Silence swallowed Dusk whole—not the kind born from peace, but the kind that lingers after the world stops screaming.
For a long moment, there was no sky, no sound, no breath—just the feeling of falling through something that didn't exist.
The world returned in fragments. Dusk gasped, dry air burning down his throat, the dull ache in his chest reminding him that he was alive. His eyes fluttered open to a horizon without color, without boundary, without light to speak of.
He lay half buried in the sand, its coarse surface scraping against his skin as he stirred. Each movement felt muffled and wrong, as if time had thickened like oil. The air hung heavy and acrid, coating his tongue with the taste of iron and dust. Above him stretched a black sky without hue or motion—a void that refused to decide if it was night or day.
His body trembled faintly when he exhaled. The sound came out small, swallowed by a world that refused to echo. Then, cutting through the suffocating quiet, a voice—ancient, alien, and absolute—passed through him like a breath of cold wind.
"Welcome, Challenger. You have entered a nascent fracture. The Primal Codex recognizes your presence."
The world shuddered as if a revelation had been forced into shape. The words faded, and silence returned—thicker than before—leaving behind a faint hum deep in his chest, like something vast had acknowledged his presence and lost interest.
Dusk stared ahead, dazed, heartbeat slow and steady. The world stretched endlessly in all directions: rolling dunes of black, glassy sand that shimmered faintly in the absence of light. The horizon faded; no sun divided earth from sky, as if it had been devoured by its own emptiness.
And scattered across it were bodies.
He didn't know what they had been—hulking skeletons with limbs bent wrong, gigantic shapes, some too unrecognizable, like beasts stitched together by nightmares, half-sunk into the sand. Bones protruded upward like monuments, blackened and smooth as obsidian.
Dusk rose slowly, brushing black sand from his hands. His balance wavered—the world resisted motion. Every movement felt like coursing through invisible mud.
"Guess I'm not dead yet," he muttered, his voice thin and dry. The words barely reached his ears before vanishing, swallowed before they could travel.
A sharp chill ran through him. He rubbed his arms, but it didn't help. The cold didn't cling to skin—it sank straight to the bones, seeping from the ground and the dead quiet. Each breath made his chest heavier. His heartbeat slow and distant, as if happening to someone else.
He stood there for what felt like an hour. Time stretched as the dunes shifted, revealing a dark, unending land. The surface was uneven, like roads pushing up from beneath. He squinted, realizing they were roots: massive, charred, and tangled, vanishing into a forest that had no color, only shape.
The forest began there.
He stared at it—an ocean of lifeless trunks, long and thin, bark cracked like old stone. Their branches reached upward in twisted, skeletal gestures. The deeper they grew, the denser the dark became, until it looked like the forest was trying to swallow itself whole.
He gulped down the lump in his throat and sighed. "Better than standing here, I guess."
And then he walked.
The moment I took that first step, everything changed. The air shifted—no longer pressing down, but reaching out, brushing cold fingers across my skin. Each grain of sand I stepped on whispered faintly, the echoes pressing against my ears.
The ground hardened underfoot—no longer sand but something coarse and uneven. The trees rose taller, carcasses more scattered and hulking, their shadows lengthening despite the absence of light.
I tried to focus on walking—one foot, then the next—but the silence wouldn't let me forget how wrong this place was. Every sound stretched too far. When I brushed against a trunk, it whispered faintly, like bone grinding on bone.
When I crossed the edge into the forest, the world stopped breathing.
The silence was alive. Each sound I made stretched unnaturally far, bending at the edges before fading. My heartbeat slowed to match it—steady, then slower—until it felt like the world itself was feeding on me.
"Such a creepy place to be in," I whispered, shy against the silence.
It sounded absurdly human against the ancient quiet, and for a moment, I almost laughed.
The deeper I went, the heavier everything became. The air itself seemed to lean on me, my steps growing less certain. Each breath came with effort, dragging cold into my lungs. Still, I kept walking. Stopping felt dangerous—like stillness was another way to die here.
My mind drifted, slipping between thought and memory. For a second, I thought I heard the rain—the sarcastic remarks I faced the night before—but then it was gone, replaced by my rhythmic heartbeat.
My breath fogged faintly, though there was no cold left to blame. My body ached, my steps shallow. Yet the silence didn't frighten me anymore—it felt almost… natural.
My pace slowed as I gazed at the charred carcasses and lifeless trunks surrounding me. The forest whispered once, as if urging me to move.
My body felt foreign now, my heartbeat fading to a distant murmur. The only thing I knew for sure was that I couldn't stop.
So I walked deeper into the dark that waited.