The sun bled low across the desert, casting long shadows over cracked earth and wind-worn stones.
A lone man walked through the heat — wrapped in a long, black coat that looked far too heavy for the burning air. Dust swirled around his boots. His face was partly hidden, both eyes covered by dark cloth, giving him a ghost-like presence in the vast emptiness.
Strapped to his back were two crescent-shaped blades — not swords in any traditional sense, but something more ancient, more alien, like fragments of a broken moon.
In his gloved hand, he turned a coin slowly between his fingers, watching it catch the dying light. His voice rasped out low, barely above a whisper.
"I don't even know if I've been freed…" he muttered. "Or if this is just another level of hell."
He paused, listening to the stillness, then gave a faint huff of breath — halfway to a laugh.
"But I'll admit," he continued, "it's quieter than the others. Doesn't hurt as much."
At first, it seemed he was talking to himself. But a flick of movement near his collar betrayed the truth. A small reptile — dark-scaled and sharp-eyed — was nestled on his shoulder, tail curled around the folds of his coat.
He glanced at it.
"You're quiet company," he said. "But better than nothing."
The lizard blinked slowly.
Without another word, the man tucked the coin away and kept walking — always in the direction where the sun was setting, as if something waited for him beyond the horizon.