Einz should have died.
That thought chased him through the void. The Hole wasn't just a fall—it tore at him, unraveling everything layer by layer. Body first, then mind, down to the core of who he was, like threads ripped from a loom until only frayed ends floated free.
And yet there was no pain. He still thought. He still... existed.
In that emptiness, fragments broke through.
Places that weren't his world. Endless seas under skies the color of bruised plums, waves foaming in hues no water should hold. Spires of crystal piercing clouds, clawing at unfamiliar constellations. A wasteland where dunes heaved like breathing flesh. A thicket of twilight where colossal shapes ghosted between trunks ancient as bone.
Each glimpse flashed and vanished—a stutter of light in the black, too vivid, too alien. No noise, no scent, no substance. Just etchings burned into the dark, then erased, leaving a chill knot of wrongness: none of it was for him.
Through the shredding, something in Einz pushed back.
He should have scattered like the rest the Hole claimed. It flayed him to threads, stripped him bare. But at the brink, when oblivion gaped... something recoiled the scraps.
Not with care. Not whole.
More like knotted into a crude parody of form.
It held, though. Barely. Enough that when the rending ceased, Einz remained.
Then, nothing.
He opened his eyes.
Not to stone streets or familiar soil. The ground under his sandals was slick, rutted. Mist slunk low, coiling at his ankles. The air hung thick—damp rock laced with rust. Oppressive.
He was alive. Still alive.
The city—everyone, everything he'd known—was gone. Gulped and ground to dust. And Einz... here.
Why?
No time for that. Alive meant survive.
He sat frozen for what felt like hours, probing his edges. Fingers curled. Lungs worked. Balance wobbled, but breath came steady. It should have steadied him, but it didn't. Something inside felt mismatched, seams pulled wrong by hasty hands.
Einz hauled himself up, legs unsteady. Urge hammered to bolt, but he edged only paces from the spot, eyes locked on the Hole's fading haze until it winked out.
The woods stayed dead silent. No calls, no skitters—just faint susurrus from hidden shifts.
The trees leaned warped, bark leached to bone-white, fissures weeping gray sap. The floor wasn't earth but compacted cinders, dusting his palms faint and sooty when he tested it.
He dropped to a crouch, statue-still. Not cowering—waiting. Like back in the alleys, when heavy boots on the threshold meant freeze and listen.
Now, the thicket seemed to listen too.
The quiet clawed until his pulse thrummed in his ears. He nearly barked a laugh to shatter it—then caught the noise.
Something huge, shoving through the fog. Methodical. Close.
Einz's heart slammed once, a bruise. Muscles seized. Every hard lesson yelled the same: hold. Breathe shallow.
The vapor parted, and it loomed.
A thing house-high, silhouette mangled—horns curling wrong, spines jutting like shattered ribs. Its tread gouged the ash, hollows steaming soft behind each footfall.
It halted.
Cold deepened. Its skull swung, slits flaring wide, questing his scent from the murk.
Einz didn't twitch.
The shade of it washed over him, thick as pitch, pressing down. Lungs burned, vision blurred, but he rooted.
Then... shift.
It lumbered past. Strides fading into haze, rumble dying to whispers.
Einz spilled to the ground, shakes racking him. The laugh that escaped cracked like dry branch.
"Good. Yeah. Keep going. Just a speck of nothing."
But the woods paid no mind.
That was the first monster Einz saw.
It wouldn't be the last.