Light twisted.
Reality folded.
And then Alex landed—solid ground catching his boots with a muffled crunch.
He straightened slowly, his eyes adjusting to a surreal new landscape. The air here was colder. Thinner. Charged with a strange weight that clung to his skin like mist—dense, metallic, and laced with something he couldn't name.
Beneath his feet stretched an enormous bridge—not of stone or steel, but of pale crystal threaded with golden veins that pulsed with slow, steady light, like the breath of something divine. Each step shimmered faintly underfoot, echoing the sky above.
A sky that wasn't sky.
It was layered in a swirling canvas of gray clouds and deep blues, shifting like oil on water. High mountains flanked the bridge on either side, their jagged silhouettes wrapped in black mist. Thunder crackled somewhere in the distance, but no lightning fell.
The air stood still.
The atmosphere felt heavy—ancient.
Alex exhaled slowly, taking it all in.
