[Do not read this. It's editing.]
The city groaned as though it were a living thing in torment, its very essence warping beneath an unseen force. Buildings twisted unnaturally, their facades bending and buckling as though reality itself had been reshaped by an otherworldly hand. The streets split open, jagged chasms forming beneath their feet and revealing an abyss of swirling darkness that pulsed with a life of its own. Overhead, the sky flickered erratically between a dim twilight and an impenetrable void, while the air grew thick with an almost physical pressure that pressed down upon them, suffocating and crushing alike. In this disorienting chaos, time itself seemed to falter—one moment, the group was running forward with desperate determination, and the next, they inexplicably found themselves back at the starting point, caught in an endless, maddening loop.
