It hurts… my mind…
Stop it… please…
Enox Klaxon sat alone in a wooden chair by the window. Outside, the red-crimson morning burned softly across the fields, but his thoughts were fogged shattered like cracked glass. His chest tightened. He struggled to breathe. The room felt frozen, sharp, as if snow and ice had fused into invisible blades slicing through him.
The air was too thin.
His lungs refused him.
He was drowning in silence.
Enox was trapped in his own dream caught in a place where his mind screamed louder than reality. As he fought to escape, a voice called out through the darkness. Soft. Familiar.
His mother.
"Enox… come out and follow your father to the farm."
The sound broke the nightmare like light through cracked stone. He jolted awake gasping, breath cold and misting the air. His hands trembled as he pulled on his clothes. He felt as if he had seen something terrible… something waiting for him beyond the dream.
Outside, his father stood tall by the doorway, stern as always.
"Boy," he said, nodding toward the tools. "Pick that up. Let's move."
Enox obeyed. His father was cold at times, but beneath it was a hard kind of love one that taught him how to endure the world instead of bending under it.
They walked to the fields together. Hours passed under a rising sun as they harvested crops they had tended for nearly a year. The basket grew heavier with every layer of produce until it matched the weight inside Enox's chest.
Klaxon looked at his son, eyes steady.
"Enox," he murmured, pointing at the largest basket. "Carry it."
And so he did.
Enox hoisted the overflowing basket onto his shoulder, the weight pulling against his bones. This was their routine carry the harvest to Gate Landing, sell what they could, survive another season.
He walked without looking back, without looking forward just moving, step after painful step. The sun beat down mercilessly, burning his skin, turning every breath into fire. Each footstep felt like a battle he had to win to reach the next one.
By the time the towering walls of Gate Landing rose ahead, his legs trembled, sweat dripping down his face. But he did not stop.
A wave of relief washed through him as he passed through the giant gates.
Gate Landing alive, loud, unending. People filled the streets from dawn to dusk. Carts rattled, children ran, merchants shouted prices into the crowded air. It was a city built on movement, on trade, on restless energy. A city carved deep into the heart of Pit Valley, a place where everyone came seeking something gold, hope, power.
Enox stepped inside, lowering the basket slightly, breathing in the warm, crowded air.