It's been days since we arrived in RimScape.
Days of silence, broken only by static from my comms and Blaze's uneven breathing.
I've been trying to fix my comms for what feels like forever, but no signal ever comes through. The antenna's cracked, the power cell keeps dying, and no matter how many times I recalibrate the frequency—nothing. Still dead. Still silence.
SK handles most of the scavenging now. We take turns when it's safe, but the Void's getting worse. Every hour that passes, it shifts again—creatures grow stronger, the air grows colder. Even the light bends wrong. It's like the world itself doesn't want us here anymore.
We built a small camp on a stable patch of ground near the Cross Portal ruins. It's not much—just scavenged walls and a tarp roof—but it's enough to keep the wind out. Blaze lies there most of the time, resting on the makeshift bed we built out of metal frames and cloth.
He still tries to smile. Still tries to make it look like everything's fine.
"Don't look at me like that," he said once, when he caught me staring. "I've had worse."
But I can tell he's getting worse. The color in his face, the way he hides his breathing, the blood he tries to wipe away when he thinks we're not looking.
He saved us—both of us. From the Void, from the shards, from ourselves.
And now he's paying for it.
When I tried using healing magic—Starborn magic—it glowed for a second, bright and warm. But Blaze stopped me.
"Don't waste that on me," he said quietly, almost smiling. "You'll need it later."
How can I not? After everything he's done…
When SK returned from another scavenging run, we ate together—quietly, tiredly. She's gotten better at cooking with scraps. We argue sometimes, about the portal, about plans, about everything that doesn't matter. Blaze just sits nearby, laughing softly at us. Even like this—barely holding himself together—he laughs.
Then he started coughing again. This time, blood. Dark red.
SK froze. I panicked.
He waved it off like it was nothing, but it wasn't. His condition's getting worse.
If we don't find a way out soon, he won't make it.
That's why we keep working. Every night, SK and I take shifts by the portal ruins, trying to stabilize it. Rewiring cores. Replacing cracked power conduits. Anything to make it work again.
But nothing works. The gate stays dead.
The silence feels heavier now. Even the Void's wind has stopped.
I sit near the horizon, comms in hand, staring at the blinking red light that means "no connection."
Still nothing. Not even static.
Hope feels so far away.
I close my eyes for a moment—just to rest them, I tell myself.
Then—
A sound.
A low hum, rising from deep within the portal's frame.
My eyes snap open.
The portal's core—dead for days—starts to flicker. A faint shimmer at first, then brighter, building, pulsing with impossible light.
"SK!" I shout.
She runs over, tools still in hand, eyes wide. "What—how—?"
The air vibrates. The metal trembles beneath us.
Then—light.
Blinding, pure, searing light that spills from the portal and engulfs the camp.
We cover our eyes. The hum becomes a roar, and then—silence.
When I lower my hand, I see it.
The Cross Portal is active.
"It's… working," I whisper. "We did it—SK, we actually—"
But my voice trails off.
Figures are emerging through the light. Armored shapes, their silhouettes solid and heavy. Not shards. Not void creatures.
Players.
They move with precision, forming a perimeter as the portal's glow fades behind them. Seven of them. Their armor marked with sigils of the Empire—Dominion, Skyrealm, Eclipse.
I take a step back, my heart freezing.
"No…" I whisper.
SK's hand tightens around her weapon, eyes narrowing.
After everything, after all the pain, after all the loss—we finally open the portal.
And instead of freedom…
The Empire came through.