery of pain carved into a human being. He had etched it into the body of my beloved sister.

---

I dropped to my knees beside her. Beneath my chest, something empty and frozen tightened into a knot. My knuckles turned white as I clenched Lilith in my hand—the grip cracking beneath pressure I had no way to release.

She was breathing. A miracle someone had paid for with screams and torn tendons. She blinked weakly, aware. Only then did I allow myself a full breath.

Mayu was stitching her up with surgical precision. Her wine-red bangs clung to her forehead, heavy beads of sweat rolling down. She cursed under her breath, making sure Del couldn’t hear.

None of us wanted her realizing we were trying to drag her back from the grave.

Iris stood motionless above us. The subtle magic of her katana flowed into my sister’s skull. Holding her soul here. In her body. In the fight. Her prayer was barely audible, but to me it was the last candle in the dark. And for today, that was enough to make me believe.

Between breaths, needles, and whispers, there was only dripping. Blood into blood. Time into time.

Kara—arms soaked in blood up to the elbows—was trying to keep the ribs together. Her pale silk nightgown, something she only ever wore in private, was now drowning in her friend’s flesh.

For someone obsessed with cleanliness, this was suffering worse than physical pain, yet her face showed no disgust. Every nerve in her body trembled, and still, she didn’t let go.

Not even as blood streamed directly toward her knees. She clenched her teeth so hard a tear escaped. “Lilah, my darling, fight, damn it!”

Out of nowhere—I don’t even know how—Eleanor appeared. She knelt opposite her daughter. Took Kara’s hands and together they placed them against my sister’s forehead.

“With me. On three.”

Kara nodded, inhaled deeply, and together they opened a channel. Pure white fairy magic linked them.

“To hell with the laws of nature! When it comes to my sister, life is not negotiated—it gets ripped back from death itself!”

That was when I heard the heavy steps of combat boots. Maxwell.

“Sewer exits beneath the training hall. That bastard is inside the complex. Watching us.”

“Watching?” My voice sharpened. “That bastard stayed here so I would find him. He’s mocking me.”

My stomach shot into my throat, but I kept my jaw locked shut. My chest ached as if my own ribs had been split open.

Patrick dragged a hand across his chin. “Excellent. At least he’ll get to witness Sebastian tearing his head off and carving a flower out of it.”

“Tonight we’ll bring him down, brother.” Jacob stood by the doorway, his smile narrow and hungry. “Your debt is our debt.”

Thomas was assembling his sniper rifle. When the magazine clicked into place, it sounded like an oath. He didn’t look at me, but his silent focus said everything.

The second word spread through the complex, Hellsing arrived. That usually immovable, merciless face of his tightened the moment he saw his student in that condition. It reminded him exactly why he still commanded Unit 41.

He looked at me. I saw sympathy flicker in his eyes—but above all, understanding. He knew that today I would do whatever was necessary.

That I was no longer breaking. I had already been broken for a long time... and that was worse. Within seconds, the remaining Hearts arrived. No order was necessary—one look at her was enough. Delilah meant honor to them.

“We’re coming with you.”

Eleanor stood, nodding to her husband. “She’s stabilized. Go.”

Reapers. Hearts. Ready to tear the world apart in the name of one of our own.

I fastened my gear, fingers trembling with impatience. Sour bile coated my mouth, and I swallowed it together with my breath as I pulled on my mask.

I looked at them. All of them. “Let’s give him a reason to be afraid. The hunt begins.”

---

The walls of the sewers brushed against our shoulders, as if trying to swallow us with every step. Maxwell walked ahead of me. His shoulder lamp flickered, the thermal map pulsing. “He’s moving. Fast and deliberate. This isn’t an escape.”

“He wants to lure us in,” Thomas replied in a tone that wouldn’t crack even with a blade through his chest.

Patrick cracked his knuckles. “Makes the job easier. He’ll die somewhere no one can interrupt.”

“Imagine waiting for death… and then the Reapers and Hearts show up.” There was a razor-sharp amusement in Jacob’s voice.

Hellsing walked beside me. Him—the eternally cold strategist.

Me—hatred given legs.

“You’re awfully quiet,” I muttered.

“When I speak, someone dies,” he answered.

We reached a maintenance hall. No machinery, only iron flooring, steam, and puddles of filthy water. A shadow flickered to the left.

I lunged after it. A blade came from the side—I barely blocked it.

He danced around me; his hands kept shifting form—a sword, then suddenly a spear, then a whip that tore through my vest. A second later, he was above me. A slash cut across my cheek.

I stepped back, heart pounding. He had the upper hand. I was furious. An image of my sister flashed before my eyes—torn apart, gasping for breath, a living warning.

That was when it happened. The final veil dropped. The Reaper inside me loosened its grip. Lilith ignited with dark resolve.

Every movement I made— pure essence of killing.

He attacked again. This time, I stopped him.

Metal slammed against metal. Strike. Block. Lunge.

Muscles spasming. Heavy breaths. Sweat and blood.

My boots slipped on water mixed with his blood.

“It broke you, didn’t it?!” he spat as I drove a blow into his thigh.

“Quite the opposite,” I growled, slicing open his shoulder. “It made me stronger.”

He dropped to one knee, breathing wildly, his mask hanging off half his face—a bloodied, deformed face of a fairy who lived off others’ suffering.

“Now you know what it’s like, don’t you?! To lose someone! To know helplessness?!”

“I know what it’s like to survive and remember,” I answered, pressing Lilith’s tip to his heart.

---

I ran through narrow corridors, soaked metal staircases, shattered hatches. I wasn’t stopping until I caught him. He kept baiting me, and somewhere deep down, he knew his end was inevitable.

I climbed up into the courtyard. An open space between the base buildings.

He stood there, breathing deeply, heavily. Blood streamed down his hands. His mask was in his grip, his face still hidden in shadow.

We surrounded him from every side. Behind me, I felt the circle closing.

Several silhouettes moved at once: a heavy axe spinning into a palm, a gun barrel rising, a dagger naturally finding its place between fingers.

Hellsing looked at me. No words. It was mine. I stepped forward.

That bastard still acted like he had a plan. But I saw it beginning to grow inside him: pure desperation. He staggered, writhing in inhuman rage. He wasn’t singing a victory song. He was screaming a desperate requiem.

His body convulsed, skin splitting apart, darkness forcing its way out against his own will. Bones reformed. Muscles swelled grotesquely. Claws burst through fingers. Power screamed from every motion.

A failed god. Too close to eternity.

Everyone stepped back. Even those who normally feared nothing.

I didn’t move. It began.

The duel. War in its purest form.

The first transformation came with a roar. His arms turned into two massive scythes, shadow erupting from his back, shaping itself into six tendrils tipped with spikes.

The scythes flashed. The pavement exploded under their force.

I dodged. Jumped. Managed to slash his side.

He hit me back.

I flew across the courtyard, smashing into a wall.

Bones cracked. My chest burned. Still, I got up—with all the glory and filth that came with it.

He was breaking apart… and when a Shadow breaks, it doesn’t choose what to reveal. It drags everything out at once. His body expanded into a grotesque, three-meter mass with three pairs of arms. Scaled wings burst from his back, whipping dust into the air.

“Where is the Reaper everyone fears?!” his voice thundered, cracking with terrifying laughter.

SLASH! I cut his throat open. The wound sealed instantly.

The wings launched him skyward, and he rained shadow clones down on me. Ten. Twenty identical figures. Slashing. Stabbing.

In front of my eyes—her spine drenched in blood, her ragged breathing refusing to return. Every blow I took hurled me back into her suffering.

The injuries piled up rapidly. My vest hung in shreds. He drove me into the ground, into walls, into my own helplessness.

The end?

No. Not like this. Not with her face burned into my mind.

His body spewed shadow energy, twisting into a tornado. A vortex of weapons. Tendrils lashed me. Blood sprayed everywhere. Dozens of blades came rushing at me.

I charged straight into them. At the last second, I spun. Cut through his thighs. Elbow to the throat. Time and space unraveled beneath the speed of our battle.

It made no sense— and that was the beauty of it.

His clones were learning.

Every strike sharper. Every dodge deadlier. I tightened my grip so hard my wrists cracked.

Then I heard it. A voice in my head. Soft, velvety, feminine. Like blood dripping into a chalice. “Are you ready, Twenty-Three?”

I closed my eyes and swore within my soul: “From this day forward, our fates are sealed by eternity. I will become your hand. And you—the blade of Death itself.”

Lilith blazed with indigo light, runes igniting like thousands of serpent eyes.

Then I disappeared completely. To him.

To the world. To reality.

And reappeared behind him. He had no idea where I was. No idea what was happening. In panic, he spun and struck blindly, hitting only air.

Lilith unleashed a burst of pure destruction.

He dropped to his knees before me. A chunk of shadow rot. Shaking. Gurgling. Dying. Vomiting pieces of his own insides. Fragments of his broken Shadow lay beside him, no longer even trying to piece themselves back together.

And still— that same damn mocking look in his eyes.

“Did you look her in the eyes while you tortured her?” I snarled, driving my thumbs into his sockets.

I slammed him into the ground. And kept going. Bare hands. Furious. Short. Precise. Wrong. My fists crushed his ribcage, ripping ribs out one by one like mangled feathers.

When it was over, nothing whole remained. Only what he deserved.

I stayed kneeling there, drenched head to toe in black, sticky blood, entrails, and chunks of flesh. Every inhale burned. Every exhale vibrated in my ears like a scream from the underworld.

The Hearts didn’t move.

Thomas held his sniper rifle in trembling hands—for the first time in his life.

Hellsing was silent, looking like he’d swallowed broken glass.

I stood there in that blood-soaked courtyard, Lilith buried in the ground, eyes dead, body riddled with wounds, yet still standing tall.

Patrick was the first to break the silence.

“Okay. So this… this is going to be a fucking problem.”

Jacob nodded. “From now on, everyone will look up to us.”

“Fear us. And maybe for the first time, with good reason,” Maxwell laughed, a spark in his feline eyes.

Their words carried truth. Something had changed. Not just in them. In me. In the entire base. In the entire Hunter corps.

---

I staggered forward. My legs buckled with every step. Muscles lagged behind regeneration. Tendons tore with every sudden movement. The stairs loomed ahead, and I crawled up them on all fours.

Every step was willpower, not body.

Some of the younger recruits backed away, whispering, eyes full of horror, as if afraid I’d tear them apart too. A few huntresses couldn’t handle it—one fainted outright, another doubled over against the wall and vomited.

The eager ones tried to offer me a hand, tried to steady me.

I shoved them aside. They were in the way.

“Sebastian, enough, stop!”

“He’ll bleed out…”

Something clattered to the floor behind me. A weapon. Or maybe just courage. I ignored them. Their voices, their fear—it all felt distant, like a world behind glass, untouchable.

The only voice inside me belonged to my sister. In front of my eyes—her. The only goal keeping me in motion. Hands reached for me. Shouts rang in my ears. But I kept going. Floor after floor. Wounds, pain, contempt for life— all of it became background scenery.

---

I kicked the door open.

Mayu looked up from my sister’s wounds, dark circles staining her exhausted eyes. One hand clutched her now clearly visible belly in a tense reflex. The moment she saw me dragging myself forward—injured, bruised, drenched in blood from head to toe—she gasped.

“No… no, no, no… Sebastian, stop, please…”

She rose as if she could catch me with her own body alone, but her legs betrayed her. She froze in place. Every cell in her body was screaming to save me.

“Stay… please, my love, stay…” Her eyes brimmed with tears.

Teeth clenched so hard I thought they might crack. I saw the pain there. That unspoken terror of losing me.

“My sweet sister…” I rasped.

Her gaze was still clouded by healing magic. But the moment she saw me, her lips moved ever so slightly.

“Big brother…” she whispered, like the little girl whose hand I once held when she was afraid of the dark.

I took her hand gently. She squeezed one of my fingers. Weakly.

“He won’t… hurt you anymore,” I swore.

Eleanor sat on the windowsill, her hands firmly locked over a magical matrix, ripping my sister back from the grave by sheer force of will.

When she noticed me enter, her eyes stayed dry. While everyone else’s expressions were cracking beneath the weight of the brutality, she didn’t even blink. She only looked at me in silence.

And I understood. It wasn’t sympathy. It was approval.

My body shut down. The blood flowing from my nose and mouth finally stopped. The Reaper had hit its limit. I gave them one crooked, almost childlike smile.

A final gesture— before gravity dragged me to the floor. I tore my foggy gaze away from my sister. And found the eyes of the girl who knew every scar I carried.

“Lilah will make it,” Kara said softly, brushing a hand over me.

Then she and Mayu spoke almost in unison: “But would you kindly stop dying for everyone you love?”

---

THE END

The first Act comes to an end. The lights go out, the curtain falls, and even those who never wished to wear masks begin taking them off. Before my audience fades away, I want to say my Thank you!

Thank you to everyone who held me up when I was ready to collapse alongside my own text.

Thank you to those who guarded the grammar, shattered my ego with criticism, and were the first to look into the broken mirror.

Thank you as well to those who wounded me—without your scars, this cabaret would have nothing to perform.

And above all, Thank you, readers, for finding the time to sit through this gloomy ride.

If you were shocked, then it served its purpose.

If you were crying, then it served an even greater purpose.

If you found a piece of yourself here—even the part you never wanted to see—then I know it all meant something.

---

PS: I am profoundly grateful to each of you for walking this dark and winding path with me. Your presence is what makes the world of The Marked truly comes alive.

I would be deeply honored to read your reviews, thoughts, or even just the raw emotions this journey left you with—every word you share means the world to me.

If the story resonated with you and you’d be so kind as to mention it on your own profiles or in your Notes, it would be the greatest gift you could give me.

Let’s help this story find more “Marked” souls together.

With love and gratitude, Maxim

Stay tuned for what's coming next...

---

SMILE - lyrics

[Verse 1]

I don’t chase fast
I like it slow
I love the moment
When you know
That something’s wrong
But I stay calm
I watch your hope
Turn into foam
Your breath gets loud
Mine disappears
I’ve learned to drink
From other people’s fear
I don’t need chains
I don’t need knives
Your mind gives up
Before your body tries

[Pre-Chorus]

I don’t kill the body first
I kill the trust
That’s what hurts

[Chorus]

Smile
Smile when they beg
Smile when they pray
Smile when their courage
Starts to decay
Smile
Smile, hold it wide
I love the look
In their eyes
Smile
Smile, don’t look away
I feel alive
When they break

[Verse 2]

I rehearse this face
In every mirror
Soft lips, calm eyes
Nothing clearer
They think I’m safe
They step too near
I taste the moment
When panic appears
I collect seconds
Right before the scream
That fragile pause
Where I feel supreme
I don’t rush pain
I let it bloom
Suffering sings
When you give it room

[Pre-Chorus]

I’m not insane
I’m precise
I savor every
Change inside your eyes

[Chorus]

Smile
Smile while they shake
Smile, it’s too late
Smile when they realize
This is their fate
Smile
Smile, slow and deep
I don’t need sleep
I need to hear them weep
Smile
Smile, this is art
I pull the fear
Apart

[Bridge]

This isn’t anger
This is joy
I don’t destroy
I enjoy
Every crack
Every plea
You exist
For moments
Like these

[Breakdown]

Look at me
Smile back

[Chorus]

Smile
Smile, say my name
Smile, feed the shame
Smile, feel the pain
Smile, remember this face
Smile, I’m inside
Your last thought
Your last lie
Smile!