Veyr stepped out of the doorway and squinted into the light.
It wasn't the bleak glare of the Fallen Lands. This light was softer… almost gentle. Wind brushed his skin, carrying the scent of woodsmoke, flowers, and something sweet he couldn't name. Somewhere nearby, children laughed.
He scanned the open street in front of him — and froze.
Rows of wooden cottages, lanterns swaying from beams. Gardens full of green vines and blooming fruit. People — openly walking, talking, smiling. None of it should have existed down here. Not within a Rift. Was this still inside the rift?
They weren't normal, though.
The first villager that passed him — a tall man with a fisherman's net — had silvery scales climbing along the side of his neck. Another, carrying jugs of water, had golden eyes and slit pupils like a cat's. A baker woman wiping her hands on her apron had arcs of faintly glowing light running under her skin, pulsing with every heartbeat.
They were alive. Human… but changed.
Veyr's jaw clenched. Mutated.
A young boy sprinted past him laughing, violet sparks trailing from his fingertips like playful lightning. He stared openly at Veyr's weapons and raised a hand in greeting. "New blood! You'll awaken fast down here!"
Before Veyr could reply, the boy was gone.
Confusion shifted into instinctive tension. He glanced back toward the hut where Ellie and Rhen still slept. His eyes narrowed — gauging threats, exits, possible escape paths.
A woman running a nearby vegetable stall noticed him. She looked about thirty, with pearl-grey skin marbled by glowing veins of light. Beautiful and alien at the same time.
"You must be one of the arrivals," she said kindly, holding out a large wooden bowl of steaming broth. "Eat. Newcomers always need strength. The Rift compresses Vitra quickly. If you don't adapt, it cracks you open."
Veyr didn't take the food. "What is this place?"
"A pocket," she answered simply. "The Rift made it. We just… grew to fit inside."
His eyes narrowed. "You're all Awakened?"
She laughed softly. "Down here?" She tapped her chest. "Everyone develops a Vitra core eventually. Staying inside a Rift changes you. Some only glow. Others grow things. But it's better than death."
Veyr looked again — really looked — at the passersby. Some had scaled arms, some elongated limbs, some faint halos of energy drifting around them like dust. Children too.
Living. Laughing. Mutants. Survivors. Rift-born.
"How long have you lived here?" he asked.
"Twenty years for me," she said, eyes brimming with strange pride. "Some much longer. Time doesn't stay straight in here. But life does… if you let it."
He stepped back a little. His pulse was steady, but his mind spun.
They hadn't escaped the Rift at all — they'd fallen deeper into it. Into a place that shouldn't be… but somehow was.
Veyr glanced back toward Ellie. A knot tightened in his chest.
If they stayed, would she change too? Mutate like these people… become something other?
The woman watched him carefully as if sensing where his thoughts had gone. "All things here change. That's the rule. But where else in your world do you see this much life left?"
He had no answer.
He turned toward the hut. Wake Ellie. Wake Rhen. Understand the rules… before the Rift decides to rewrite us too.
But even as that resolution burned in his mind, another darker thought began to grow — one that would haunt him at the end of this journey:
If Rifts can create life like this… then what happens if we ever learn how to close them?