Cale drifted in and out of awareness, the world around him reduced to a dull, heavy nothingness. He couldn't feel his body, only an oppressive weight pressing down on him, like being trapped underwater.
It was the cold that pulled him back. Icy tendrils crept through him, coiling around his thoughts and dragging them into focus. His eyes snapped open, and his lungs seized in panic as he tried to breathe—but there was no air.
Instead of the sky he knew, he found himself staring at something broken. Above him stretched a void fractured into jagged shards, each piece reflecting faint, eerie glimmers of light. The edges of the shards shimmered like molten glass, and between them was nothing—just empty darkness, deep and endless.
Cale sat up slowly, his head pounding as if it had been split open. The ground beneath him felt wrong—soft, yet firm, shifting under his hands like liquid silk. Faint lines of glowing blue streaked through it, pulsing like veins under skin.
"What the…" His voice cracked, hoarse and weak.
He looked around, his confusion deepening with every glance. The landscape was barren and lifeless, stretching endlessly in all directions. There were no landmarks, no wind, no sound—only a vast, quiet emptiness.
For a long moment, he just sat there, trying to piece together his last memory. Flashes of his old life came in fragments—a crowded street, a sudden shout, and then…a sharp, searing pain in his chest. His hand moved instinctively to the spot, but there was no wound. Just smooth skin and a lingering ache, like the ghost of a memory.
"Am I…dreaming?" he muttered, though even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true. There was a clarity to this place that dreams didn't have.
A faint sound broke the silence—a soft, shuffling noise, distant but growing closer. Cale froze, his eyes scanning the horizon. At first, he saw nothing. Then, shapes began to emerge from the darkness.
Figures.
Dozens of them.
They moved slowly, almost aimlessly, their forms hazy and indistinct, like smudges of smoke against the faint glow of the ground. Some crawled, others staggered, their heads bowed as if carrying an unbearable weight.
A chill ran down Cale's spine. Something about them felt wrong, deeply wrong, though he couldn't say why.
"Hey!" he called out, his voice cracking. "Can you hear me?"
The figures didn't respond. They didn't even look up.
Cale rose to his feet unsteadily, his legs trembling beneath him. He hesitated for a moment, then took a cautious step toward the nearest figure. It was close now, just a few dozen paces away.
"Hello?" he tried again, his voice softer this time.
Still no response.
He took another step—and stopped.
The figure lifted its head.
Cale's breath caught in his throat. Its face wasn't a face at all, but an empty void, darker than the surrounding shadows. It tilted its head, almost curiously, and then it moved.
Not shuffled, not stumbled—moved.
In an instant, it was rushing toward him, its body dissolving into a blur of black tendrils that reached out like claws.
Cale stumbled back, panic flooding his veins. His heel caught on the uneven ground, and he fell hard, the impact knocking the breath from his lungs.
The creature loomed over him, its tendrils writhing, reaching—
A flash of silver sliced through the air, and the creature reeled back with an unearthly screech.
Cale blinked, stunned, as a figure stepped between him and the creature.
She was tall and lean, her figure draped in tattered black robes that seemed to ripple and shift with the shadows. Her hair was stark white, falling in loose strands around a sharp, angular face. But it was her eyes that held him—a piercing silver that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light.
The creature hesitated, its tendrils retreating slightly, but she didn't give it a chance to recover. In a fluid motion, she drove her blade—a jagged, dark weapon—into its core. The creature howled as its body unraveled into tendrils of smoke, scattering into the void.
The silence that followed was deafening.
The woman turned to him, her eyes narrowing. "You're new."
Cale struggled to find his voice. "I—what was that? Where am I? Who are you?"
Her gaze swept over him, her expression unreadable. "You ask too many questions." She turned away, wiping her blade on her sleeve. "You won't last long here."
"Wait!" Cale pushed himself to his feet, wobbling slightly. "You can't just leave me here! I don't even know what's going on!"
"That's not my problem," she said without looking back.
"Are you serious?" His voice cracked with desperation. "You saved me—you can't just walk away!"
She paused, her shoulders tensing. For a moment, it seemed like she might leave anyway, but then she sighed and turned back to him.
"Listen," she said, her tone sharp. "This place isn't kind to the weak, and I don't have time to babysit. If you want to survive, figure it out yourself. You're already dead—what's the worst that can happen?"
Cale flinched at her words. "Dead? No, that's not—"
"Think about it," she interrupted. "Where do you think you are?"
The fractured sky. The shadowy figures. The creature that had almost killed him. It all clicked into place, and his stomach dropped. "No… That's not possible."
The woman shook her head, muttering something under her breath. "You're wasting time. Just stay out of my way."
"Wait!" Cale's voice stopped her again. "What am I supposed to do?"
She hesitated, her hand tightening around the hilt of her blade. Finally, she tossed something toward him. He fumbled to catch it and found himself holding a small lantern, its flame a deep, unnatural blue.
"Don't lose it," she said. "It's the only thing keeping you from fading into nothing."
And with that, she was gone, her figure dissolving into the shadows before he could ask anything else.
Cale stared at the lantern, its flame flickering faintly. Then, in the distance, he heard the shuffling again.
This time, it was closer.