A true prophecy is not a map, it is like a wound. It festers silenty, reshaped by every soul it touches. The Sarkaz do not await fate-they are devoured by it."
-Inscription of unknown tablets, transcribed possibly during the Era of Three Sage Kings.
+++++++
Maria's legs finally gave way to the pain.
She stumbled, only for the child's grip around her wrist to wrench her upright again-small fingers, impossibly strong, digging into the joints like wire.
Sharp.
Tough.
Painful.
And passing through the vibrating blurs of red lights.
Every breath she heaved were short and painful. Her chest rose and fell as though it had been hollowed and filled with broken glass. Her ribs presses against the suit. Her shoulders throbbed. Her suit had long since lost its weightless precision-now it clung to her like stone soaked in blood.
Her head ached-no, split-as though something were still trying to scream its way out from within. And her heart... it beat wrong. Too fast. Too loud. Like it was slamming against the inside of her ribs, trying to escape.
Rain lashed at them sideways, a wall of tiny knives riding the wind. The gusts roared wildly overhead, howling down from the twisted sky. Her suit absorbed the worst of it, but she still felt soaked. The joints in her arms stung. The cold gnawed through the suit's faux leather-like material, and the wind punched into her lungs every time she tried to speak.
She couldn't see more than a few paces ahead. Just the child, striding forward barefoot, unshaken by the storm that bent the world sideways.
Maria tried to say something, anything.
But the taste in her tongue always stopped her.
Iron.
Copper.
Salt.
It wouldn't leave her mouth. Wouldn't leave her nose. It sat thick on her tongue like rusted blood and old metal. It's the taste of her own blood.
Where are we going...?
Her thoughts slipped between the pain, half-formed and scattered all over the place. Where are you taking me...? What is this place? Who are you?
The child never looked back. Never answered. Just pulled her forward, deeper into the golden rift torn open by clashing storms-toward something unseen.
Something she could feel in her spine, even as everything else inside her started to fray.
She squinted through the haze, blinking away the storm, her eye catching on the flickering, damaged blue overlay still flickering across her cracked visor.
[LOCATION: UNKNOWN
ORIENTATION: UNKNOWN
NAVIGATION: ERROR
SIGNAL: LOST
COORDINATES: NULL]
The map was a fragmented web of lines and blocks, nothing stable. A single pulsing warning box trembled in the top corner of her screen:
[ROUTE: COMPROMISED
DIRECTION TO SHELTER: ... ... ...]
Still no response.
Her heart sank deeper.
Then the land opened before them, and Maria's breath caught.
Tornadoes.
Two of them.
To the left, a cyclone of black clouds and red lightning twisted across the plains like a pillar of fire and smoke. To the right, its twin-a bigger, monstrous spiral of pale winds and crackling orange, howling like the sky itself had split open.
And in between-
A Path.
A ribbon of luminous dust and cracked, sunlit ground that shimmered like glass beneath the violent sky. The rain did not fall on it. The wind curved around it. The light-that golden light-glowed in defiance of everything around it.
Maria stopped dead.
Her vision blurred-not from the storm, but from the shock.
It's real... it's-
But then, her mind screamed something else:
-We're going straight into it-?!
She felt her legs lock. Panic surged from her spine, gripped her throat. She turned to the child-still dragging her forward with inhuman strength.
"W-Wait-!"
No answer. The girl only thrust her hand toward the storm path again, pointing fiercely.
"Hom. Hom ther! Hom!"
Maria shook her head, her voice cracking. "T-That's not- That's not shelt-Home! That's-! That's-!"
But the girl only looked up at her with wide, gleaming purple eyes. Her soaked bangs clung to her pale face, lips pressed in determination.
Then she pointed once more. "Hom. Der."
Maria's gaze followed.
Her breath fogged the inside of the cracked helmet as she staggered through the mud.
"Come on, just... just give me something, please." Maria muttered, her voice hoarse, throat raw from the storm's bite and lack of water. Her words were barely audible even to herself.
She blinked at the flickering visor again, willing it to work.
[QUERY: LAST KNOWN LOCATION OF SHELTER]
The HUD pulsed weakly. Then:
[ERROR
DATA CORRUPTED
ROUTE UNAVAILABLE
LAST KNOWN COORDINATE: ---*[GLITCH]*---
STATUS: GUIDANCE SYSTEMS COMPROMISED]
A sharp breath escaped her nose. Maria clenched her jaw, "Great... just bloody perfect."
The world tilted again as her knees nearly gave out. Pain surged down her calves like fire. Every joint in her body screamed. She swallowed hard against the bitter taste of iron still coating her tongue, like she'd been chewing on a blade since she woke up again.
This isn't right.
She looked back-the way they came.
Wasn't that where the HUD had pointed earlier? She thought it was.
The storm, the chaos, the HUD's failure-it was all blending together into a fog in her head. Her thoughts spun uselessly.
Maybe she missed something. Maybe they passed the shelter. Maybe this wasn't the way at all.
"Wait, wait," she stammered, catching her breath and trying to tug her arm back. "Stop-hey, listen. Can we just-please. Let me just check the map again. We might've gone the wrong-"
The girl didn't even turn her head.
She just gripped Maria's wrist tighter.
A painful jolt snapped through her forearm. The Holtzman field that coated her suit's forearm flared a sudden, angry red-blurring violently, vibrating with unstable interference. Maria flinched with a cry as it buzzed against her skin, sending burning pulses through the nerves in her wrist.
"Okay-! OW, dammit! Let go, just for one second-!"
The child dragged her forward again, uncaring. The narrow golden path between the twin maelstroms loomed ever closer.
Maria stumbled behind, helpless.
What the hell kind of food does this kid eat?!
How is she this strong?!
She wasn't even tall enough to reach Maria's shoulder, yet her grip was like iron cables bound with lightning. Whatever that girl was-whatever she was made of-it wasn't normal.
The thought chilled her more than the wind.
The path was just a few dozen meters away now.
And the howling vortexes on either side screamed like gods in mourning.
The wind howled louder the closer they came to the golden path.
It shimmered faintly ahead-twisting and flickering like molten thread between the titanic walls of stormclouds. A sight no living person should witness from this close. The sky bled red and violet, and the crashing gales screamed like monsters behind stone.
Maria squinted through the blurred visor, dragging her boots through mud and wind and pain.
And then... the air changed.
Something darker began to coil in the wind around them.
A mist-at first barely noticeable, clinging low to the ground like morning fog.
But it thickened quickly.
It wasn't grey. It wasn't white.
It was black.
Black like oil and shadow, like smoke from burning forests. It clung unnaturally to their feet, then began to swirl upward, crawling like liquid around her legs, her waist, her chest. It made the world hazy. Her lungs tightened.
She gasped. "What...?"
She looked down. It wasn't rain. It wasn't sand.
Her HUD flickered again as she opened her mouth to speak.
[QUERY: UNKNOWN FOG FORMATION-SOURCE?]
A pause.
Then:
[ANALYSIS: NO RECORD FOUND
COMPOSITION: UNKNOWN PARTICULATE AND ENERGY TRACE
WARNING: HALLUCINOGENIC POTENTIAL - DATA INCONCLUSIVE
RESPONSE: UNABLE TO ADVISE]
She stared at the message, stunned.
"...You don't know?"
Maria turned toward her, or tried to. The little figure still gripped her arm and marched toward the storm without hesitation, unfazed by the growing mist.
And then-just barely, just faintly-Maria noticed it.
The mist wasn't just around them.
It started from the girl.
It curled up from her feet. It coiled and leaked from her pale skin like vapor off dry ice, vanishing and reforming every few seconds in unnatural patterns.
Maria blinked. "What-what did you-?"
The girl didn't answer. She only pointed forward again, her hand lifting like a blade.
"Hom... Ther!!"
The mist coiled tighter.
Maria could feel it in her throat now. In her breath. A cold pressure behind her eyes. She blinked rapidly. The child's grip never wavered.
"S-Slow down-wait-!" she croaked.
She tried to resist, but her limbs felt heavy.
Too heavy.
Suddenly-
A flash.
Then another.
Her breath hitched as her vision fractured, as though some inner lens had cracked behind her eyes. Her feet stumbled. The child did not.
Then the first memory struck.
-A scream. A child. A rushing deluge. A lake? No-waste overflow.
-Diving. Cold. Choking.
-Flesh grasping flesh. Kicking upward. Light blooming like fire behind her eyes.
Then the fall.
A steel beam. Sudden. Final.
The impact did not bring pain.
Only the end.
It crushed her head
Then came a second fracture.
Not memory.
Revelation.
A golden path stretched before her-wound between two cataclysms, stormfronts clawing the sky like titans locked in dying embrace.
And ahead-
The corpse of a world.
Ash drifted across a plain of bones. Black banners cracked in the searing wind. Horned humanoids keened, their resonance echoing the pulse of a ruined land.
Drums.
Marching.
Blood.
Screams.
Burnt flags.
Destroyed cities.
Mountains of corpses crowned rusted spires.
And from the ash, they emerged.
Figures clad in white armor, inlaid with lines of black, red, and gold-regalias. Their faces hidden underneath a familiar full faced helmet. Their bodies braced in unnatural postures.
And in every movements, every gestures, one truth screamed:
Madness.
Fanaticism.
A religious delirium-a soul-deep surrender to a destiny long whispered in blood written scriptures.
Some wept. Some knelt in convulsions. Others bared their teeth to the sky and howled in unison-purple eyes full of emotions-unafraid, unhinged.
They raised weapons as if offering them to the heavens, to fate, to the figure that stood above them with open arms.
Bloodied arms.
Swathed in white veils that billowed like the wings of a forgotten seraph. A hood drawn low, a face hidden under an embroided fabric. Yet beneath the cloth-visible to Maria alone-
Eyes.
Crimson.
Violet.
Wrong.
Crimson violet that had bled outward-into the sclera, into the soul. A color that remembered things the world had buried.
They did not blink.
They saw her.
And though they spoke no word, the voice came.
Not from the lips.
But from the storm. From her chest. From the marrow of her spine.
"You are not the last to fall."
"You are the first to return."
"The embers sleep."
"But the storm remembers."
"The blood calls again."
"And the world shall drown for the second time."
The sky peeled open.
Lightning-black and vein-thick-split the world.
Behind the veiled figure, the army of zealots roared. Their cries were beyond language. Beyond comprehension. They clawed at the earth, their voices joined in a single, rupturing note of exaltation.
Maria opened her mouth to scream.
But no sound came.
Only the HUD flared, harsh and red across her vision:
[WARNING: USER HEART RATE CRITICAL
HEART RATE: 191 BPM
SEVERE CORTICAL STRESS DETECTED
NEURAL LOAD EXCEEDING SAFETY THRESHOLD
RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE SEDATION
ERROR: MEDICAL SUPPORT NOT FOUND
WARNING: BRAINWAVE INSTABILITY INCREASING
PSYCHOGENIC TRAUMA IMMINENT]
Her knees gave way.
She collapsed into the mud-gasping, shivering, convulsing.
The child halted-standing at the precipice of the golden path. Her soaked crimson-purple hair hung like silk ropes across her small face. Her violet eyes glowed faintly in the ruinous twilight.
She turned back.
And watched.
Waited.
Maria tried to crawl forward-but her hands trembled, spasmed, failed.
She was bleeding inside.
She whispered-no more than breath-
"...What is this...?"
No answer.
Only the wind.
And the golden path-gleaming like judgement beneath a broken sky.
And ahead-
A horror yet to come.
The child came to her.
Her small, bare feet slapping gently against the mist-slick earth.
Maria couldn't move at first. Her body screamed, her nerves flayed by vision and pain alike. But she felt small hands push beneath her arm-straining, trembling.
"Hom! Saef! Hom!"
The girl's voice cracked as she repeated the words. Again. Again. Her urgency wasn't desperation-it was command.
Maria's legs were like wax. Her shoulder throbbed with every half-breath she took, but she rose, trembling.
Unsteady. Barely conscious. The HUD flickered, scrambled with sigils and warning symbols.
[NEURAL INTERFACE: COMPROMISED]
[REBOOTING SUB-SYSTEMS...]
[UNKNOWN FOREIGN SIGNAL-BLOCKED]
And all the while, that voice-
"Hom! Saef! Hom!"
The mist thickened with every step.
It pressed against her chest like water. Breathing became an effort of will. A very difficult one.
Then-he appeared.
A man.
Emerging not from the fog, but from the space inside it. Tall, composed, still. His black cloak swept behind him wildly. Maria only saw part of him at first-a leg clad in pitch black, the hem of his coat sewn in silver stitching glinting faintly in the dim light.
She dropped to her hands and knees.
The mist flooded her lungs like cold smoke. She retched. Gasped. Her limbs gave out again. Her HUD burst into static.
The child knelt beside her.
"S-saef... Saef..." she whispered, softly, like a mother's lullaby spoken through teeth.
Maria forced her eyes open.
She saw-
Sand.
Wide, endless, windswept.
And then-
A figure.
A woman.
Distant in the haze.
She stood out like a phantom on a ruined painting-pink hair falling down to her shoulders, a long white dress stirring gently in the breeze. Upon her head were two black horns-one long, the other jagged and short, asymmetrical. Her skin was pale, her gaze sharp, yet gentle. Unmoving. Staring directly at Maria, though her expression wavered between shock and scrutiny.
Maria didn't know her.
Had never seen her before.
But every hair on her body stood on end.
The man reached out into the mist as if to clear it-his hand pale and bare.
The girl moved faster than thought.
With a snarl that reverberated in Maria's bones, the child twisted, reaching for the scabbard affixed to Maria's suit. She drew the blade in a blur. It gleamed dully-steel without polish, a weapon made for function, not beauty.
W-wait-!
The child charged.
She let out a feral cry, lips peeled back, teeth bared like a wild animal. The blade carved the air, and the mist as she swung-
-right toward the man.
And he caught it.
He didn't flinch. Didn't recoil.
His bare hand closed around the edge of the weapon with the ease of someone plucking a reed from a pond.
The girl grunted, twisted, tried to wrench the blade free.
The metal strained in his grip.
No blood. No sound of pain. Only the low sound of mist shifting.
He turned his head-not toward her.
But to Maria.
And in that moment, Maria's pain dimmed beneath a deeper instinct.
She didn't know who these people were.
But at the back of her mind she knew-
They were dangerous.