The scent of damp earth clung to the morning mist as Darin Hale rode along the dirt road, his gloved fingers tightening around the reins. His horse, a sturdy black mare named Ashen, let out a slow breath, the mist curling from her nostrils. The trees on either side of the path loomed like silent watchers, their skeletal branches clawing at the pale sky. The sun had yet to fully rise, casting a dull silver glow over the land, its warmth swallowed by the autumn chill.
Darin pulled his hood lower against the cold. The road ahead sloped gently downward, leading into Briarwatch, a small village nestled at the edge of the Vyrewood. It was a place he had visited before. A waypoint for travelers, merchants, and weary hunters returning from the dense, fog-laden forests. Smoke from cookfires usually hung in the air by dawn, mingling with the crisp scent of pine and damp moss.
But today, something was wrong.
There was no smoke.
No flickering lanterns in the windows.
No distant hum of voices carrying through the cold morning air.
Darin frowned, slowing Ashen's pace. From this distance, Briarwatch should have been waking up. Bakers rolling dough. Merchants setting up their stalls. The blacksmith's hammer ringing against iron. Instead, there was only silence.
A deep, unnatural silence.
Darin's pulse quickened. He'd spent enough time on the road to recognize when something was off. Bandits? No. If raiders had swept through, there would be signs. Scattered debris, burnt buildings, maybe even the faint stench of blood. But there was nothing. The village was just... gone.
His fingers brushed the hilt of his sword, a simple but well-crafted blade strapped to his waist. He guided Ashen forward, her hooves crunching softly against frostbitten grass. As they crested the last hill, the emptiness of Briarwatch stretched out before him.
Where wooden cottages should have stood, only patches of blackened earth remained, like shadows burned into the ground. Where the stone well should have been, there was only a gaping hole, as if the land itself had swallowed it whole. The market square, once bustling with vendors, was nothing but an empty, ashen circle.
No bodies. No wreckage.
It was as if the town had been erased.
A slow chill crawled up Darin's spine. He slid from Ashen's back, his boots sinking into the soft earth. The silence pressed down on him like a weight, his own breathing suddenly loud in the stillness.
He stepped forward, kneeling beside one of the burned impressions in the ground. The edges were sharp and precise, as though something had cut through the world itself, leaving only an outline behind. He touched the blackened dirt, rubbing it between his fingers. It wasn't ash. It felt wrong. Too smooth, too... empty.
His stomach twisted.
He had seen destruction before. Bandit raids, burned-out villages, fields ravaged by war. But this wasn't the work of men. This was something else.
Something unnatural.
A sudden gust of wind whispered through the clearing, carrying with it the faintest sound. A distant hum, low and rhythmic. It vibrated through the air, not quite a voice, not quite music. More like a glitching echo.
Darin's eyes darted toward the far end of the village, where the dirt road curved into the dense treeline. The sound was coming from there.
He rose to his feet, hand resting on the hilt of his sword as he followed the sound. Each step felt heavier, as if something unseen pressed against him, warning him not to go further. But he had to.
The road narrowed between the trees, and the mist thickened, curling around the trunks in ghostly tendrils. The sound grew louder, vibrating in his bones now. An unsettling, warped hum, like a voice speaking in a language just beyond the range of understanding.
Then he saw it.
At the very edge of the path, where the trees pressed close and the air shimmered like heat on stone, a figure stood.
No, not stood. It flickered.
Darin's breath caught. The figure was human-shaped but wrong. Its outline jittered, as if struggling to exist, its form shifting between solid and transparent in erratic bursts. Its face was obscured, features blurred like a painting smeared by careless hands.
It wasn't moving, but it wasn't still, either.
Darin's instincts screamed at him to run, but his body remained rooted. His fingers tightened on his sword, but he didn't draw it. Somehow, he knew steel wouldn't help him here.
The figure raised its head. Or at least, it seemed to. The mist curled around it, and the hum grew louder, turning into something almost like words.
Then, suddenly, the voice became clear.
"You're not supposed to be here."
The words weren't spoken. They bypassed the air entirely, sliding directly into his mind, cold and weightless.
Darin's heart pounded. His mouth felt dry. His grip on reality, suddenly fragile.
The figure took a single step forward.
And the world glitched.
The trees shuddered like a broken image. The sky flashed a deep, unnatural red. For the briefest moment, Darin saw something beyond the forest. A vast, endless grid stretching into infinity. Lines of pulsing light forming a hollow, digital void.
Then it was gone.
The figure vanished.
The forest snapped back to normal. The mist was still. The air was silent. The sky was blue again.
Darin staggered back, his chest rising and falling in sharp, uneven breaths.
What in the gods' names had he just seen?
He turned back toward what had once been Briarwatch, a sickening realization settling in his gut.
The town hadn't been destroyed.
It had been deleted.
And something or someone had just tried to do the same to him