You can only walk a road so long before it starts to feel familiar. Footprints buried beneath the dust… not just yours, but others. Heavy ones. Ones you thought you’d left behind. You don’t realise how far the past stretches until you feel it breathing down your neck. Until you hear the names again. Grimskull. Muerte. Names like echoes, like storms that never blew over.

There was a time I would’ve called you both brothers. Before the betrayal. Before Apokalypsis cracked. Before the Red Light District and the locked room. Before Gemini got hurt and I got left behind. We believed in something then. Not Olympus, not power, not crowns – us. The four of us. A pack. A stormfront. We made the Arcadia feel smaller together. Bled together. Walked into every damn fire like it couldn’t touch us.

And then you, Muerte, turned the lock. You sealed the door and left us to die. For what? A throne made of neon and filth? Zeus’ blessing? I’ve heard you spout your regrets since. I’ve seen the man behind the mask start to rot from the guilt. And I believe it haunts you. But believing it doesn’t make it right. You can’t water ash and hope it’ll bloom.

And you, Grimskull. You and I clawed out of that room. Shoulder to shoulder. Every bruise a reminder of what we lost. For a while I thought we still had something – shared scars, shared aim. But when I pulled Gemini from the firing line, when I dared to save instead of destroy, you looked at me like I was the traitor. You didn’t want brothers anymore. You wanted me to be a weapon. A twin blade of vengeance. You turned on me without blinking.

I don’t know what either of you see now when you look at me. A coward? A fool? A ghost who lost his way? I’ve heard it all. I’ve felt it all. I’ve walked longer than either of you know – through silence, through shame, through lands Arcadia forgot. I’ve mapped ruin and refuge alike. I’ve slept beneath ceilings made of bone and stars, and I’ve kept going because someone had to. Because the trail doesn’t finish itself.

Maybe that’s what separates me from you both. I didn’t stop when it hurt. I didn’t turn when it got quiet. I just kept walking. And every step, every mile, has etched a truth into me you can’t erase – that survival is not a victory, but a responsibility.

But now we circle back. Three of us. The last three of the old four. We meet in the dust again, not as friends, not even as enemies — but as reminders. I’m not looking for closure. I’m not looking for redemption. And I sure as hell ain’t here for nostalgia.

I’m here because this part of the map is unfinished. This fight was left unlabelled. This reckoning is long overdue.

I don’t know what happens after this. Maybe I walk again. Maybe I don’t. Doesn’t matter.

The door’s open now.

And I’ve still got the legs to walk through it.