The wind was strange that morning.
It wasn't cold, but it cut. It didn't blow—it whispered.
And it whispered his name.
Coker stood at the edge of the broken path that led down the mountain. His clothes still smelled of smoke. The power inside him wasn't silent anymore. It stirred like a hungry beast, pacing behind a thin wall in his chest.
He didn't know where he was going.
But he knew he couldn't stay.
Not after what happened in the woods.
Not after the sky howled with his voice.
---
Back in the village, the people were awake—but not truly alive.
Some stared at the sky with wide, unblinking eyes. Some cried without knowing why. The lights in the sky were gone, but they had left something behind.
Fear.
Mina knocked on every door, searching. Her hands were scraped. Her eyes were red. But she didn't stop.
"He's out there," she whispered. "He didn't leave us. He wouldn't."
She found Drell near the old well.
"Did you find him?"
He shook his head. "No. But I felt him. Something changed."
Mina gripped his arm. "We have to help him."
Drell looked up at the sky, now pale blue with clouds drifting slowly. "We might be too late."
---
Coker walked alone.
Down the mountain. Across the old road that no one used. Past the broken statue of a hero no one remembered. The trees here didn't bend to him—they *watched*.
And in the distance, the world seemed… louder.
Every leaf rustled like a whisper.
Every shadow looked like a doorway.
And in his head, a voice.
Not the one from the wall.
A new voice.
"Child of Hunger… You are not the first."
He stopped.
"Show yourself," he said.
But no one was there.
Only mist.
And footsteps that weren't his.
---
In a place far from time, a gathering began.
They were not gods.
They were what gods feared.
Shadows wrapped in flesh. Eyes without faces. Truths that bled when spoken.
"He has awakened," one said, voice like bells sinking into water.
"The seal is thinning," said another. "The world will not hold."
A third raised a hand, and in the air appeared an image.
Coker.
Walking. Glowing. Changing.
"Too soon," the voice muttered. "The child was meant to die."
"He didn't," came the answer.
"Then he must become what we made him."
---
Coker entered a valley filled with bones.
He didn't remember walking there. Didn't remember the trees vanishing or the sky turning grey. But here he was.
Skulls lined the ground. Weapons rusted into the earth. Spears pointed upward like fingers trying to claw the sky.
A battlefield.
Long forgotten.
The voice returned.
"This is where the last one fell."
Coker blinked. In his mind, flashes—
A boy.
Burning.
A scream.
Chains.
Then nothing.
"You were not supposed to live."
"Then maybe I wasn't supposed to die, either," Coker muttered.
He walked deeper into the field. Bones cracked beneath his feet.
In the center, a sword.
Huge. Black as space. Floating slightly above the ground, humming.
It called to him.
But something else was there.
A shape stepped from behind the sword.
A girl.
White hair. Eyes that shifted between blue and gold. A coat made of shadow.
"So you're the one who broke the sky," she said.
Coker stood still. "Who are you?"
"The last survivor of the first Hunger."
Silence.
"I came to kill you before it's too late."
She raised her hand.
Lightning snapped. The sword rose higher.
Coker's chest burned.
And the Hunger laughed.
---
Back in the village, Mina dropped to her knees.
Her hands clutched a strange rock Drell had given her.
"He said it's connected to Coker. Said it'll glow if he's in danger."
The stone was burning now.
Red.
Then black.
---
Far away, a mountain split.
A scream echoed from its heart.
And a god, buried in ash, opened its eyes.
Because the world had moved.
And something old was coming back.
To feed.
To reign.
To finish what it started.
And Coker…
He was standing in its way.
Or becoming its hand.
The whispers had chosen.
And now, all creation would listen.