The girl with blue hair like drowned skies and violet eyes like bruised twilight walked in silence through the cemetery again. The gates groaned shut behind her as they always did—too late.

They were already whispering.

“Help me…”

“It hurts.”

“She sees me… she sees me…”

They clung to tree trunks like forgotten coats, swirled in the fog above gravestones, pressed invisible hands against her skin. To others, it would have felt like the wind. To her, it was always a voice.

She closed her eyes.

“I know. I’m here now.”

They gathered. They always did—drawn to the girl who listened, the girl who could end it.

Her name was Seren.

Seren never screamed, even when their cries became howls. She lit candles, placed the sigils, whispered the rites. Her hands burned with power not her own, gifted or cursed, no one could decide. Her mouth moved, and the world bent. The air thickened. Something cracked in the sky above.

And then there was silence.

Always silence.

When the spirits vanished, the living would come out of hiding—wide-eyed, trembling, safe.

“Thank you, Seren.”

“You’re a hero.”

“I don’t know what we would’ve done without you.”

She’d smile then, a stitched-on sort of thing, and walk away before the quiet collapsed in on her. She never stayed long enough for the questions.

But tonight, something was different.

It was a girl this time. A ghost girl, no older than ten, with skin like ash and hollow moon-shaped cheeks. She stood by a well that hadn’t been used in decades.

“Don’t let them send me away…”

“They said I was evil, but I just wanted to play.”

“Is it bad to be seen when you’re gone?”

Seren knelt, her voice trembling like windchimes before a storm.

“You’re in pain. I can help you move on.”

The ghost blinked. Then smiled.

“Move on? You mean disappear.”

“They screamed when they saw me, but I only wanted to be known.”

“And you… you make them go. You erase us.”

Seren froze. The candles flickered.

“I—I set them free…”

“Do you?” the ghost said, tilting her head.

“Or do you just silence what they won’t understand?”

Seren’s hands shook. The spell hovered on her tongue like blood she didn’t remember tasting.

The spirits were always crying. Screaming. Hurting.

But what if…

What if she was the pain?

What if the hero was just a cleaner of messes—messes made of memories and mourning and the uninvited truth of what comes after?

“They say thank you,” Seren whispered aloud, to no one. To herself.

The ghost was gone. Not exorcised. Just… gone.

The cemetery was silent again, but not peaceful.

It felt like an accusation.

Seren looked down at her trembling hands.

“Am I… the villain?”

The wind didn’t answer.

Only the quiet did. And the quiet never lied.