The wasteland stretched endlessly before me, jagged hills and cracked stone carving a path that only the desperate or the foolish would traverse. I had always considered myself the former.
The journey to the Dark City was supposed to take a month—if I moved efficiently, if the terrain didn't betray me, if I reached the high points before the Dark Sea rose at night. None of those things went as planned.
At first, I followed the natural paths, climbing higher when the sun dipped low. Each night, the Dark sea would surge, devouring everything beneath it, swallowing the land in a tide of writhing shadows. Every night, I found refuge just in time. I meditated every night not daring to sleep, fearing some monster showing up before i could register it. It was for sure one of the reasons I started to get anxious.
Some days, the land worked against me. The cliffs were too steep, the canyons too wide, the terrain a labyrinth of dead ends. And I lost time.
One night, I found myself stranded at the base of a broken ridge. The next high point was still too far. I ran, lungs burning, feet tearing against the jagged stone. I could hear the Dark Sea creeping closer—a whisper, a hunger, a promise of oblivion.
In the end, I made it. Barely.
But close calls like that made something shift inside me.
The anxiety festered.
The pressure to move faster clawed at my mind.
I couldn't afford to waste time.
And so, I stopped being careful.
I forced my body through punishing marches, scaling cliffs with bleeding fingers, leaping across gaps too wide to risk. I ignored the pain. I ignored the exhaustion. I needed to move.
And my recklessness was rewarded with scars.
A beast's claw raked across my side when I miscalculated an ambush. A fall down a loose rock face left jagged gashes on my arms. My torso bore the marks of near misses, close brushes with death that painted my skin in lines of pain.
Each scar was a lesson.
Each wound was proof of my recklesness.
Still, I pressed forward.
They were waiting in the Dark city, if I don't reach in time they will set out for a fruitless adventure and who knows what might happen then.
I had to reach it.
No matter what.