Gray pulled his tattered suit closer around his body as the trio stepped deeper into the central market district. The chill in the air seemed to grow sharper with every step. Snow blanketed the streets in thick layers, and the sagging roofs groaned under the weight of frost that had settled like a death shroud. Faded signs clung stubbornly to crumbling walls, their once-vivid paint now little more than streaks of dull color. A broken archway marked the entrance to the district, its stone frame etched with symbols now half-erased by time and the elements.
Calem moved slightly ahead of the group, his boots crunching through the frost with deliberate steps. He was tall and wiry, his face hollowed by cold and hunger, with a black fur cloak that hung in tatters around his shoulders. Unlike Gray and Lira, he didn't shiver. He moved with a strange kind of resolve, as if the cold could not touch him, or as if he simply refused to acknowledge it.
"This place was a market once," he said, his voice steady but low, gesturing at the long rows of stalls buried beneath frost and ice. "We scavenged here before. Didn't find much. But we found some food. Enough to matter."
Lira, ever alert, scanned the nearby structures. Her gaze landed on a half-collapsed building with an open door barely hanging on its hinges. She stepped inside without a word. Gray followed close behind, the floor creaking beneath their weight. Shelves lined the interior walls, their wood warped and splintered from exposure and age, but not entirely empty. Beneath a fallen counter, Lira pulled out a sealed container, the plastic stiff with cold. She pried it open with effort and revealed a cache of preserved grains.
"Still dry, surprisingly," she muttered, inspecting the grains with a gloved hand.
Gray wandered toward the back, brushing aside a curtain of hanging debris. He found a frozen slab of meat wrapped in thick, decaying cloth. The wrapping had been torn apart in places, likely by animals or time. It was impossible to tell what kind of meat it had once been. It didn't look familiar, and something about the shape was... wrong. But there was no rot, no smell of decay.
"We could boil this," he said. "Might make something good out of it."
They gathered what they could. In another shop, tucked behind a rusted door, they found a bundle of dried herbs still tied with brittle twine. Calem lingered near what might have once been a public fountain, now just a stone basin choked with snow and debris. He looked down into its empty heart, lost in thought.
"We think this used to be the center of the town," he said. "A crossroads. People would gather here, trade, talk. Probably laugh. It was a meeting point."
Gray stepped outside and scanned the square. He could see it, faintly. People moving between stalls. The sounds of bartering, of life. Children running between booths. A flash of music, laughter echoing between the walls. It was a ghost vision, nothing more. But vivid.
He shook his head slowly, driving the image away.
What was the point of sulking in the past?
His gaze landed on a snow-choked path winding beyond the market, barely visible through the drifts. "What's beyond there?"
Calem turned his head, brows furrowed. "Never went that way. Looked too ruined. After what happened to the others, we stopped pushing outward."
They stood in silence for a while, listening to the wind push its way through the hollow structures around them. The sound was haunting, like a chorus of distant voices caught between broken walls.
As they moved deeper into the ruins, Gray broke the silence. "What happened to your group?"
Calem was quiet at first, his breath visible in the frigid air. "Everything went wrong," he said. "We lost one on the first day. Slipped into a crack in the ice. Gone. Another just... disappeared. We searched for hours. Never found a trace. One of us took the easy way out. That left four. Then we were ambushed. Herded into a place that felt like it had been carved out of hell. Only three of us made it out. After that, we found this place and stayed. Thought it might be safe. Thought it was salvation."
He paused, then continued. "It gave us food. Shelter. Even kept the wind away. But something felt wrong. Too still. Too preserved. Like it wasn't decaying at the right speed."
Gray stared out at the empty streets. "What do you mean?"
Calem didn't answer immediately. He reached into his coat and pulled out a small, leather-bound book. Its spine was cracked, and its cover had faded to a ghostly gray. He held it like it was something precious.
"We found this in one of the houses near the chapel," he said. "It's old. From someone in the second generation. They stumbled on this town by accident. Said it used to be a port."
Lira stepped closer. Her eyes narrowed. "A port? But we're surrounded by mountains. That doesn't make sense."
Calem nodded. "Not always. According to the book, the town sat at the mouth of a river delta. It was lively. People traded goods up and down the river. They had boats. Culture. Customs. One of them was a festival."
Gray raised an eyebrow. "What kind of festival?"
"The Festival of the Unseen Moon," Calem said. "Once a year, the moon would disappear. They believed that was when the spirits of their ancestors walked the earth. They lit lanterns along the river, wore veils over their faces. Not out of fear, but respect. So their ancestors wouldn't be overwhelmed by recognition. They made it beautiful. Serene."
He flipped through the book, stopping near the end. "Then came the dark nights. A period of total darkness. Monsters began to appear. Not all at once. Slowly. Each night, more came. The townspeople fought back. Then they tried to appease them. Offerings. Rituals. But nothing worked."
Gray and Lira listened silently as Calem reached the final pages.
"Eventually, the river dried. A massive quake sealed it off. The cliffs collapsed. They were trapped. Surrounded by ice and rock. Some tried to climb out. None came back. The writer wasn't there for all of it. He pieced it together from murals. From stories scratched into walls. His final note..."
Calem's voice grew quieter. "He wrote, 'I do not know if this town is cursed or chosen, but I feel it breathe. It is too old. Too still. And if it predates the first generation, then everything we know about our history is wrong.'"
The three of them stood in silence, the wind winding its way through the broken market stalls like a voice half-heard. The book lay open between them, its faded pages whispering of a past too vast to be buried completely by time.