"Renn, you stay in the truck. If you spot anything or hear anything then just yell at us. We'll come." Lira murmured.
Renn thought for a second before nodding slowly.
'Nothing will reach us here... right?'
Orrin, Lira and Korr exited the truck once more.
The wind was far weaker than before. They walked up to the gate and pushed it.
Korr stepped forward and pushed the door with all his strength. It creaked loudly for a moment before swinging open.
The sight ahead wasn't very grand or welcoming like they had anticipated.
Snow clung to every edge of the crumbling buildings that surrounded them. The buildings were made of wood. But even the wood struggled to resist the cold.
Korr trudged through the thick snow, his boots crunching softly against the hardened trail of half-buried cobblestone.
Beside him, Lira kept her hand on her blade, using it like a walking stick. Orrin walked a few steps ahead, his spear held firmly as he scanned the eerie silence around them. Behind them, Gray was bundled beneath layers of cloth and fur in the back of the truck. He had not stirred since they had driven away from the monstrous battle.
"This place is human-made," Lira muttered, eyes drifting across the wooden structures leaning on their last legs. "But it's old. Ancient even."
Korr didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the odd markings etched into a wall to their left. Symbols of twisted flame and cracked suns.
Ahead of them, Orrin raised a hand. "Footprints. Fresh."
They gathered around the narrow alley, their breath forming clouds in the air. A trail of deep, heavy prints carved their way through the snow, leading deeper into the village. Each step looked precise, deliberate, and far too large for a human.
"We should check the area," Orrin said quietly. "Make sure nothing is still here."
Korr gave a short nod, tightening his grip on his axe.
They moved cautiously, checking the first structure to their right. It was a home, simple in design. The roof had collapsed inward, and frost coated every surface. The fireplace had long since turned to rubble. A child's doll lay half-buried under shattered beams. Orrin bent over, picking it up. He rubbed away some of the frost, revealing a smile.
It reminded him of something from long ago. Something he didn't wish to return on.
He placed it back from where he picked it up.
The next building was a storeroom. Lira pried open the warped wooden door with her sword. Inside were crates of broken tools, rusted weapons, and frozen sacks of what may once have been grain. The smell of decay still lingered faintly, buried under layers of ice.
They advanced slowly, passing between empty homes, deserted shops, and strange shrines built from bone and snow. The murals became more frequent. Scenes of men holding up spheres of light, others bending beneath blackened trees. One mural showed a cloaked figure standing before a cracked sun, their arms outstretched, as hundreds bowed beneath them.
Lira stared at it for a long time.
"It looks... familiar," she whispered.
Orrin stepped up beside her. "Not from our time. These stories are old. Maybe older than the Sanctuary itself."
As they approached the village center, the layout shifted. Buildings grew larger, more symmetrical. A plaza opened before them, its center marked by a stone platform. In its heart stood a statue, or what remained of it. A man, arm raised, holding a blade skyward. The rest had been shattered by time or violence.
Behind it rose the chapel.
It towered above the rest of the village. A looming monolith of stone and ice, its stained-glass windows long since shattered, its doors half open. The footsteps led straight into it.
Orrin hesitated. "If anything's still here, it'll be in there."
Korr grunted. "Then let's get this over with."
They stepped into the chapel.
The air inside was even colder. Rows of ruined seats lined the chamber. Crystals of frost hung from the ceiling like chandeliers. At the far end, where an altar once stood, there now loomed a massive mural that covered the entire wall. Surprisingly this place had resisted the frost, mostly.
It was pristine.
Lit faintly by the outside light, the mural showed a battle beneath a shattered sky. Armored figures stood on one side, cloaks flaring with wind. Opposite them stood towering shapes wreathed in shadow. Between them, a single figure burned with both flame and rot, their eyes two fractured stars.
Lira stepped closer. Her hand trembled slightly.
"That symbol," she murmured, pointing to a mark etched above the burning figure's head. "I've seen it before. It was on the old blade I found... the one I replaced."
Orrin frowned. "You think it means something?"
Korr shifted uncomfortably. "Everything means something in a place like this."
"Look, over there," Lira pointed to a small door leading to the back of the church.
They looked at each other before walking ahead.
The door clicked open.
The back of the chapel opened to a quiet, hollowed stretch of land, a graveyard buried beneath snow and silence. Dozens of crooked gravestones poked from the frost like the teeth of some long-dead beast. Half of them had cracked in two, others leaned at strange angles, as if time itself had pushed them aside. Trees without leaves surrounded the perimeter, their bark blackened and veined with something not natural. The sky above, fractured and pale, cast long shadows between the rows.
Lira stepped carefully between the headstones, her breath rising in steady clouds. Orrin followed behind her, silent. Korr remained by the chapel's broken fence, hand resting on his axe, gaze lowered.
Orrin knelt near one grave, brushing snow away with his glove. "Names," she said, voice flat. "Not etched. Carved. Look."
They gathered around. The markings weren't written with care. They were jagged, shallow, desperate. Like someone had taken a rusted blade and forced names into stone before frost could claim them. Many of them were illegible. Others were repeated across different graves.
"Did they bury people alive?" Korr asked grimly, noting one grave with deep claw marks trailing up the side of the stone.
"No," Lira whispered. "I think they buried them before something else found them."
Near the far edge, they found a statue, cracked in half, worn beyond recognition. But the base was clearer: a symbol had been chiseled in.
It was the fractured sun again.
This time, with seven cracks spiderwebbing across its shape.
Beneath the statue sat a single grave, unmarked, larger than the rest. A ring of untouched snow circled it. No footprints dared come close.
A feeling pressed against them, not just sadness, but memory. As if the air itself remembered what happened here.
And didn't want it repeated.
They turned as a gust of wind slammed the chapel doors shut behind them. The echo rang out like a war drum.
Korr took in a deep breath.
He looked at the others and they nodded.
They kicked the door down and quietly left the church.
No monsters emerged. No enemy greeted them. But the silence was almost killing them.
Only the sound of their own breathing could be heard.
Orrin turned to the others. "We should move. We can check the eastern side of the village. Then regroup with Renn. Gray and Adel will need better shelter soon."
Korr agreed and stepped outside first, weapon raised. The village beyond was unchanged, quiet and waiting.
As they were on their way back. Orrin stopped in his tracks. "Wait."
He pointed near a collapsed lantern, where fresh snow had been recently disturbed. Thin prints, cut into the powder, leading away from the path and toward a house they'd passed twice without noticing. It was built differently. Black stone, narrow windows, no signage.
"Those weren't there earlier," Lira muttered, hand on her sword.
The prints ended abruptly at the threshold of the house.
The door was slightly ajar.
Korr didn't speak, but his eyes narrowed.
Lira stepped forward and pushed the door open.
The hinges creaked. And then… silence.
From inside, they could feel something. Something creating heat.
However all they heard was the sound of faint breathing.