The world felt like it was fading away, slipping into dull shades of grey. In the midst of it all stood Ronan, looking strangely indifferent to the desolation surrounding him. It wasn't that he welcomed the bleakness; it mirrored the emptiness he had grown to expect in his own life.
He leaned against the fence at the edge of the Fallow settlement, the rough wood cool against his palm as he stared out at the Blight. This wasn't a typical disaster. There was no thunder or flames. It was something more sinister. A thick, shimmering mist hovered on the horizon, stealing color from everything it touched, leaving only dust and remnants of what once was. The grass had lost its vibrancy and now resembled ash more than anything green. The sky above was no longer blue; it was a sickly silver, as if even the light was suffering.
Five years had slipped by since the so-called victory—the fall of the Demon King. That event was supposed to change everything, but it only led to a real apocalypse erupting from the ground where he had fallen. They named it the Grave of Heroes—a fancy title for something that looked more like a disease, devouring the lively, magical world he once cherished and replacing it with silence and shadows.
A child's harsh cough broke into his thoughts. It was a painful sound that cut through the decay around him. He turned away, feeling the familiar weight of his medical satchel resting against his hip. His role was here, treating symptoms. Staring into the heart of the illness was a luxury meant for those who still believed there was hope.
Old Man Hemlock's cabin was thick with the smell of boiled roots, mixed with despair. The air hung heavy with thyme, but it did little to lift the gloom. The old man lay on his cot, each shallow breath sounding like a rattle. His daughter, Liana, stood anxiously by the door, worry etched on her young face as she fiddled with her worn apron.
Ronan knelt beside the bed, ignoring the familiar ache in his knees. He didn't need to check for the grey hue on the man's fingertips or the chill sweat that indicated something worse than a fever. He knew the signs all too well, just as he knew the scars in his own hands.
"The Blight cough," Liana whispered tightly. "It's taken hold in his lungs. It's getting worse, isn't it?"
Ronan held back false comfort. He'd learned that lesson the hard way. Instead, he pulled out a small cloth pouch from his satchel. The dried herbs inside were a dull green—one of the last remaining colors still fighting to exist. "This will help him breathe," he said in a calm voice. "Steep it in hot water and make him drink it all. But it won't cure him." He looked her straight in the eye. "Nothing can cure the Blight. But it might make his passing a bit more bearable."
The words felt cruel, but kindness had long since disappeared along with the colors. Liana took the pouch from him, their fingers brushing briefly. She flinched slightly; everyone did. Ronan had become known as Ronan the Medic, Ronan the Survivor—the man who had faced the last battle when the earth split apart, walking away while heroes like the Sun-Knight Lyra were lost to the rising grey. He sensed the unspoken question lingering in their eyes, a question he saw mirrored in his own every morning: Why was he still alive? Why had a mere medic survived when the giants had perished?
He had no answers for them. He didn't have any answers for himself either, except for the haunting memory of the world changing from a vibrant place into this consuming grey in just one catastrophic heartbeat.
As he gathered his meager supplies—a bone needle, clean linen strips, a flask of distilled spirits—the unsettling sound began. It was a low hum, more of a vibration than a sound, starting in his teeth and settling deep in his bones. A Blight-surge.
Panic erupted from the cabin. Liana shouted, rushing to her father's side, her instincts pushing her to protect him. Outside, the usually quiet settlement erupted into cries of alarm that quickly turned to screams.
Ronan didn't wait to think. His body moved instinctively, driven by years of being a soldier. He flung the door open and stepped into chaos.
The sky had vanished. That sickly silver tone was swallowed by a swirling grey fog that surrounded the settlement like a looming shroud. The mist moved with an unsettling, almost predatory intent. Where it touched, wood didn't just rot; it crumbled to dust as if it had never existed. He saw Garvin, the carpenter, running toward the well. The mist touched him, and though he didn't scream for long, something dark consumed him. He disappeared into the fog, leaving behind a haunting silence.
Ronan found himself frozen in place, not from fear but a heavy, shameful recognition. This was the cruel reality of their world now—a truth he had lived with for five long years.
Then he noticed her. A small girl named Myla, her blonde hair boldly contrasting against the grey landscape, had broken from the crowd and was running straight toward the encroaching wall of grey. In her little hands, she clutched a rolling wooden wheel, her youthful determination shining through her scared expression.
Idiot. The thought was cold and clinical, a medic's assessment of a hopeless situation.
Yet, before he could dwell on it, his body sprang into action. He knew he wasn't a hero; heroes died, leaving behind tales for the Grave. He was a medic—his duty was to save what he could. He sprinted forward, his boots kicking up clouds of ashen dust, feeling the grey mist wash over him.
For many, this fog felt like a dissolution of the soul. For him, it was merely a profound coldness, a static buzz against his skin—much like jumping into an icy lake. That's all it was. It had always been that way.
For the child standing in front of him, it meant the end. He could see the gray creeping at the hem of her simple wool dress, the fabric crumbling into nothingness. Without thinking, he lunged forward, focused solely on the space between her small body and the abyss. He grabbed her thin arm, pulling her back with enough force to bruise, spinning as he did so. He stumbled, turning his body into a shield, tucking her head against his chest and shielding her from the overwhelming tide threatening to swallow them both.
In that moment, everything vanished into a chaotic, silent gray. He couldn't see or hear anything other than the frantic pounding of his heart and the buzzing in his bones. He felt the decay swirling around him, a current filled with absolute nothingness. It parted like water around a stone, kept at bay by some invisible barrier that began and ended with his skin. Stood there like a rock in a river of oblivion, he held a sobbing child who trembled against the unnatural cold that he alone could withstand.
Seconds, or maybe it was minutes later, it was all over. The surge receded, pulling back toward the horizon as quickly as it had come, sated for the time being. The silence that followed was heavier and more deafening than the previous chaos.
Ronan slowly straightened up, his muscles protesting with every movement. He gently pried the terrified girl from his shirt and handed her to her weeping mother, who expressed her thanks in a choked, incoherent stream.
That was when he noticed the eyes. Dozens of them, all staring at him not with gratitude, but with emerging, terrified realization.
He found himself surrounded by a perfect circle of untouched ground. The cabin behind him was half-destroyed, its wooden walls sliced away as if by the knife of a god. To his left, the fence was simply gone, revealing the endless gray that lay beyond. But where he had stood, the ground remained whole. The Blight had consumed everything around him, but he, and the piece of earth he stood on, were completely untouched.
The eerie silence broke, replaced by a chorus of terrified whispers cutting through the air.
"By the fallen... he's untouched…"
"The Blight… it didn't touch him."
"How…? No one… no one is immune."
"What is he?"
Ronan looked down at his hands. They were clean, free of any gray tint. No cold sweat either. Just the ordinary, calloused hands of a medic, someone used to setting bones and stitching wounds.
He looked up, meeting the wide, horrified eyes of the settlers. Their fear of the Blight morphed into a sharper, more personal fear of him.
His anonymity, the fragile peace that allowed him to believe he was just a regular man, shattered completely, as if the world around him had fallen apart.
He felt.. exposed.