Hope had guarded their makeshift camp for what felt like an eternity. There was no real way to tell how much time had passed, no clocks, no shifting sunlight—only the slow disappearance of the moons above, one after another. The sky never truly brightened, nor did it ever sink into complete darkness. Instead, the eerie glow of the Ashlands seemed to wane gradually, as if the land itself dictated the flow of time.
He sat with his back against the jagged wall of their shelter, one knee drawn up, the other leg stretched out in front of him. His fingers absently tapped against the rusted dagger in his grip, the blade cold and unyielding in his grasp. His muscles were stiff from staying in the same position for too long, but he didn't move much. Movement meant noise, and noise meant risk.
But nothing had come.
No corrupted fiends lurking in the distance, no twisted shadows creeping closer, no distant echoes of something prowling the ruins. Just an overwhelming, oppressive silence that felt unnatural.
And yet, Hope hadn't let his guard down for even a second.
His instincts, honed by years of surviving the streets, warned him that complacency was dangerous. Even when nothing seemed to be happening, something could be. In the outskirts of the city, danger had always hidden in the spaces between moments of peace, waiting for just the right time to strike.
Here, in the Ashlands, that rule seemed amplified tenfold.
Hope exhaled slowly, watching his breath form a faint mist in the frigid air. His body ached, exhaustion clawing at the edges of his mind, but he had endured worse. He had spent entire nights awake before, watching for threats that never came, his body running on sheer willpower.
At some point, the last of the moons faded from sight, swallowed up by the ever-moving sky.
It wasn't morning—not in the way he understood it. But it was the closest thing to it.
Above him, the heavens shifted, revealing a sky that was neither blue nor grey but a deep, swirling expanse of something resembling smoke. It coiled and drifted like living tendrils, stretching across the vast emptiness, constantly moving as if the entire world was caught in an eternal exhale.
There was no sun.
Hope frowned as he watched the thick clouds churn and ripple overhead, moving in slow, steady waves. It wasn't like normal clouds, the kind he had seen in the waking world—these looked heavier, denser, like a suffocating veil hanging over everything.
And yet, despite their constant movement, they never fully dispersed. They simply shifted, revealing glimpses of something deeper, something darker hidden within the endless expanse above.
The light that came through wasn't natural sunlight. It wasn't warm. It wasn't bright. It was a cold, lifeless illumination that barely cast shadows, leaving everything washed out and surreal.
Hope tightened his grip on his dagger.
This place is unnatural.
He had already known that, of course, but watching the sky now, seeing the way it writhed and twisted above them, made it even more apparent. The Ashlands weren't just another place. They weren't just some desolate wasteland where unlucky people were thrown to survive.
They were something else entirely.
Something wrong.
A slow shuffling sound behind him made him turn his head slightly.
Kelvin stirred first, his body shifting under the thin layer of dust that had settled over him during the night. He let out a low grunt, rubbing his face with one hand before pushing himself up onto his elbows. His armor had long since disappeared, absorbed back into his soul sea, leaving him looking far less imposing than before.
A few feet away, Walker remained still, but Hope could tell he wasn't really asleep. His breathing pattern had changed—lighter, more controlled, the kind of breathing someone used when they were listening.
Hope looked back toward the open expanse outside their shelter.
Nothing had changed. The ruins still stood like broken skeletons, the dead trees still reached toward the sky with charred, claw-like branches, and the horizon remained an endless stretch of desolation.
But despite the apparent stillness, he couldn't shake the feeling that something had shifted.
Something unseen.
Something waiting.