When his eyes finally cracked open, the world didn't resolve into familiar shapes the way Earth did.It was a vast crimson canopy, dull and heavy, like a bruise stretched across infinity. The light that bled from it didn't glitter or shift. It hung—thick, hot, and constant.Even the air had a taste: dry iron and fine dust, like inhaling the memory of something burned.
Evan lay on sand that wasn't beach sand and wasn't desert sand either—too coarse, too gritty, packed with tiny black fragments that looked like burnt glass. When he dragged his fingers through it, the grains scraped his skin with a dry hiss, leaving faint lines that immediately softened as a weak wind sighed over them.
He sat up too fast and the world pitched sideways for a second, nausea curling under his ribs. Sweat formed instantly at his hairline and didn't so much evaporate as get stolen pulled off his skin in tiny, ruthless sips by air that seemed designed to strip moisture from anything alive.
The horizon was endless.
A flat expanse of wasteland stretched out in every direction, broken only by sparse silhouettes far away. At first, they looked like boulders. Then his eyes adjusted and he saw trees—or what used to be trees.
They stood scattered like dead sentries: leafless trunks blackened as if fire had climbed their bark and never let go. Branches reached upward in twisted arcs, not toward hope, but toward that merciless crimson ceiling. No birds perched there. No insects moved. No flutter of life disturbed their stillness.
The silence wasn't peaceful.
His memory returned in sharp pieces: lantern light, Elara's voice—keep walking—carvings along stone walls, the riders in cloud relief. The red shimmer. His attention pulled like a hook. Then the flash that consumed him as if the corridor itself had decided he belonged inside its stories.
"Elara—" he tried.
His voice came out a rasp, scraped raw by dry air.
He forced it again, louder, turning as if she might step from behind a dune.
"Elara!"
Nothing answered. Not even an echo. His words were absorbed by open space the way heat absorbed breath.
Then the interface assembled in front of him with effortless precision.
[LEGACY CHALLENGE INITIATED]
[Objective: Survive and reach the altar.]
Evan stared at the word Legacy until it stopped looking like a real word. The world didn't react. The system didn't react.
Heat lapped at him like an invisible tide, constant and suffocating. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and his skin came away damp and gritty.
His arms tightened around something heavy.
He looked down.
The egg sat in the crook of his left arm—stone-dark, dull as night rock, swallowing light instead of reflecting it. It looked wrong against the crimson wasteland, like a piece of deep space dropped into a furnace.
"So you made it too," he whispered. Half accusation. Half relief.
He pushed himself to his feet and turned slowly, scanning for movement, landmarks, any sign that this place had an edge.
That's when he noticed the light above wasn't coming from one source.
He looked up.
Two suns hung in the red sky.
Not yellow. Not white. Red. One larger, harsher, its glare heavy enough to make his eyes water. The second smaller and offset, dimmer but still wrong casting a second set of shadows that overlapped the first, doubling lines and confusing depth. Every stump and stone threw two angles of darkness, as if the world couldn't decide where "down" belonged.
Evan stared, unease crawling up his spine.
His gaze dropped back to the horizon—and that's when he saw it.
A pulse.
Far away, almost swallowed by heat haze, something brightened faintly on the edge of the world and then dimmed. Rhythmic. Patient. Like a slow heartbeat.
Evan squinted, leaning forward as if he could force the distance to cooperate.
It happened again.
Mirage. Hallucination. Heat playing tricks—
He blinked, and the pulse vanished.
Evan exhaled sharply. "Yeah. Okay. Great. My brain's already lying to me."
As if offended by his doubt, the bond behind his sternum thrummed—deep, resonant—and the stone egg in his arms answered with a pulse of its own. Not light. Not sound. A feeling transmitted through bone, like a heavy drumbeat.
Evan froze.
He looked back up.
The distant pulse flashed again, timed to the egg's fading vibration.
His breath caught.
"…Alright," he said softly. "That's real."
He tightened his backpack straps, adjusted his grip on the egg, and began walking toward the pulse—into the crimson wasteland beneath twin suns that never blinked.
***
Time did strange things when the sky refused to change.
At first Evan tried to count minutes by his breathing, then by the number of steps between sips of water, then by the ache that deepened in his calves. None of it felt reliable. The light never softened. The heat never relented. The wind, when it came, brought only more dryness—dust that filmed his lips and settled in the corners of his eyes.
Sweat ran down his back and dried into salt that made his shirt cling. The sand shifted beneath his boots—sometimes hard-packed like clay, sometimes loose enough to steal traction, forcing him to push harder. Every so often the black shards in the grit caught light and winked like broken glass, small reminders that the ground itself had been burned and shattered.
He walked past scorched trees whose shadows lay doubled on the sand. Up close, their bark was cracked into scales, black and brittle. Some trunks were split clean through, as if heat had expanded them until they tore themselves apart. A few still stood upright, stubborn even in death.
Evan's mouth grew so dry his tongue felt too big for it. He tried not to breathe through his mouth—tried to keep moisture—but the air stung his nose, and he found himself switching without meaning to.
He had water. A bottle in his side pocket.
He forced discipline.
Small sips. Timed. Controlled.
Every swallow tasted faintly of plastic and salvation.
He kept the baseball cap off at first—hood up from his jacket, sleeves rolled down. But the heat sank through fabric, anyway, pressing down. Eventually he stopped, peeled his jacket off with stiff motions, and stuffed it into his pack. The moment his forearms were exposed, sunlight bit into his skin as if the air had teeth.
He dug out the baseball cap and jammed it onto his head.
It helped.
Barely.
The pulse on the horizon continued, faint and steady, sometimes disappearing behind heat shimmer, sometimes flaring brighter for a heartbeat like a taunt: Yes, you're still going the right way. Keep burning.
Evan's mind drifted, unwanted.
Elara. Byakko. The Hall of Legacies. The gate carvings.
He pictured the red rider again—how the shimmer had caught his eye like a lure.
War, his brain whispered, dredging myth from memory.
A grim laugh threatened to rise and died in his throat. Even the traps have lore.
His grip tightened on the egg.
The stone surface was warm now from the heat, not cool the way it had been in the house. It didn't comfort him.
Hours passed—maybe.
He didn't know.
But when a jagged rock formation appeared ahead like a broken tooth rising from the sand, Evan's chest loosened with relief so sharp it almost hurt.
Shade.
Actual shade.
He stumbled into it and sank down with his back against stone, breathing hard. The temperature didn't become comfortable—still hot, still oppressive—but it stopped actively trying to cook him.
He drank a careful sip of water and held it in his mouth for a second, letting his tongue soak it up before swallowing.
He closed his eyes.
For a few breaths, the world narrowed to heartbeat and wind.
Then he forced himself back up.
Rest was a trap too, if it lasted too long.
He climbed the rock formation slowly, palms scraping against rough stone. The grit under his nails felt like sandpaper. The higher he climbed, the more the wind tugged at his shirt, carrying dust that stung his cheeks.
At the top he shaded his eyes and scanned.
Desert.
Desert.
Desert—
—and then something angular on the horizon.
A fence line.
Evan's pulse kicked.
"Town," he whispered.
It was far but visible now—a wooden encirclement, the silhouette of rooftops beyond. For a moment, hope flickered. He climbed down and headed toward it, angling slightly to align with the distant pulse. The egg's bond seemed to agree—steady and insistent.
***
As he drew closer, the "town" stopped looking like salvation and started looking like a scar.
From a distance the fence had seemed intact. Up close it was barely standing.
Wood posts leaned at tired angles. Planks were cracked and sun-bleached, edges blackened as if they'd been kissed by fire long ago. Sections had collapsed entirely, leaving gaps wide enough to walk through without effort. The main gate hung crooked on rusted hinges, half-open like a mouth that couldn't close.
Evan slowed, every instinct tense.
"Hello?" he called, voice louder than he wanted, the sound scraping out of his dry throat.
No answer.
He stepped through the entrance.
Silence inside the settlement was worse than outside.
Outside, wind existed. Here, air sat trapped between ruined buildings like breath held too long.
Houses lined dusty paths—simple structures of wood and stone. Roofs had caved. Doors hung open. Windows were shattered or boarded. Dust drifted in slow spirals through shafts of red light spilling from holes overhead.
No movement.
No voices.
No living scent—only old wood and sunbaked dryness.
Evan's boots scuffed in the dirt, and the sound felt too loud.
He passed an overturned cart near a well. The well's rope was frayed, bucket missing. He peered down.
Dry.
Of course it was dry.
He entered the nearest house. The door creaked like a warning.
Inside, the air was stale. A table sat with a single chair knocked over. A clay cup lay shattered on the floor. In the corner, cloth that might've been a blanket had turned to dust and thread.
Evan's gaze snagged on the wall.
Marks.
Not scratches. Not random damage.
Writing.
He stepped closer, squinting.
Curved lines and sharp angles, a script that looked like it belonged to a different throat, a different history. Some ink had run. Some had faded. Sunlight had burned parts away.
He couldn't read it.
But he could feel the desperation in it—the way the strokes bit into the surface as if someone had pressed too hard.
Evan backed out and searched another building.
More remnants. A child's toy—some carved animal—half-buried in grit. It made his stomach twist for reasons he didn't want to unpack. A drawer held scorched papers with curled edges. He lifted one carefully; it crackled like dry leaves.
More writing. More symbols.
He stared until his eyes watered, frustration and unease mixing into something sour.
"This place…" he whispered.
Had it been brought here like Earth was being brought now?
Had people lived, hatched beasts, fought monsters, tried to survive?
And then failed?
Evan stepped into the street again and looked around the settlement with new eyes.
It wasn't just abandoned.
It felt… finished.
Like the end of a story.
His gaze landed on the largest building near the center—taller than the homes, broader doors, a roofline that suggested it once held gatherings. A hall? A school? A council building?
A place for answers.
Evan's mouth went dry again.
"Alright," he murmured. "Let's see what you were."
He walked to it, noticing damage as he approached: gouges in wood like claws, scorch marks along the threshold, a chunk missing from one corner as if something had slammed into it hard enough to bite off a piece.
He pushed the doors.
The hinges screamed.
The sound ripped through the settlement like a wound. Evan froze, listening for any reaction.
Nothing.
He stepped inside.
The air was cooler—barely—but it felt like relief after the constant exposure outside. Dust hung in beams of red sunlight filtering through holes in the roof.
Evan moved down a corridor. Rooms branched off. His footsteps echoed softly, sound swallowed by distance and decay.
He wasn't sure why he felt drawn to the first door on the left—only that the egg in his arms seemed heavier in that direction, like the bond tightened.
Evan swallowed.
"Not creepy," he muttered, and reached for the door.
It opened with a low groan.
He stepped into the room and stopped so abruptly his breath caught.
A skeleton lay on the floor. Ragged clothing clung to it in strips. One arm stretched toward a table as if the person had crawled, desperate, and died inches from something that mattered.
Books were scattered around, covers cracked, and pages splayed open. Some lay stacked and toppled, others spread like the remains of frantic searching.
Evan's stomach turned.
A cold sweat prickled his scalp despite the heat.
He forced himself to breathe slowly.
"Okay," he whispered. "Okay. It's not—" He swallowed. "It's not a threat."
His eyes flicked around the room.
No other bodies.
No movement.
Only books.
Shelves lined the walls. Many were half-empty, as if someone had ripped volumes out in a hurry. Dust coated everything, thick enough that Evan could see where hands had disturbed it.
This wasn't a town hall.
It was a library.
Small, but deliberate.
Evan stepped closer, careful where he placed his boots. The corpse's hand clutched one book tighter than the others.
Its cover was red.
Not faded. Not sun-worn.
Red like fresh blood.
Evan's throat tightened.
He didn't want to touch it.
He also couldn't not touch it.
Because whatever made someone die clinging to it had to matter.
He crouched, hands shaking slightly, and studied the skeleton's fingers. They were stiff, curled around the red cover like a fist around a lifeline.
Evan glanced at the egg in his arm. The bond pulsed faintly subtle approval or warning, he couldn't tell.
"Sorry," he whispered, mostly to the dead.
He pried the fingers loose gently. They resisted for a second—stiff with dryness—then released.
The red book slid into Evan's hands.
It felt heavier than it should have.
Not physically heavy—meaningfully heavy, like it carried a weight the rest of the room didn't.
He held it up in the dim red light.
The cover's pigment was too clean. Too alive. The edges didn't look as sun bitten as the other books. It was as if the book had refused to decay.
For a heartbeat, the surface caught light and… almost shimmered. Not like Elara's egg shimmered, not iridescent. More like the faint glow of an ember hidden under ash.
Evan's pulse quickened.
The title was embossed, faint—letters shaped like the town's script but more refined. He couldn't read them.
But the sight of them made the hair on his arms rise anyway.
He lowered the book slowly and forced himself to scan the room again, searching for threats like his brain insisted there had to be.
Nothing.
Just dust and paper and silence.
He set the red book on a table carefully—too carefully—like placing it down wrong might trigger the system.
Then he turned to the shelves.
If he couldn't read the words, he could still read patterns.
He pulled a book with diagrams rather than dense script. Flipped pages slowly.
Circles. Towers. Lines connecting nodes like a flowchart.
One sketch showed a tall spire divided into stacked segments—floors.
The Labyrinth tower.
Another diagram showed a gate and arrows—entry points, maybe. Or transitions.
He found a page with a crude outline of the settlement—fence, buildings, then a line leading outward into the desert. At the end of the line was a symbol drawn like a pedestal.
An altar.
Evan's stomach tightened.
Survive and reach the altar.
So, the altar wasn't metaphorical.
It was a destination.
Evan's gaze slid to it on the table.
His instincts pulled toward it like gravity.
He reached out again and touched the cover. He lifted the red book and slid it into his backpack, wedging it between his jacket and a spare shirt so it wouldn't bounce or get scraped.
As he did, the stone egg in his arm gave a faint pulse—subtle, bone-deep—like it approved of the choice.
Evan froze, then let out a slow breath.
"Okay," he said softly. "We're collecting cursed textbooks now. Cool."
He stood, rolled his shoulders, and turned toward the door.
Before leaving, he scanned the room one last time—corners, shelves, the corridor outside. His senses felt sharpened by fear, by heat, by the knowledge that he was alone in a world that never cooled.
Evan stepped out into the corridor and closed the library door behind him with a gentle push, as if loud noises might wake something.
He walked back toward the building's main exit, boots whispering on dusty floor.
As he reached the doorway, the heat hit him again like a physical shove.
Evan squinted into the red glare and looked toward the horizon. He adjusted his cap, tightened his backpack straps, and started walking back into the desert.
Toward the altar.
Toward whatever "Legacy" meant under twin red suns.
Behind him, the settlement remained silent.
And inside the library—unbeknownst to Evan—the corpse's eyes began to glow.
Faintly at first. A dim ember light forming behind dried lids like a coal catching breath.
The glow strengthened, slow and patient, as if waking wasn't a switch but a decision.
The corpse did not move.
But something that should not have been awake—woke.