Silence.
A silence so deep it swallowed everything — even thought.
Jed drifted endlessly through the void.
Weightless. Motionless.
His body floated as if it no longer belonged to him.
Far in the distance… a faint light blinked.
Like a star, pulsing once… twice… and then—
Darkness again.
He lost consciousness.
---
He awoke with a gasp, choking on dust.
The air was thick and dry. The ground cracked beneath him like ancient stone.
Jed sat up, blinking as his eyes adjusted.
Above him stretched a sky he'd never seen before.
Two moons loomed overhead — one a burning red, the other a shadowy blue, casting an eerie, unnatural twilight over the land.
The stars blinked rapidly, like eyes in the dark.
> "Where… am I?"
The land around him was barren — no trees, no grass, no signs of civilization.
Just jagged rocks, black soil, and miles of lifeless terrain.
Jed stood up, shaky but alert, and started walking — aimless, hungry, and confused.
After what felt like hours, a distant rumble froze him in place.
Up ahead, moving with terrifying grace, was a creature the size of an elephant — a lizard with armor-like, rock-skinned scales and horns twisting from its head.
Its eyes glowed faintly yellow.
Jed ducked behind a nearby rock, heart pounding.
> "That thing… it's hunting."
He didn't move. He barely breathed.
Suddenly, the ground quaked beneath him.
With a thunderous crack, the earth split open — and from below surged a monstrous worm, dozens of feet long, its mouth a nightmare of rotating teeth.
It lunged at the lizard.
Jed's eyes widened in horror.
But the lizard vanished — completely invisible — and in a split-second ambush, reappeared on the worm's back, its claws tearing through flesh like wet paper.
Blood soaked the dirt.
The worm screeched, flailed, and finally collapsed.
Dead.
The lizard, victorious, reappeared — and began feasting.
Jed didn't move. He waited.
Four long hours passed.
When the beast finally lumbered away, leaving only scraps behind, Jed's stomach growled violently.
He was starving.
He crept toward the worm's corpse, trembling from hunger.
The stench made him gag, but his body didn't care. He knelt, broke off a jagged tooth, and used it to cut off chunks of meat.
He bit into the raw flesh.
The taste was foul.
Rotten.
Like blood-soaked rubber.
Jed dropped to his knees, vomiting beside the carcass.
Tears stung his eyes.
But hunger doesn't listen to pain.
With shaking hands, he forced himself to eat.
---
When he finished, he lay back, breath ragged.
> "I don't know where I am. But I'm alive."
He stared at the sky.
The moons hadn't moved. The stars kept blinking.
Then he stood again.
He carved more teeth from the worm and peeled off its leathery skin, draping it over himself like armor.
It stank, but it might help him hide if no rocks were nearby.
> "If I want to live…"
"…I'll follow the monsters."
"Let them fight. I'll eat what's left."
And so, with no name for the land around him, Jed began walking — alone, cloaked in monster flesh, carving a path through the unknown.
> His journey had begun…
In the Barren Land of Monsters.