I rowed against the river, but it wasn’t going to let me through. The current turned against us, waves rising unnaturally high. The wooden frame groaned in protest, the oarlocks straining as if the river itself was trying to rip us apart.


    Every stroke almost seemed to send us backwards, no matter how hard I tried.


    I gripped the boat’s edge, staring into the water. The monsters lurked beneath the surface, their shifting forms a sickly murk. They weren’t gone—not yet. They were tethered to me, to everything I had broken. Out in the fog, more were closing in, their limbs twisting in ways that defied nature, teeth like shattered glass, eyes burning with a hunger that wasn’t for flesh.


    They were hunting our stories.


    A wave crashed over the side, drenching us in cold that bit to the bone. My grip on the ledger faltered, my hands slick with river water.


    "Kaelith—what do we do?" Therran’s voice trembled, his wide eyes flicking from the fog to me, seeking something. A solution. But I had nothing to give him.


    “They’re coming,” I said.


    The ledger’s weight was heavier than ever. I knew now it wasn’t just my story I had to face—Therran’s, too. His was still incomplete. The monsters were drawn to him, just as they were drawn to me.


    Aric stood beside me, tense, his breath shallow. The bravado he’d carried onto this boat was long gone.


    “They’re not just going to take us, are they?” His voice was raw. He already knew the answer.


    I looked down again. A sickly glow pulsed through the water, shifting in eerie, undulating patterns. Shapes drifted just below the surface, pale and indistinct—faces pressed against the current, mouths open in silent screams.


    The untold.


    Not everyone who entered the river made it to the other side. Some never spoke their stories, never gave the ferryman a reason to take them forward. Some were like Therran, caught between life and death, but hadn’t been so lucky. They had been swallowed by the current, their unfinished tales anchoring them here, pulling them under.


    They had been waiting.


    Waiting for someone to listen.


    A chill ran through me, deeper than the river’s cold. This had nearly been Aric’s fate. He had almost been one of them. Had I not been so stupid to pull him from the river he would have become one of these drifting ghosts.  Although he still hadn’t told me his…


    “Kaelith…” Aric’s voice cracked again. His hand reached out, gripping my arm. “You said dead men tell the best tales. Well... I’ve got mine. You might want to hear it before this ends.”


    That bastard. I glanced at him, words caught in my throat. Instead, I nodded. This wasn’t the same Aric I’d started the journey with. This was someone who had seen the darkness of the water, who had tasted its weight. And I don’t think I could ever go back to what I was.


    “I wasn’t always like this,” Aric began, his gaze never leaving the water. “The man you saw when I boarded your boat… he was already dead. You think I came here for the ride? No. I was a murderer. A thief. I did terrible things. I thought I could outrun it all. But the river, Kaelith... it doesn’t let you run.”


    I turned my gaze back to the creatures. The fog around them thickened, as if the river itself was breathing in time with the growl of the monsters. My hand tightened on the ledger.


    “The monsters,” Aric murmured, “they’re not just after us. They’re after everything we were. Everything we refuse to face.”


    Therran was watching me. Small, steady. A breath held just before breaking.


    Then his voice, quiet but sure:


    “Aric… I remember when you pulled me from the river. You promised you’d come back for me.” A pause. “But you didn’t.”


    The weight of those words settled over us like stone.


    Therran had died too soon, his story left unfinished. And the river had been waiting.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.


    I looked at him—really looked at him. The boy who had believed there was a world beyond the cliffs, beyond the river. A world full of stories. But he hadn’t been ready to face his own. His story had been incomplete, and in that gap, the river had lingered.


    “Kaelith, I’m scared,” Therran admitted, his voice small in the chaos. He reached for the oar, trembling but determined. “But I won’t run anymore.”


    He wasn’t the scared child who had arrived on the boat anymore. No, this boy—this soul—had chosen to face his story, to let the river claim him in a way it had never been able to before.


    I had been running from my past for far too long, but now, I saw what I had to do. The river demanded balance. It didn’t care for excuses, for guilt, or for redemption. It only cared for what was broken, and how it could be mended.


    “You can’t keep running, Kaelith. Not anymore.”


    Charys’ voice cut through the storm, steady and certain, as if she had always known this would come.


    I clenched my fists, my pulse hammering in my skull. For so long, I had believed I could outrun the past. That if I just kept ferrying others, if I just kept listening to their stories, I would never have to tell my own.


    But the river doesn’t let you run.


    I looked at the faces beneath the water, at the ones who had been waiting, and I knew—this would be me if I didn’t stop.


    I had spent my life taking others across.


    But I had never crossed myself.


    This time, I was ready.


    I turned to Therran, whose pale face was now set in quiet determination. His grip on the oar was steady, his small body unwavering despite the storm that raged around us. In his eyes, there was no longer fear, just the quiet acceptance of fate. He had made his choice. He wasn’t running anymore. He was ready to face his own ending, his own story, and let it be finished.


    His courage, so fragile yet so solid, anchored me in that moment. This wasn’t just my battle. It had never been. This was all of ours.


    I took a breath, one deep enough to fill my lungs with the heavy, damp air of the river.


    “I’m sorry,” I whispered, the words barely escaping. They were for him, yes, but they were also for me. For Aric, for Charys, and for the river itself. The words had been a long time coming, and now, finally, they were right.


    I could never undo what I had done, could never change the past, but I had come to realize that wasn’t the point. The point was to face it.


    I stepped forward, letting go of the oar. There was no hesitation. I had been holding on to it all this time, I had been the ferryman. But now, I knew what I had to do. The river had taken so much from me already. It had taken Charys, taken my choices, taken my soul. But now it wasn’t about taking. Now, it was about letting go.


    I let myself fall forward, into the waiting arms of the river.


    The moment my feet left the boat, the creatures dissolved into the fog, their dark shapes unraveling like mist at dawn. The storm abated, the howling winds softening into nothingness. Silence settled—not the silence of the void, but something whole, something at peace.


    The river didn’t pull me under. It didn’t punish me. It held me, cradling me in its steady rhythm.


    I had feared this moment my whole life.


    But the river was never my enemy.


    It was me.


    The ledger slipped from my fingers, pages fluttering as it sank beneath the surface. The weight I had carried—every story, every name — dissolved into the current.


    A voice, quiet and familiar, rose through the stillness.


    “You finally stopped running.”


    Charys stood before me, no longer a ghost, she looked vibrant, as she had in life, no longer bound by sorrow. She was part of the river, part of the stories I had buried, part of the truth I had refused to see. She wasn’t here to judge me. She never had been.


    I met her gaze, my breath steady.


    “I was afraid,” I admitted. “Afraid that if I let go, there’d be nothing left of me.”


    She smiled, something warm and knowing.


    “But there is. And there always will be.”


    Behind her, the mist thinned, revealing the boat, still floating on the now-calm river. Therran stood at the bow, staring at the water—not in fear, but in understanding. He turned to Aric, eyes wide, searching.


    “What do we do now?” Therran asked, his voice small.


    Aric exhaled, something shifting in his stance. “Well,” he said. “I think there’s some place we need to be.”


    I watched as Aric reached out, steadying Therran’s grip on the oar. He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t flinch. He had come to the river lost, drowning in his own past, but now, he stood firm, unshaken.


    Not all of us get to choose. But we can still carry our stories with us.


    The river was quiet now, its surface smooth and unbroken. The monsters were gone. The storm had passed. Balance had been restored—not through struggle, not through sacrifice, but through acceptance.


    I closed my eyes, letting the current take me.