Suddenly, a thin veil of frost bled into his vision. It crawled along the edges of his sight like cracks forming on glass, shimring faintly as it crept closer and closer. Dumbfounded, Art blinked, rubbed his eyes, and then froze in bewildernt.
The storm was changing.
His gaze flickered, confused, trying to hold onto the writhing sand that had been consuming him only monts ago.
Yet out of his periphery, the familiar maelstrom of grit and wind was bending into sothing else entirely.
The sandstorm’s roar softened, dulled, until the grains of golden dust seed to twist and shimr, transforming into countless glittering shards of frozen white.
Snow.
Tiny flecks of frost drifted down at first, harmless as ash. Then they multiplied.
Shards thickened, multiplying with each passing heartbeat, until the storm was no longer sand at all but an entirely different world—a blizzard, wide and swallowing, an endless field of cold.
And it did not behave like any storm should.
The blizzard seed to pulse, as though it had a will of its own, an attraction that pulled at his very consciousness. Its snowfall wasn’t random but rhythmic, as if the flakes themselves carried intent.
Art stood rooted, his captivation devouring his fear. His bewildered mind, monts ago writhing in horror, now stared with a bizarre allure, utterly srized.
He forgot the suffocating tendrils, the maggots, the suffocating cage of space. He forgot his skin peeling away. He forgot himself.
The cold touched him gently, like the caress of a breeze brushing bare skin. A shiver rippled through him—not of fear this ti, but of sothing alien, enchanting. His chest loosened. His thoughts dimd.
And before he could resist, his consciousness slipped, lted away, dissolving into the maelstrom of frost.
...
Back at the base.
Everyone was gathered now.
Zyon had gone out and brought them back one by one. Flas from the campfire licked the air, casting trembling shadows across their faces.
The silence was suffocating until finally, soone broke it.
"We should lay low."
The voice was calm, deliberate, but weighted with tension. Celeste’s eyes narrowed, her words carrying the sort of sharp edge that left no room for false optimism. "Art has gone to save Leon. He will do so. Leon or Art shouldn’t be our main concern right now. Who we should concern ourselves with... is her."
Her gaze drifted across the fire.
There, huddled low, knees drawn in tightly as though shielding herself from the world, was Evelyn. She sat close to the flas, yet her body still shivered.
Her lips pressed together, eyes shut tight, as if keeping them closed could drown out the strain clawing at her mind. The weight of her suffering was palpable, plain as daylight, no matter how much she tried to shrink into herself.
Alia followed Celeste’s stare and heaved a soft sigh. The sound carried exhaustion and helplessness in equal asure. "Yes... she’s the one. But what can we even do? Her condition is bizarre, unnatural. The screams she keeps talking about—none of you heard anything. Not even a whisper."
"Are we sure about that?"
The interruption ca sharp, cutting clean through Alia’s words. Verena leaned forward slightly, her tone deliberate.
Alia frowned. "What do you an? Explain it properly."
It wasn’t Alia who pressed further, though. Zyon spoke instead, his voice calm but laced with an unmistakable sharpness. "What exactly are you implying?"
Verena didn’t flinch. She held his gaze and replied, "We don’t know for certain that nobody heard it."
Celeste tilted her head, incredulous. "I’m not getting where you’re going with this. Explain it in terms even a toddler could understand, because clearly I can’t."
Verena’s lips parted, but it was Mia who spoke next, her words landing like a quiet strike.
"It’s not that complicated," Mia said. Her voice was steady, but beneath its surface was a tremor that made the others still. "There are two possibilities. First, none of us actually heard the scream. That’s the simple explanation. But the second possibility..."
She paused, inhaled. "The second is that we did hear it. All of us. And we’ve simply forgotten. Suppressed or stripped of it. So kind of interference."
The campfire crackled.
Mia’s eyes swept across their faces, then dropped toward Evelyn. "There’s more. Think about who was closest to the storm. Leon and Evelyn. Everyone else was further away. Which ans this: if Evelyn heard sothing strange, sothing none of us can recall, then Leon must have too. Whatever affected her... affected him."
Her words were simple. Plain. But they struck with a resonance that shook the group in silence, each syllable threading unease through their veins.
Yes, it was possible that Leon had also heard it—that sa incomprehensible scream Evelyn claid was shredding her mind. Maybe right now, inside that storm, he was writhing just like her, trapped in a tornt none of them could touch. But that wasn’t the main issue.
The main issue was sothing far more terrifying.
"The mory loss."
Those words lingered like poison.
Celeste’s expression darkened, her thoughts pulling inward. She herself had faced sothing similar, though she hadn’t dared voice it until now.
She couldn’t quite explain what had transpired, couldn’t even grasp why. But in her mind there was a jagged scar—a blank space in her mory that gnawed at her every ti she tried to probe it.
That was why Mia’s theory had struck her so deeply. It wasn’t just speculation. It resonated.
"She may be right," Celeste muttered, her tone heavier than before. Her hand tightened against her thigh, knuckles pale.
"Maybe we really did lose our mories of it. Because I... I do have this nagging feeling, a pressure in the back of my mind, that I’ve forgotten sothing. Sothing I shouldn’t have. But no matter how much I reach for it, I can’t place it. It’s just... void. A hollow space." She grimaced, the weight of it dragging her features taut.
Her admission cast a silence over the group. The fire crackled, but no one dared speak.
Finally, Celeste exhaled sharply, shaking her head as though to cast it off. "But these are just theories. Don’t let it eat at you. The real problem isn’t whether we lost a mory—it’s how we deal with sothing that can do this to us."
Mia’s voice cut through next, clear and unflinching. "Which brings to a question. Is any one of you proficient in ntal manipulation?"
The response was imdiate, and unanimous. Each one of them shook their head. Not a single hand lifted, not a single voice admitted to the talent.
Mia’s lips pressed into a thin line.
Zyon broke the silence. His tone was grim, each word carrying weight like stone. "ntal manipulation is rare. Too rare. Not many inherit it, and those who do..."
He paused, his gaze lowering briefly before locking back onto the group. "They pay a steep price. They can’t easily distinguish reality from illusion. They create a world of their own and then lose themselves inside it. That’s why most of them end up taking their own lives. They simply can’t survive the fracture between what’s real and what isn’t."
The fire popped, sending sparks into the air. No one moved to brush them away.
Verena’s voice cut in next, sharp and unapologetic, her displeasure clear in every syllable. "Still... can’t we call soone? Or are we really just thrown here like dogs to gnash our teeth and tear at each other in the dark?"
Her lips curled, her tone cold but dripping with disdain. "Not to be rude, but I think we’re just bugs—insignificant, disposable. Pieces trapped in so grand plan His Majesty has already set his eyes on."
Her words rang with bitterness, and this ti, no one rushed to correct her. Because deep down, the thought had already crossed every single one of their minds.
Reviews
All reviews (0)