The wind didn't sound right.
It wasn't wind, not exactly. Just pressure dragging across broken snow like it was scraping something old beneath.
I stood still for a long second.
Snow up to my ankles. The sky still bruised violet, bleeding deeper the longer I stared. My breath didn't fog. My armor didn't frost. Cold with no bite. No feedback.
Nothing in this place obeyed.
I turned slowly. Just to be sure.
No base in sight. No breach. Like the slope had swallowed it whole, or like I'd never jumped at all.
The mountain stretched upward behind me, but it wasn't the same. The incline, the ridgelines — all off. As if they'd been painted from memory and warped in translation.
Twisted by something that didn't care about reference.
I looked at the sign again. "Alaska."
The letters were rusted, warped slightly to the left like the metal had begun drooping sideways.
No coordinates. No direction. Just proof that this place had once been real.
I stepped past it. Slowly.
