The room didn’t rush back into motion after the fog thinned. No one spoke right away. Someone slid a chair closer. A hand pressed against his back steadying him.

  David stayed where he was, Francis’s grip still warm in his own.

  Chris shifted first. Not away, closer. His free hand pressed against David's back.

  “It didn’t stop there,” David said quietly. “And it didn’t go away either.”

  He drew a breath. “It followed me into the Navy.”

  The light didn’t dim this time.

  It hardened.

  Edges sharpened. The air took on a cold tang, metal and salt, old oil, something scrubbed too clean. The hum beneath the room flattened into a steady, distant thrum.

  Behind David, a shape assembled itself from shadow.

  Not fog. Structure.

  Bones locked together with deliberate precision. A ribcage like a frame. A skull set beneath a suggestion of a cap, fragments of uniform clinging to it like memory. Two red points burned where eyes should have been.

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  The raven’s call threaded through the space, constant a gurgling croak that came from everywhere.

  David’s shoulders squared without his meaning to. His voice changed as he spoke, words falling into a clipped, careful cadence. “Rules. Schedules. Silence.”

  The skeleton did not advance.

  It waited.

  “I learned how to watch myself,” David said. “How to keep everything locked down. Every gesture. Every look.”

  The red eyes brightened.

  “I learned how to disappear in plain sight.”

  The bones creaked as the shape shifted its weight, leaning just enough to be felt.

  The people in the room were still there, no longer pinpricks, but muted, steady presences. No one interrupted.

  “That wasn’t in my head,” David said quietly. “That fear… it was real.”

  A jaw tightened somewhere behind him. Someone nodded.

  “You don’t survive that by accident,” a voice said.

  David drew a breath that scraped his ribs. “I carried it everywhere. On deck. Below. Even when I slept.”

  The skeleton leaned closer.

  Pressure built, relentless.

  “I didn’t break,” David said. The words surprised him. “I maintained discipline. Buried it deep.”

  The necklace at his chest warmed. Light spread outward in thin, stubborn lines, connecting to the people around him.

  “I survived.”

  The raven’s wings cut the air.

  It came fast and low, striking with sharp precision. Bone cracked.

  The red points vanished.

  The skeleton collapsed inward, folding into itself until there was nothing left but empty space.

  The smell faded. The pressure lifted.

  David exhaled, long and shaking.

  “You survived,” someone said.

  He nodded. Still standing.