The way out of the cave wasn't really a climb at all—it felt more like tearing through a place that no longer wished to exist.
The Fork itself seemed to bleed. The air split apart, thin cracks spreading everywhere like streaks of white fire.
Pieces of the stone walls floated for a moment before crumbling into dust and vanishing. Above, the ceiling stretched and bulged as though it were nothing more than cloth pulled too hard, trembling on the edge of ripping wide open.
Every step felt wrong, as though they were moving through a place that didn't know what it wanted to be. One moment it seemed like solid stone beneath their boots, the next it wavered like the surface of water.
The ground didn't shake like in an earthquake—it shifted because it couldn't make up its mind.
Sometimes the air itself hardened underfoot like brittle planks, only to break apart into dust. It was like walking across a world caught between sky and earth, neither one steady enough to hold them.
