The desert had stopped whispering.
The winds no longer played. The heat was heavier, clinging to skin like an unanswered question. And the road—if it ever was one—had vanished beneath the shifting dunes.
They were lost.
Utterly and unquestionably.
"I thought you said the stars pointed this way," Kanan muttered, kicking at the sand.
"I did," Nilo said, shielding his eyes. "I also thought we were following a trail. Turns out it was just a weirdly shaped crack."
They stopped walking.
There was no shade, no tree, no landmark. Just golden dust and bleached sky.
"Where are we even going?" Kanan asked. "What are we doing?"
His voice cracked, but not from dryness.
He sat down hard, arms resting on his knees. "We left the village. We don't know where food is. We don't even know what we're looking for."
Nilo didn't answer yet.
He paced a little, then dropped his pack and sat too. "I thought the journey would feel more… epic."
"It just feels empty."
"Yeah."
They sat in silence.
Even Udu stayed quiet in his pouch, perhaps sensing the weight of it all.
After a while, Kanan reached into his bag and touched the Vilakku-stone. It was cool. Still.
He closed his eyes. Listened.
The wind passed through his hair. The ground beneath his legs felt firm, dry, dead.
But then, beneath that — a hum.
Low. Faint. Barely there.
He took a deep breath and placed the stone on the ground.
The dust around it shifted. Just a little.
Nilo leaned over, whispering: "Did you just activate it?"
"I didn't do anything," Kanan replied. "I just… stopped."
They walked again, slower this time. Not with direction, but with patience.
The wind softened.
The horizon began to change.
What started as a shimmer turned into outline. Then color. Then form.
And then they saw it.
A city.
Or what remained of one.
Shattered towers. Collapsed domes. Crumbled archways that once held banners now tattered to threads.
It rose like bones from the sand — a memory begging not to be forgotten.
"…Whoa," Nilo whispered.
The setting sun painted the ruins in molten orange.
In the distance, a lone figure moved across the outer wall — slender, cloaked, balanced.
Watching them.
Waiting.
Nilo squinted, but the figure vanished behind a stone column.
"Did you see that?"
"Somebody is watching us," Kanan replied. "Think they're friendly?"
"I don't know."
The wind picked up again, curling around their ankles.
But for the first time all day, it didn't feel like they were lost.
[To Be Continued...]