The horizon had grown indistinct, as if the world itself had begun to blur in a desperate attempt to escape Kaelen's gaze. He was no longer sure how long he had been walking, but the cold, biting wind against his skin was a constant reminder that time was slipping away, that something was slipping away. Every step he took sounded heavier than the last, each breath a betrayal-he had grown too used to the silence, the weight of his thoughts, and the lack of anything that could remind him of a world that once existed.
The pull of the Rift had grown suffocating. Every memory of Erynn's sacrifice, every whisper from the Rift itself, felt like a noose constricting around his neck. He had failed her, he had failed them all, and there was only this relentless darkness to walk into-as if his very soul was being tugged from him, bit by agonizing bit.
And yet… he still walked.
Because there was nothing else.
It was as if the village appeared in the distance, a specter, even; it could have been so real, almost a product of the broken shards of Kaelen's own mind. It was small, one of those places that existed and was suddenly gone-an instant relic of a dying world. The stone walls were weathered, half-overspread with moss, while buildings sagged under the weight of years-maybe decades-of abandonment and neglect.
As Kaelen closed the distance, the village took on a guise of uncanny familiarity. Thick with tension, an open wound still waiting for cauterization, Kaelen had trekked the ruins of the world; he had seen some things. This, however, didn't quite fit. It was too quiet, too still-silence as if chiseled into the core, the very despondent earth just waiting in a dreading hush for some eventuality bound to happen.
He approached the village cautiously, his eyes scanning the shadows for movement. There was no cheering to welcome him, no friendly faces. Instead, a dozen pairs of eyes stared back from between cracks in the walls, from behind rotting beams and broken windows. They watched with suspicion, as if waiting for some preordained signal-a reason to strike or retreat.
Kaelen's fingers brushed the hilt of his sword, though he knew it would do little to protect him. Not from the village, not from the Rift, and certainly not from himself.
He stepped forward across the threshold into the boundary of the village, where suddenly the noise of the outside world stopped dead. Wind howled around outside, but in its place, dead, and held its breath-even the air did. Then through the stillness the voice pierced:
"You should not have come."
A figure emerged from the shadows, her presence a stark contrast to the oppressive darkness. She was tall, with sharp features etched into a face that had clearly seen too much. Her eyes were an unsettling shade of green-too bright for the bleakness surrounding them. The woman's gaze was not one of mere wariness but of knowing-of understanding. As if she had lived through the same horrors Kaelen had.
"You think I don't know that?" Kaelen muttered, the slight resignation mixing with the bitterness in his voice. "But I didn't come for you, I came for… something else."
The woman's face hardened, her lips curling slightly into a knowing sneer. "So, you're here because of the Rift."
Kaelen didn't answer immediately; his gaze drifted to the horizon, as if the answer would be found within the darkening sky. A long breath escaped him, and he stared at the woman. "It's not just the Rift, though, is it? It's the destruction of everything. It's this feeling that even if I try to fight it, even if I try to destroy it, I'll only be helping it grow stronger.
She took a step closer, her eyes narrowing. "You think you're the only one who has lost? You think you're the only one trying to survive? There are more of us, Kaelen. There are others like me, like you. But we're all just waiting for the inevitable. And the moment you walk into our lives, you bring the same chaos that's already destroyed us."
I never asked for this," Kaelen muttered, frustration clawing at his chest. "I didn't ask for the Rift. I didn't ask to be its prisoner. But now, I have to find a way to stop it. To end it. If I can.
"You think you can end it?" The voice was cold, almost pitying. "The Rift isn't something you can simply end. It's a force. A living thing. You can't kill it. You can only run from it, hide from it. And when it finds you, it takes everything."
A long silence stretched between them, her words heavy with the weight of experience that lingered in the air. Kaelen could feel them tugging at his mind, pulling him back to the same fears he had fought so desperately to suppress. What if she's right?
But he couldn't let himself believe that. He wouldn't. He refused.
"What's your name?" Kaelen asked, his voice softening.
She cocked her head to one side, her eyes narrowing-suspiciously? "Why does it matter?"
"Because I need to know," Kaelen said, his voice low and laced with a hint of vulnerability. "I need to know I'm not the only one left who's still fighting-that there's something more to all of this than just survival.
The woman studied him for a long moment before she spoke, her voice barely a whisper. "Erynn was right. You're all the same. Hopeful. Foolish." She paused. "My name is Adria."
Kaelen's breath caught at the mention of Erynn's name, but he pressed forward. "You've heard of her?"
Once again, the shadow came back into Adria's eyes and hardened her expression. "Everyone's heard of her. She was part of the rebellion-the one who tried to stop the Overseers. But even she couldn't save you, could she? Could not even save herself.".
Kaelen's fists clenched tightly at his sides, his heart tightening in his chest as his mind conjured up Erynn. She had been a light in suffocating darkness, the only person ever to have shown him what it really means to care. And she was gone.
Adria sensed the turmoil in him and took another step closer, her voice now almost a whisper, laced with something that sounded like understanding. "You don't get it, do you? The Rift-it's a part of this world. It's in our minds, in our fears, in everything we do. We gave it life when we first sought to control it. And now… now it controls us."
Kaelen's thoughts swirled, the weight of her words crushing him like a vice. "You don't have to keep running from it," he said, fierce in his conviction. "You don't have to let it control you.".
Adria's eyes flashed to his, her face inscrutable. "And what would you have me do, Kaelen? Fight until there's nothing left? Die for a cause that's already been lost? Or do you think you can save us all?"
Kaelen's lips quivered, but he straightened himself out. "I don't know how to save anyone. But I'm not done trying."
Kaelen's boots sank into the soft, almost diffident earth of the hidden village. Every step seemed an intrusion, as if the very earth was uncertain of its place in a world that had already begun to break apart. The wind that had been unrelenting but a moment before was now muted, as if even the air itself was wearied of its eternal struggle against silence. Before him lay the village, forgotten by time but alive with an undercurrent of tension. The buildings seemed to pulse from within, besides years of wear and neglect. The cracks in the walls, the overgrown plants clinging onto the stones, all whispered something more. Kaelen felt the weight of their gaze, as if the very land itself had seen too much and waited for something.
Something was wrong with this place. It was like it hung in a balance between worlds-neither fully destroyed nor left fully intact by the Rift.
He drew closer cautiously; his whole body screamed for him to turn around, yet there was nowhere to go. The Rift was everywhere, always watching from that part of the mind. A looming shadow, it was both to be feared and worshipped. And yet, it was more than just a force. The Rift had become a reflection of his own mind: fragmented, broken, endless. His mind felt like it was collapsing in on itself, torn between the memories of Erynn's final words and the burden of the promises he had made.
His hand instinctively went to the hilt of his sword, his knuckles white with tension. From the edge of the village, a pair of eyes regarded him, but words were unnecessary-their volume spoken silently. These people had learned perhaps through bitter experience that survival was not just about living but by watching, waiting, and not wholly trusting any. Kaelen was no different in their eyes.
A calm voice, laced with something darker, cut through the silence.
"You shouldn't have come."
The air hung with the words, cold, not a warning. Kaelen turned toward the speaker, his eyes narrowing at the figure of the woman standing before him. She was imposing and gaunt, stark against crumbling stone and rotting wood. Her face was pale and sharp, the lines of a life battled, yet her eyes-how different they were: full of something older, far more ancient than the years she had lived, as if she had watched the world crumble and had elected to stay behind, a ghost amidst the rubble.
Kaelen said nothing. Only studied her. He had seen eyes like hers before, eyes that had stared into the void and come back empty.
She seemed to recognize something in him. Perhaps it was the same hollow emptiness which lingered behind his own gaze.
"Who are you?" Kaelen asked, his voice cold, measured.
The woman took a slow step forward, hands clasped behind her back. "Names don't matter here. Not anymore. It's not who you are that counts. It's what you're willing to become."
Her words hit Kaelen like a physical blow. Something in the way she said it-something about the weariness in her tone-struck at the heart of his own doubt. He had come this far, had promised to fight against the Rift, to stop it, to reclaim whatever shred of humanity had been lost. But was he even fighting for the right thing? Was this battle just a projection of his own fears and guilt, a way to escape the suffocating truth?
"I'm Kaelen," he said, as though trying to remind himself of who he was. He needed to believe there was still something to hold onto. "I came here for answers."
Her lips curled a little, as though the statement of his was the funniest she'd ever heard. "Answers?" she said almost to herself. "You aren't going to find any here, not those, anyway. What you're trying to figure out you've already known inside you. You've only got to ask if you're prepared for them."
It gnawed at him, unwinding taut skeins in his brain. It was supposed to be the Rift-had always been something outward, something he could fight against. But this woman-Adria-she'd been right. He had never wrestled with the reality of his desires, his own fears. In the place of recognition and acknowledgment, the darkness he hoped to eliminate remained the Rift itself: that it was actually he that embraced this very quality he so fervently sought to eradicate. Was he fighting the Rift, or was he fighting himself?
A cold shiver ran down Kaelen's back as a bitter wind got up, swirling around them, carrying in its breath the scent of decay and something darker. "What do you know of the Rift?" Kaelen demanded, though a part of him dreaded the answer.
Adria's eyes shone with something so dangerous, knowledge like a cloak cloaking in weight its very truth. "It is a living thing," she told him. "A force feeding upon emotion, fear. Not only a tear into the fabric of reality. It is the reality-it is a mirror reflecting the mind, the soul. It could appear in many guises-visions, whispers, memories-but always it waited.
Kaelen's heart pounded in his chest as the weight of her words sank in. It's always there… waiting. The Rift wasn't just a force he could fight. It was inside him. The memories of Erynn's sacrifice, the faces of those he had lost-it all bled together in a single, suffocating pressure. Was it possible? Was the Rift really a reflection of their shared suffering?
"You're wrong," Kaelen muttered, though even he wasn't so sure anymore. "I won't stop fighting."
Adria's eyes softened, almost pitying him. "Fighting is all you've ever known, isn't it? But what happens when the fight becomes your only purpose? When you no longer care about the world you're fighting for? What happens when you lose the reason for the fight?"
Kaelen's jaw clenched, the fingers wrapped around the hilt beginning to shake. "I'm not like you. I'm not ready to give up."
Adria didn't flinch. "You've already given up, Kaelen. That's why you're here. Because you don't know how to face what you've become. And you never will, until you stop running from the truth."
There was a sharp silence. The weight of her words fell, an anchor, on Kaelen's chest, and for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he didn't have an answer. The Rift, the pain, the endless loss—was this what it all came down to? Was he to spend eternity making the same mistakes, chasing the same hopeless pursuit, never once facing what lay beneath?
But before he could say another word, another voice cut through the silence. A girl, no older than twelve, emerged from one of the nearest houses, her eyes wide and haunted. She spoke in a hushed tone, as if she was afraid the village itself might hear her.
"Don't listen to her," the child said. "She doesn't know what she's talking about. She's lost, just like everyone else here."
He turned to her, his heart clenched by how much innocence yet lingered around in this ravaged world of his. "What do you know of it?"
His gaze met hers as his eyes danced in untrammeled dread between him and Adria. Driven, she spoke once more, and a hush fell; the words, carried on shivers, wobbled out with insistence. "The Rift. it is not just fear. It is us. All of us who've ever hurt, all of us who have been broken… it feeds off us. We cannot flee it. It's inside of us, waiting for that one perfect moment to consume all of us.".