Everything was dark. No pain, no blinding light, no heat against his skin nor pressure against his being. He was out cold. Asleep he was yet he could feel something under him. A rough unyielding surface. Every breath he took pressed the stone further against him, like a second spine. He didn't know what he was lying on but every second on it felt like the ground itself was biting and eating at him.
In the next moment he felt something warm fall against his bare hand. It wasn't liquid nor solid. He could feel it none the less. Then another similar feeling, yet this time the warm feeling crumbled against his skin. It wasn't heavy or sharp. It was soft. Irritated, he turned onto his side shielding his right hand, but the same feeling hit him on his other hand.
He frowned. The same feeling drifted on his hands and face again and again. Curious, he opened his eyes and looked at his hand.
Ash
It clung to his hand like pale snow glowing faintly red before fading to gray. The air carried more of it. Like the sky itself caught on fire and forgot it was burning. Kaai pushed himself upright. Disoriented, he looked at the horizon, but what he saw was a thick veil of fog. But it wasn't. The fog was not mist at all, it was ash. Endless and unbroken. The ash stretched to the horizon.
Before he could collect his thoughts, the world tilted. Not gently like a ship swaying. But violently, like the world itself has been seized and turned on its side. His body slid then fell. The onyx ground beneath him was gone. Replaced by a brutal grasp of the unnatural gravity. He was falling down an impossible slop. His body struck rocks–once–twice, he tumbled helplessly. then,his fall came to a sudden jolt. Something pinned him in place, digging into his ribs. Adding to the pain was his large backpack.
Groaning, he forced himself to look
Not a wall
A blade
A giant sword half buried into the earth. Its edges dull. Its core cracked. It had stopped his descent. Like a hand of a long dead sentinel, holding him between life and an endless slide to death. He was bruised and battered. Tired, he forced himself to raise his head. The ash was thicker. Layering on the ground like a pale shroud. Beneath it, broken banners jutted like bone, their colors long faded, their symbols unrecognisable. Swords–dozens,hundreds– were planted into the earth. Stretching into the distance endless.
And kaai, caught between one sword and countless others. Only then did he realize that he was standing in a graveyard of an age that had ended long before him.
Above him a low sound echoed through the land. A sound kin to that of glass grinding against one another, with the sudden splinter. Kaai looked up in horror. As he was looking he clutched his chest. Fingers–nails– digging into his skin.
What he saw was a broken sky.
Not black, not blue—broken. It stretched above him like a shattered mirror, vast panes of color suspended in an endless void. Some fragments burned with the dull glow of dying suns, others swirled with bruised clouds that bled red and violet, and between them were jagged seams of pure darkness, as though the heavens had been torn apart and never mended. And behind said broken sky
was a moon torn in half.
Kaai kept looking at the broken sky for a few minutes. Unable to fathom what was going on. ''This is a dream, a dream'' Kaai kept telling himself, yet ''this can't be a dream'' for it was far too real. He already was about to die if not for this giant sword. He laid on the sword for dozens of minutes until gravity corrected itself or at least he hoped so. Finally, when he touched the ground again, he examined his surroundings as he made his way across the forsaken graveyard. He understood one thing. The laws of physics didn't make sense anymore.
Gravity pulled sideways as often as it pulled down, ash rising and falling in the same breath. Sound carried in strange, broken echoes—sometimes a whisper traveled further than a shout, bending back on itself like the land was mocking him.Even the light betrayed him, bleeding in unnatural hues that shifted as though time itself stuttered, refusing to move in a straight line. The laws of physics hadn't simply broken here—they had been rewritten, and whatever rules replaced them cared little for human sanity.
Kaai was walking in said realm with haze. often, he bumped into swords that were twice his size. The steel of the swords was cracked, but when he looked closer, the breaks glowed faintly, as though some ember of the battle still burned within them. He then came to a stop, leaning on one of the hilt of the giant swords. He tried to recollect what had happened.
His face frowned as he thought out loud.
"I was in my uncle's car, I was sleeping. I then woke up and wore the bag"
he placed his hand on his backpack, he frowned even more. " then that white expanse, the endless copies of me, and….. that blue orb."
His body shivered as he remembered what happened next. " there was that ….vile goo in that orb. Was it sealed within. Was it an apocalyptic egg of sorts?. The. There was a voice"
Upon remembering what the voice said. Kaai's knuckles bulged, pale and taut, as his hand curled into a white-knuckled fist. His eyes darkened with anger. " 'what have we done' huh! You fuckers. You mother fuckers at pendragon. Just what the fuck were you tampering with."
He then placed his palm on his forehead " then that dream, that feeling next to the lab, why mother was taking extra shifts"
His eyes widened " mother? Did…. Did she know about this? And also how uncle Jo and mother reacted to my dream! And how uncle Jo hates that lab... Did they"
He shook his head. " it doesnt fucking matter! What matters now is finding them and getting to safety" his eyes burning with cold determination. "After that we can figure out what's happening". with that Kaai took off his backpack, and checked it. Everything was intact. He then took out his rifle and made his way through the graveyard of swords.
As he moved through the countless swords. They started to grow thin.
the ash gave way to roots. Trees had grown here—but they were not trees. Some had trunks braided from hundreds of lances bound together by bark. Others bore branches sprouting shields, like leaves turned wrong. In the distance, a massive trunk split apart, revealing what looked like a ribcage frozen in the act of breathing.
The Grafted Forest.
The air was heavier here, pressing down on his lungs. Something pulsed at the edge of his awareness—a rhythm he could not name, a thrum he could not silence. He didn't understand it yet, but he could feel it, woven into the roots and branches, into the weapons and bones fused to them.
And then he heard the sound.
Not a growl. Not a cry.
The slow, tearing groan of wood and steel straining under their own weight.
From the shadows of the warped trees, a shape dragged itself forward. Its body was plated in rusted armor fused into flesh, its face split into a gaping maw ringed by broken sword hilts jutting like teeth. Its limbs bent at angles no soldier ever should.
When it opened its mouth, the ash stirred with its breath, and from within came words not spoken but remembered—
"…VEYR–ASH THUUN'KAAR…"