The savanna had become a monochrome painting—grey sky bleeding into silver grass, everything dulled and washed out by the endless downpour. Rain hammered down with no rhythm, only relentless force, drenching the earth until every step sank ankle-deep into sucking mud. The wind was worse, a living hand that shoved, clawed, and tore at their cloaks, trying to pry them apart as if the storm itself resented their unity.
Their boots made a miserable chorus of squelches. Their cloaks, long since useless, clung to them like heavy sacks of wet cloth. Water stung their cheeks, ran down their spines, and plastered hair to their foreheads until each of them felt more like a drowned spirit than a living traveler.
"I told you," Low muttered, her voice nearly lost to the gale. She held a fist-sized stone in one white-knuckled grip, as if sheer stubbornness could make it a weapon against both storm and predator alike. "We should've found shelter hours ago. Any old tree. Any old cave. But no. We had to keep walking." Her head snapped toward Leonotis, her glare sharp despite the sheets of rain. " 'It'll clear up,' he said. 'The rain will pass,' he said."
Leonotis tried to answer with a smile, though the wind slapped it from his face before it could settle. His root-sword weighed like a sodden log in his hand, the rain having slicked its grip until it nearly slipped from his fingers. Once or twice, he had tried coaxing a great leaf to grow overhead as a makeshift umbrella, but the wind had torn it apart in seconds, shredding his effort into green tatters.
"It was the direct route," he shouted, his voice thin against the storm. "We had no choice!" The words rang hollow even to him. His cheerful tune, whistled minutes before to bolster the group, had been swallowed whole by the wind. Now only his grim mask of determination kept him moving forward.
Jacqueline walked with her chin tilted just above the rain. Her sharp eyes scanned the endless grey horizon, missing nothing even when the downpour blurred shapes and shadows. She did not trust the world around them, but she trusted the water. She could feel it—each raindrop, each puddle pooling beneath their boots—like an extension of her own breath. Energy hummed beneath her skin, steady, ready. The storm might batter the others, but to her it was a strange sort of comfort.
Zombiel trudged silently, as steady as a great ox. His silence was a wall the storm could not breach. Steam curled faintly from his skin as the salamander spirit within him kept his body warm, its ember-heart pulsing softly against the rhythm of the thunder. He glanced now and then at Leonotis's too-bright smile, Jacqueline's taut posture, Low's growing frustration, and he knew—without words—that each of them was fraying.
And then—something cut through the roar of the storm.
A low growl, mechanical and unnatural. Not thunder. Not wind. An engine.
Two brilliant beams of light stabbed through the veil of rain, wobbling as they bounced over uneven ground.
The four stopped, their breath catching, their exhaustion momentarily forgotten.
"Is that… a car?" Low squinted, blinking the water from her eyes.
Leonotis's head jerked up, hope lighting his face. "More like a van," he said. "Maybe they can help—"
"Or maybe they'll kill us," Low muttered under her breath. Her grip on the stone tightened until her knuckles turned pale.
The van rattled closer, its roar clashing with the howls of the storm. Rust streaked its body, patches of red-brown against dull metal. Its tires tore mud into geysers as it slowed, then stopped just in front of them.
For a moment, no one moved. The engine purred low, the headlights blinding, the interior a box of darkness.
Then, with a squeal, the driver's side window rolled down.
A face leaned out, half-lit by the weak glow of the dashboard. A man, bearded, with a jagged scar that carved from temple to jaw. The scar twisted the skin around his eye, leaving his expression both unreadable and unsettling. Rain pattered against his shoulders as he leaned into the night.
"You lot look lost," he said, his voice a rasp. Despite its roughness, there was something surprisingly soft in its undertone. "Want a ride?"
The question lingered like bait in water.
Leonotis stared, his senses reaching out instinctively. He could feel no malice from the man. No rot in his words. No creeping wrongness in the plant-life around the van. Just a strange, neutral calm. He almost sagged with relief.
Jacqueline, however, felt her water react differently. The drops around her trembled, uneasy. The puddles rippled with no wind. Her instincts screamed a silent warning. She subtly shifted her stance, her fingers curling, ready to weave a shield from the storm itself.
Low's lip curled, her suspicion written clear. The man smelled of old metal and diesel, a harsh scent that made her nose twitch. "Something's off," she whispered, but the storm nearly swallowed the words.
Zombiel did not speak. His gaze locked onto the scar across the man's face. The salamander spirit flared in his chest, a sudden heat rushing to his limbs, instinct reacting before thought. The scar seemed almost alive, a pale lightning bolt etched across skin.
The van's open door loomed like a black maw, waiting.
Leonotis's heart hammered. Exhaustion begged him to step inside, to accept warmth and safety. Yet something in Jacqueline's eyes, in the sudden heat radiating off Zombiel, rooted him in place.
The man leaned forward, scar catching in the light. His eyes narrowed, his rasp curling darker now. "Well? Do you want in… or not?"