Kai woke up on a beach. The waves lapped at his feet. His clothes were torn and threadbare, almost like he had been attacked by a wolf—no, something more vicious. He raised his head, his entire body caked in sand.
Where in the world was he? He couldn't have gone so far south, could he? He stood up on his two feet and instantly felt like collapsing. It was like his body was recovering from something major, as if every muscle and bone had been through a war of its own.
He looked up, and it was then he saw it. A seething mass of dark clouds with wicked red lightning spread out over the ocean, slowly but insidiously making its way toward him. The sky above was a shade of black so deep it looked like ink, and the red lightning cracked within it, flashing ominously like a warning. Whatever those clouds were, they weren't natural. The energy they exuded felt dark, wrong, like it didn't belong in this world.
