Smoke. Fire. The acrid stench of burning flesh. The metallic bite of blood on my tongue.

I cough, my lungs seizing against the thick, choking air. My hands claw at the debris around me, searching for something solid, something stable. The rubble shifts as I drag myself free, jagged stone biting into my palms. Every movement sends a fresh wave of agony through my body, but I grit my teeth and force myself upright.

Spots of darkness cloud my vision, creeping in at the edges like hungry shadows. I fight to stay conscious.

Time slows. The world around me is a fractured nightmare, illuminated by flickering flames. This place was meant to be a sanctuary, a final refuge against the slaughter. But they found us.

They always find us.

They do not want us to survive this war. To them, we are nothing but dirt beneath their boots. They will walk through fields of our bones, believing the slaughter will pave their path to the stars.

I stagger forward, my legs trembling beneath me. Smoke coils through the streets, thick and suffocating, turning the night into an endless void. I tilt my head back, searching for the stars, some sign that the heavens still exist beyond this ruin.

But there is nothing. No light. No salvation.

They abandoned us long ago.

The roar of battle is everywhere. The clash of steel, the screams of the dying, the inhuman shrieks of the things that rain death upon us. I cannot tell who is winning. Perhaps no one is. Perhaps this is a war where victory does not exist, only annihilation.

I press forward, stumbling over broken bricks, splintered wood, the charred remains of what was once a home. The heat from the fires licks at my skin, sweat mingling with ash and blood.

Then comes pain. A sharp sting as ash falls into my eyes, blinding me. I blink rapidly, trying to clear my sight, but it is too late. I collide with something solid. No, not something. Someone.

Before I can gasp, a rough hand clamps over my mouth. Strong fingers press against my skin, muffling any sound before it can escape.

I thrash instinctively, panic surging through my veins like fire, but my captor pulls me back, dragging me behind the remains of a fallen stone wall. My back scrapes against the jagged surface as we sink into the shadows.

"Shhh," they rasp into my ear, their breath warm against my skin. "Do not make a sound, or they will find us."

I freeze.

Beyond our hiding place, the sound of hurried footsteps echoes against the broken street. Two figures rush past, tall, unnervingly graceful. Their movements are too fluid, too precise to be any of the residents of this camp. Even in the flickering firelight, I see the faint shimmer of their unnatural forms.

Not human. Not anymore.

My stomach knots with fear. They hunt with an unrelenting hunger, drawn to the scent of blood, to the sound of breath hitching in terrified lungs. If they had turned even a fraction, if they had so much as glanced our way, we would be done for.

A new scream splits the air. Close. Too close. I flinch as I press myself further into the shadows. Somewhere beyond the burning ruins, another life is being torn apart. Another voice added to the chorus of the dying.

The hand over my mouth drops. My captor steps back just enough to let me breathe.

The firelight above casts a flickering glow over their face, revealing weathered skin, deep with lines of age and exhaustion. Their steel-grey eyes are sharp despite their weariness, scanning the destruction with practised caution. Their hair, once dark, is streaked with grey, matted with sweat and ash. There is something unsettlingly familiar about them, yet I know I have never seen them before.

Their gaze holds mine with an intensity that roots me in place. When they speak again, their voice is softer, yet each word drips with the weight of something far greater than either of us.

"The ember that cooled will burn again," they whisper. "You are the thread clipped from the tapestry. When the sky weeps silver, and the garden swallows its gardener, do not let them finish the weaving."

A chill runs down my spine. My lips part to question them, but before I can form the words, their voice shifts, becoming something more than speech, something ancient.

They chant, low and rhythmic, in a language I do not recognise, yet somehow I feel it in my marrow. The air thickens around me, as though the world itself is holding its breath. The ground beneath my feet shifts, a subtle tremor, as though reality itself is beginning to bend.

A sudden pressure wraps around my chest, tight and suffocating, like the grip of some invisible force. The world starts to blur. The edges of the stone wall dissolve; the air grows heavier and warmer, then colder, as though the very atmosphere is thickening. A distant ringing fills my ears, like the sound of a bell tolling from far away, vibrating through my bones.

I try to step back, to break free from the sensation, but it only grows stronger. The world is sliding, shifting, warping, as if all the pieces are no longer where they should be. I feel myself being pulled, not physically, but something deep inside me is dragged away, a force beyond my control.

Through the haze, I glimpse the sky above. Three pale circles hang in the void where only darkness should be. Moons. Three of them. But no stars. We once had many. Before the hunger took them all.

Pain floods through me, sharp and unexpected. A searing heat spreads like fire through my veins, my skin, my very bones. My heart races, and for a moment, I feel like I am being torn apart from the inside.

And then comes fire.

The stranger jerks, gasping, as a blade of pure flame erupts through their chest. The light is blinding, illuminating their face, contorted in pain, yet resigned, as if they always knew this was coming.

Their eyes meet mine one final time, flickering with something dark and knowing. Their lips move, forming words I cannot hear over the ringing in my ears:

"Survive..."

They slump forward, lifeless, the flaming sword still embedded in their chest. The firelight dances around their form, but I cannot look away from the growing shadow that begins to spread across everything.

The world seems to crack. The air itself splinters, like glass shattering. I feel it again. That pull. That grip tightens around me, drawing me into nothingness, as though I am slipping through a crack, a tear in the fabric of everything.

I try to scream, but the sound is swallowed by overwhelming silence.

The darkness around me thickens, and with it, a sense of being swallowed whole, not by something physical, but by something older, deeper. The shifting of space, the twisting of time, the feeling of being torn apart, and then...

Nothing.