Everything stilled. The world around me remained the same yet felt altered, as though the rain fell heavier, the mud clung more insistently, and the air tasted sharper with the tang of decay. My body pulsed with a new vitality, a strange equilibrium settling within me as the chaotic storm of transformation subsided. My sight sharpened, the horizon stretching farther than ever before, and my senses expanded like ripples on water, detecting even the faintest movement or the most subtle shift in the air.
The newfound clarity was almost overwhelming, yet I pushed it aside. I didn't have the luxury to explore the changes... not now, not yet.
I turned to where Gary, the Roamer, had lain. His massive, battle-worn body was gone, dissolved into the rain-soaked mud. He had left this forsaken world, his final echoes lost to the storm.
