The floor trembled loudly and Sia jolted awake, Immediately gasping for air. His skin clung to the sweat-drenched blanket tangled around his legs. The fever had returned deeper now, hotter, like fire crawling just beneath his skin and its becoming more unbearable. His breath hitched as another tremor passed through the shack, making the bone charms on the walls clink like dull wind chimes.
A second quake followed. He felt that one deep in his spine.
"No... No. no, not again," he muttered, dragging himself upright with shaking arms. "Not now."
The fog outside pressed thick against the cracked windowpane. The air felt charged, buzzing like invisible static worming under his skin, into his bones and slowly softening him from the inside out. His head swam, vision becoming more blurry and everything twisting as if his eyes were trying to turn inside out.
He ran a hand through his soaked hair, pushing it back from his face. Strands or more still clung stubbornly over his left sealed eye which were never fully opened and always covered with his hair. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve. "Ashwing?" His voice came out cracked and dry. "Are you here?"
Nothing.
His gaze drifted to the empty perch in the corner. His chest tightened. The silence was too loud.
Another tremor. A candle tipped off the windowsill and extinguished itself in the dirt.
"Ashwing?" he called again, higher now. "Don't leave me. Please. Not now."
Panic built in his throat.
He staggered to his feet and pushed the door open. Barefoot, shivering from cold and aching ribs. He stepped outside into the choking fog , an he felt the graveyard stretched ahead in pale smears and misshapen shadows. Every gravestone looked subtly wrong, skewed, shifted and like the whole place was focused on him.The fog slid between the headstones like fingers.
Then it happened, A sharp spike of pain stabbed through his sealed eye. Sia screamed, dropping to one knee, clutching his face. His eyelid twitched , felt like it was burning then forced itself open.
His world split.
Through the left eye: nothing but blinding, boundless white. Not light. Not form. Just an overwhelming, depthless void of something too bright.
"No—stop—what is this?!" His voice cracked in terror.
His right eye blurred. Vision smeared and bled at the edges. The trees wobbled. The gravestones bled into each other like wet ink. He blinked, blinked , blinked fast again and again.
Blood.
Black-red liquid streaked his cheek.
"Bl... blood?" He touched it. His fingers trembled. "Why am I bleeding? Why now? What's happening to me?!"
A gust rolled across the graveyard, dry and sharp. Wings flapped but instead of the whoosh sound of flight from wings , it's more like bones knocking against bones.
Ashwing landed on a cracked tombstone, feathers ragged and mottled, more skeleton than bird now. His beady black eyes stared down at Sia, the bones beneath his skin shifting faintly.
"You waited too long," the bird said. His voice was quiet, but it grated like brittle wood. "The graveyard's expelling you."
"Expelling me?" Sia's voice rose. "No. That's not possible. This is my home. I've been here my whole life!"
"Not anymore."
"But... I can't leave. I'm not ready. I don't even know what's out there and you expect me to leave!" His voice cracked. "You always said I wasn't ready. You always told me I was weak—so why now?!"
"Because the world is moving," Ashwing said. "And it won't wait for you."
Sia stumbled back toward the shack.
"No. No—I'll wait it out. It's just the fever. That's all. I'll rest. I'll sleep and wake up and things will be fine. Right? Right?!"
He slammed the door behind him. The walls shook with another rumble. The floor pulsed like something alive beneath him like an earthquake .
A jar rolled off the shelf and shattered. Bone powder scattered across the floor.
He dropped to his knees, arms over his head.
"Please... stop," he whispered. "I'll be good. I'll fix things. I'll clean the graves. I'll study more. Just let me stay. Don't throw me out. Please... I don't know how to survive out there."
A wooden rafter split and cracked overhead.
Ashwing's voice came from outside, sharp and final.
"Then die in there."
Sia froze.
The words stabbed deeper than any magic. His breath caught. His face burned.
His left eye still screamed in pain including his right fading to. More blood dripped down his face. And amidst the aggressive loud tremor, He stood slowly, trembling and Reached for the small pouch he kept tied to his belt. Inside: a single charm, the runebone, and a knotted thread of silver. Useless. But it was all he had.
The door creaked open behind him, unforced. He looked back one last time at the only home he'd ever known.
"This is a mistake," he whispered.
But the floor pulsed again—louder, rejecting him.
He stepped outside.
The Biting cold and wind he felt clung to his skin like wet cloth. The air was too wide. Too full of unfamiliar silence. His throat felt raw,it felt dry and itchy, hard to swallow and breath out. His right eye dimmed more with every blink. The blood kept coming.
"..umm..I can't see," he mumbled. "Why can't I see?" He tripped over a twisted old root but Caught himself and kept going. The undead, usually restless even in fog, were nowhere. Not a single one. That alone should have been terrifying and made him worry , But he was too weak and burdened with his own problem to wonder why.He just kept moving and stopping after every step. "I don't even know where to go," he whispered. "What if I die? What if this is dying?" The fog didn't answer, no gave him a definite answer , Nothing did.
He reached the outer edge of the graveyard—where the roots ended and the wild world began. His vision broke again. Flashing white. His knees buckled and He fell. "Ash... wing?" he murmured desperately. "Don't go... please..."
His limbs stopped responding and his breath became thin like something was slowly draining the life out of him. Ashwing fluttered down silently beside him. One soft click—bone to stone. Then the bird was gone. The graveyard behind him fell into silence.
And ahead is … ruin.
What was the worst that could happen?