There was no road beyond the old Gate 17.
Just gravel, rust, and silence.
A thousand signs lined the checkpoint:
"NO ENTRY.
SYSTEM ZONE ENDS HERE."
"BEYOND THIS POINT, NO SUPPORT GUARANTEED."
"ENTERING UNREGISTERED ZONES IS A CAPITAL OFFENSE."
Erwin stepped past every one.
No one stopped him.
Why would they?
He was no longer part of the system.
He had no name in their database.
No ID, no GPS tag, no trackable future.
He was a ghost now.
And the world beyond the gates?
It welcomed ghosts.
The first few days were bearable.
He rationed food. Walked until his legs ached.
Slept in broken rail tunnels and the ruins of forgotten outposts.
Talked to no one. Trusted nothing.
Then came the first sandstorm.
It didn't roar in like the vids showed — it crept in.
A yellow haze rising from the horizon until the sun disappeared.
He wrapped his face and pressed himself into the back of an overturned armored truck, barely sealed, and listened for hours as dust pelted metal like needles.
He dreamt of Jhon that night.
Not the man he knew.
But his body — cold, stiff, whispering with no mouth:
"You'll join me soon."
He woke screaming.
He didn't cry.
He didn't allow himself.
Instead, he carved a tally into the truck wall.
One more night survived.
Weeks blurred.
Water grew scarce.
Food turned bitter.
His body thinned.
His hands blistered.
Once, he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a cracked screen.
He didn't recognize the man staring back.
Beard grown in. Eyes sunken. Lips split.
But it was the eyes — that fire behind the deadness — that unsettled him most.
That wasn't grief.
That was becoming.
He fought scavengers — not monsters, just men who'd long abandoned morality. He took a knife to the arm during one ambush. Killed for the first time during another.
The man had lunged with a rusted wrench.
Erwin moved on instinct.
Brick. Head. Blood. Silence.
He stood over the corpse for an hour.
Not mourning.
Just listening to the wind.
It was on the thirty-second day — or maybe the forty-fifth; time had begun to warp — that he stumbled upon a desert unlike anything mapped.
Black sand. No trees.
The wind sounded like whispers.
Monsters howled in the distance — not natural, not right.
And yet… he kept walking.
He didn't know why.
He was starving. Dying. Barely human anymore.
But something pulled him forward — not fate, not magic…
Hate.
The desire to understand.
To break the truth open with his bare hands.
To witness the heart of the world and rip it apart.
Then, in the distance — a shimmer. Not a mirage.
Structures.
Fortresses buried into canyons, lit by dying blue torches and warding sigils etched in ancient languages.
He collapsed just outside the gate, body convulsing.
Figures stood over him.
One drew a blade. Another raised a vial.
"Outsider."
"He's dying."
"He shouldn't be here."
"He crossed the sand. Alone."
"Impossible."
They argued. Faded.
And then — darkness.
He awoke in chains. Not out of cruelty — precaution.
The air was cold.
The room smelled of burnt herbs and metal.
A woman in ash-grey robes watched him.
Her eyes — serpent-slit. Her aura — heavy.
"You found us," she said. "The Outcasts."
Erwin tried to speak.
His throat was too dry. He coughed, groaned.
She knelt beside him, offering water.
He drank like a man returned from the grave.
"Why did you come here?" she asked.
He forced the words out:
"Because the rest of the world… is a lie."
She smiled. Not kindly.
"Then we will show you truths so cruel… you'll wish you'd stayed ignorant."
He didn't flinch.
"Good," he rasped. "I came to learn everything they never wanted me to see."
[End of Chapter 6 – Exile's Path]