Ashen felt strange.
'Where am i?'
There was nothing but black all around him, an overwhelming sea of darkness that felt surprisingly comforting.
Then suddenly, like fireworks going off in the night sky, flashes of white light exploded in different corners of his surroundings.
Screams. Smoke. A man running. A woman turning to ash as something sentient clung to her spine and drained the life out of her.
Ashen floated in the middle of it all, weightless, powerless.
He felt the raw fear, the desperate struggle.
The way their fingers clawed at their own skin as they were devoured inside out.
And always, at the center of it all, that thing stood.
The orb.
It kept shifting, pulsing, feeding.
Over and over again.
From one victim to another, it was just an endless cycle of death.
Then came silence.
And then—he saw it.
His own face reflected in a field of endless black.
Then came the impact.
**********
Ashen's eyes snapped open.
He gasped, his lungs struggling to drag in air that felt thick and hot.
His muscles locked in, then spasmed, then finally yielded to the cold, broken concrete beneath him.
The sky above was as grey and oppressive as ever. Steel beams jutted like skeletal fingers all around him.
Rill's face swam into focus above him, her eyes wide with relief. "Ashen?!"
He tried to speak, to reassure her, but his throat felt constricted. No sound came out.
Jax's voice cut in.
"He's alive. Relax and give him some space to breathe will you."
He paused, squinted his eyes, then shot a questioning look at Ashen.
"But that thing… where exactly did it go? It like….didn't… go inside you… did it??"
Ashen slowly pushed himself up.
Every part of him felt alien, and terribly wrong.
It wasn't exactly painful. More like different.
He looked down at his hands. No burns, no marks, and definitely no orb.
It was gone.
He twisted, searching the ground slowly—but there was nothing. No trace of the metallic sphere.
Just the three bodies, dry, brittle and crumpled in the grotesque postures of their sudden death.
"What the hell happened?" Rill asked, her voice low and shaken.
Ashen blinked, trying to piece together the fragmented memories.
"I don't know. All I remember was it hitting me, then I blacked out."
It wasn't a lie.
Well not completely.
**********
They left the site fast, sticking to the shadowed back alleys and overgrown rooftops.
An uneasy silence hung between them.
Ashen couldn't stop glancing at his hands, his arms, and his chest.
No visible wounds were on his skin, no embedded tech glinted in the dim light.
But beneath the surface, he felt it. A subtle tension, like a tightly coiled spring waiting to unspool.
He didn't really know how to explain it, but he knew there was now something hidden in him.
Something different about him.
And a couple of moments later, he confirmed it.
A few blocks away from their camp, something weird happened.
Something flickered at the edge of his vision.
He blinked once, and for a disorienting instant, the world seemed… twisted.
Warped, as though viewed through distorted glass.
'What in the world….'
The colors were hyper-saturated and too sharp.
The movement of the wind left faint, shimmering streaks in the air.
And for a split second, he saw the fleeting silhouette of something angular and insect-like crawling across a distant rooftop—something Rill and Jax didn't react to at all.
Then it was gone, the strange overlay vanishing as quickly as it appeared.
Barely a second had gone by.
His vision snapped back to normal, leaving him disoriented. His breath hitched in his throat.
He leaned against the wall of a nearby building and clutched his head, trying to convince himself that what just happened was him hallucinating.
But deep down, he knew perfectly well it wasn't.
Luckily, no one noticed his momentary lapse.
**********
By the time they reached camp, the weak sun had dipped behind the smoke-flecked horizon, casting long, distorted shadows throughout the land.
The guards at the perimeter waved them through with familiarity.
Familiar faces, dull eyes, dirt-stained hands. It was home, for now. A fragile sanctuary in a broken world.
He didn't make it more than five steps inside the makeshift barricade before a blur of motion slammed into him around his waist.
Looking down at the sudden intruder, he was met with a small, chubby face that was pouting adorably.
It was his younger sister, Elara.
She hugged him tight, her small face buried in the rough fabric of his coat. "You're late," she muttered, her voice muffled.
"Got held up," he said, as a smile finally crept up his lips for the first time today.
"But I'm here now."
She pulled back and looked up at him, her young eyes scrutinizing, as if she could sense the subtle shift within him.
"Upsie." She suddenly declared, spreading her arms apart.
"Really, right now? I'm tired."
"I know," she answered with a smile.
"Upsie."
"…"
sigh
"Fine."
Bending down to her level, he lifted her into the air and hoisted her onto his shoulders.
"Where to, madam?" he asked with a deep, respectful voice.
"Take me home."
"Right away, madam."
And so they began their small journey to their temporary residence.