---
🌘
The smoke of burning bark curled into the grey sky like a whisper asking to be noticed.
On the outskirts of the Deadridge Ruins, a cluster of survivors crouched around a fire that gave no warmth — only the illusion of it. A pot hung over the embers, filled with boiled moss, bark peelings, and old leather. No salt. No meat. No hope.
A woman stirred the pot slowly. Her name was Maera, once a teacher in a distant city now swallowed by dust. Her cheeks were hollow, her lips cracked. She hadn't blinked in minutes.
Beside her, her son Tov chewed on a boot sole. He wasn't pretending it was food. He just needed something to chew — something to lie to his brain with.
A child nearby cried. No one had the energy to hush her.
They were twelve in this camp. Yesterday they were fourteen.
One man had died in the night — quietly, no gasps or cries. Just stopped breathing. They stripped his body for clothing before dawn. Another woman had wandered into the fog and never returned.
They didn't speak her name.
---
⛓️ Elsewhere…
In the Bone Markets, things were louder. Bloodier.
A crowd screamed as two men fought in a pit of shattered glass and dust. No armor. No weapons. Only fists and teeth. Around them, masked traders took bets — not on who would win, but on who would die slower.
The prize? Half a loaf of fungus-bread and a small flask of filtered water.
"Rip his jaw!" one man roared.
"Bite his eye!" another laughed.
No one remembered what bread used to taste like.
In a corner, a girl no older than fifteen cleaned dried blood off a rusted blade. Her name was Lani, and she was saving up — not for food, but for a map. One that showed the path to Hollowtree, the mythical place where some say soil still lives.
She didn't believe in myths. But she believed in directions.
---
🏚️ In a hidden place…
Deep beneath the ruins of a forgotten temple, a man named Rovek sat at a stone table. Around him, candles flickered. On the table were five sealed jars — each containing a withered, dying seed.
"These are the last," he murmured.
Across from him sat a masked woman in robes stitched with bone.
"We found one more," she said. "It walks. In the body of a boy."
Rovek smiled. It did not reach his eyes.
"Then he must be taken. No matter the cost."
---
🌑 And somewhere, alone…
Auren Marrow sat beneath the bones of a collapsed windmill. He watched the sky fade into ash-colored dusk.
His stomach growled, but he ignored it. Hunger was normal now — a companion, a warning, a curse.
He pulled his shirt up and looked at the glow beneath his skin. The Seed was brighter today. It pulsed slowly, like a heartbeat. Like it was waiting.
He closed his eyes.
"I didn't ask for this," he whispered.
But no one — not even the Seed — answered.
---
> The world wasn't dying anymore.
It was already dead.
And every day the living paid for its funeral.
---
To be continued.....