By dawn, the tower was gone.
Only the twisted skeleton of its base remained, half-buried under ash and burnt soil. Cain stood amid the ruin, his breath forming slow, ragged clouds. Around him, the others sifted through the wreckage in silence, faces hollow and blackened with soot.
They had survived. Barely.
The sky above bled crimson. Thick clouds rolled in unnatural rhythm, pulsing with faint light from within. The horizon itself shimmered, as if reality was still trying to stitch itself back together after what they'd endured.
Roselle leaned against a half-melted beam, reloading what little ammo she'd scavenged. "Three hours of fighting, and that's what's left of them." She nodded toward the field beyond the tower—hundreds of twitching corpses, still dissolving into dark mist. "Feels like we killed ghosts."
Steve kicked a broken rifle out of his way. "We did. Just ones wearing skin."
