"Hey, wake up."
A voice threaded through the fog in Noah's mind, faint but insistent.
"Hey—wake up. We don't have much time."
It came again, sharper now. Urgent.
Noah's eyes cracked open, and at first, the world was a blur of motionless gray. His chest felt hollow. Cold. Like he'd been pulled from the grave.
Hovering above him was a young man—blond hair tousled by wind, sharp blue eyes alive with warning. His face looked almost carved from marble, too flawless for this fractured world.
"Good, you're awake," the stranger said, his tone clipped, focused. "We have to get out of here. Now."
Noah groaned softly, dragging himself upright. Pain laced his limbs like invisible chains. "Why…? What's going on?"
The blond man didn't answer right away. He simply gestured to the world around them. "Does this look like somewhere you want to stay?"
Noah turned his head slowly. The scene before him was surreal. Trees, if they could still be called that, rose like blackened bones from the ground—twisted, scorched, dead. The sky above churned with thunderclouds, their underbellies pulsing with lightning. The storm wasn't distant—it was circling them, breathing down their necks. The wind was hot and dry, laced with the scent of ash and something… rotting.
Everything about this place was wrong.
He blinked hard. "This isn't Earth."
"No," the blond man said simply. "It's not."
A silence hung between them.
"We need to wake the others," he added, turning away. "Every second we lose… it could cost someone their life."
Still reeling, Noah struggled to his feet. His body moved like it had aged years in an instant. He watched as the stranger knelt beside another person, shaking them gently, then firmly, coaxing them back to the waking world.
Noah hesitated. The urge to scream, to demand answers, burned beneath his skin. But it didn't matter now. Not yet.
There was a girl nearby, already awake. She stood among the fallen with a quiet authority that drew eyes like gravity. She didn't bark orders—she didn't need to. Her presence calmed people. Stabilized them.
Her eyes… they were something else entirely. Endless, dark, reflecting the flicker of stormlight. Like windows to stars that had already died. Her hair moved like it remembered how to float in water, catching glimmers of lightning as it fell over her shoulders.
Noah's breath caught.
Not because she was beautiful—but because something about her didn't belong in this place of ash and ruin.
But now wasn't the time. He shook off the thought and moved toward another unconscious form, crouching beside a boy who couldn't be older than fifteen.
"Hey," Noah murmured, tapping his shoulder. "Wake up."
The boy stirred, eyes fluttering open, wild with confusion. Noah offered a steady hand. "You're okay. Just breathe."
A lie, but a necessary one.
One by one, they moved—shaking shoulders, whispering encouragement, dragging the unconscious from their private darkness. Most woke groggy and afraid, eyes darting like trapped animals. A few wept openly. Others stared blankly into the dead forest, as if their minds refused to accept what they saw.
Then the lightning struck.
Crack.
A bolt slammed into the ground less than fifty feet away, a brilliant white flash followed by a thunderclap that sent a ripple through the earth. The ground groaned, trees shuddering like they might fall.
Noah stumbled, then looked up to see the blond man—now carrying a limp girl on his back—shouting across the chaos.
"Hey, hurry up!"
He nodded, forcing himself to move faster. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and fear. This place was alive—not in the way a forest should be, but in the way a predator watches from the dark.
Noah didn't like this. He didn't like not knowing the rules.
He didn't like not knowing why he was still breathing.
He glanced again at the girl—the one who stood untouched by the storm. She moved with stillness, eyes focused, expression unreadable. There was something about her that made people listen. Made him want to listen.
Then she looked at him. Just for a breath.
It wasn't a glance. It was a recognition.
You see me?
The storm surged louder.
Noah looked away first.
By the time the last of the survivors were awake, they had formed a loose crowd—maybe twenty people, maybe more. Most were teenagers, a few older. All dazed. All clinging to the edge of panic.
Ryan—the name the blond man finally gave—returned from the treeline, breathing hard. "There's a path to the east. It's narrow, covered in shadow, but safer than standing here like targets. We move in five."
Noah stepped forward. "What's your name?"
"Ryan," the man said without pause. "You?"
"Noah."
They shook hands—fast, firm. Mutual understanding passed between them without needing to be said: We survive, or we die.
The girl was already moving to the front. People followed her instinctively. Behind them, the crowd thickened as others who had woken up late caught up, forming a line stretching through the ash-ridden trees.
Dozens more. Hundreds. Nearly a thousand, by Noah's rough count.
As they walked, the stories came back to him.
Anubis.
The Trial.
A cursed realm so brutal that even high-ranking warlords entered it only when forced. A place whispered of in training centers and black-market info boards. Where monsters did not follow logic, and rules bent like broken bones. A place where death wasn't a punishment—it was the point.
Only those who reached Rank 10 could pass through it and come out the other side. And most didn't believe such a rank even existed.
Their march eventually led them to a wide clearing, dominated by a jagged, gaping cave that loomed like the mouth of something ancient and asleep. It smelled of cold stone and danger. But it was shelter.
The scouting was brief. Silence ruled. No fire. No lights. No food—yet.
Noah dropped onto a flat rock, head in his hands. His legs trembled, muscles aching like they hadn't been used in years. He forced himself to breathe, slow and quiet.
Anubis…
He'd heard the name before. In the dark corners of the orphanage. In whispers shared by dying scouts. Not spoken—feared.
This was the place where names ended.
His gaze slid toward the girl again.
She didn't act like someone lost. She moved like she knew this land. Like it had tried to kill her before and failed. She wasn't scared.
Neither was Ryan. He paced like a soldier, checking boundaries, his body tense with focus.
They had to be from the Inner City. That elite class. Groomed since childhood. Given instructors, training, gear, the best food, the best techniques. Raised for moments like this. This wasn't a surprise to them—it was a test they expected.
Noah clenched his fists.
He hated the privileged. Always had. They got everything handed to them, and still called it earning.
He had nothing. No training. No family. No secret bloodline. Just pain and survival.
He exhaled sharply, letting it all go for now. The storm wasn't over. It was just catching its breath.
"Guess this is it," he muttered.
Noah closed his eyes for a brief moment. Then opened them again.
This wasn't a dream. It wasn't Earth.
This was Anubis.
And the trial had just begun.