The clash of steel ripped through the air, followed by the shrill cry of horses in panic. The sound dragged the knight—frail, pale, and impaled—back into the cruel realm of the living.
The spike that had claimed him held him aloft like a grotesque trophy, its cold iron buried deep through his body. He neither screamed nor cursed. He simply hung there, swaying slightly in the wind, eyes half-lidded, the weight of time pressing on his bones. Hours bled away, and still he lingered—until the metal itself seemed to drink his blood, blackening where it pierced him.
Then… a sound.
His ear twitched. Slowly, his head turned toward the horizon.
There it was—something wrong with the world. Noon had not yet died, and yet darkness crept across the land like ink spilled over parchment. It was not the gentle approach of dusk. It was hunger made visible.
A primal dread stirred in his gut.
He began to move, his limbs trembling, teeth clenched against a groan. Inch by inch, he fought to pull himself free. The spike tore through him again, but no pain came—only the hollow sensation of muscle moving without strength. At last, with a wrenching effort, he was free.
The darkness was upon him.
It struck like a tide, shoving, tearing, pulling him from the hill with merciless force. The ground vanished beneath him. He staggered to rise—but his legs betrayed him.
Looking down, his heart sank. His armored boot dangled grotesquely, attached to the rest of him by nothing but a pale, stretched ligament.
No time. No hope for repair.
He dragged himself forward, through the void that battered him like a storm without wind. It carried him, tossed him, spun him into nothingness. Then—impact.
A wall.
The collision sent a bell of pain ringing inside his skull. He clung to consciousness, his hands scraping along the unseen surface, desperate to hold onto something real.
Another blow—harder this time. His body smacked into something vast, immovable. Through the suffocating black, he caught a flicker—thin as a knife's edge—of yellow light.
A narrow path.
The void hissed around him, pressing in as if eager to crush him before he could reach it. He clawed his way upward, climbing the unseen structure toward that sliver of salvation.
At last, with one final push, he forced himself through. A sharp crack tore the silence—bone, metal, or stone, he could not tell. Then… nothing.
No wind. No light.
Only the sensation of falling.