The knocks came first. They weren't loud, but they were constant; a damp, irregular sound rising from the floor below, as if someone were tearing flesh with methodical patience.
Royd opened his eyes. For a moment, he didn't feel fear—only a strange, almost childish curiosity. Then came the humming: low, off-key, absurdly cheerful. He sat up in bed, still wrapped in the haze of sleep. He thought his father had come home late again, perhaps joking or cooking something strange, as he sometimes did when he was in a good mood.
He got up. The floor was cold under his bare feet. He descended the stairs with a clumsy smile; each step creaked, and with every creak, the humming grew clearer. Halfway down, he heard footsteps behind him.
"Royd…?" a small voice whispered.
Any stood in the hallway, rubbing one eye in the dim light.
"Go back to sleep," he whispered back. "Dad is downstairs."
She stepped down two more stairs. Royd didn't insist. When he reached the last step, his world shattered.
His parents lay on the floor. They no longer looked human, only remnants scattered over a pool of blood spreading across the wood. His father was unrecognizable, his torso twisted at impossible angles. His mother, however, was still alive—barely. Her face turned toward the stairs, and her eyes met Royd's; through the pain, he saw tears.
A man crouched before her. He separated the flesh with a sickening, almost surgical care. In his hand, he held a curved dagger, covered in twisted engravings that seemed to move if you stared at them too long. The light shied away from it, as if the candles refused to touch that metal.
Royd's mother opened her mouth. She never got to speak. The dagger descended with inhuman speed. The head hit the floor with a dry sound, a blow that should not exist inside a house. In a blink, the dagger vanished from the man's hand.
Royd reacted purely by instinct. He turned and covered Any's eyes with one hand, her mouth with the other. He drew her against his chest with a desperate force, as if trying to hide her inside himself.
"Don't look…" he whispered. "Don't look…"
His own tears blurred his vision as he held Any against his chest, his body shaking with a tremor he couldn't control.
The man stood up. He was tall, too tall; nearly two meters. His thin figure imposed an invisible pressure, as if the air around him weighed more. He approached the children with terrifying deliberation, stopped before them, and smiled. Using two fingers, he stretched the corners of his lips sideways, forcing a grotesque grimace, as if to show Royd what happiness looked like.
A icy chill climbed Royd's spine. His muscles screamed to run, to grab Any and vanish into the night, but the desire to save her battled a far more primitive survival instinct: not to attract the monster's attention. He remained there, petrified, understanding with absolute horror that the man wasn't waiting for them to flee; he was waiting for an excuse not to let them go. If they breathed out of turn, both would die before reaching the door.
The humming continued, calm. The man turned and left into the night, leaving red footprints across the wood, as if he had just finished an ordinary task.
In the distance, alarms erupted. A metallic howl pierced the settlement.
Sector D.Code Black.
Red lights ignited the darkness. Then Royd heard the metallic, rhythmic thunder his father always spoke of with respect. It wasn't the light step of ordinary guards, but the pounding of heavy steel boots on the pavement.
"Make way for the Champions!" a powerful voice shouted from the street.
Royd recognized the sound of ancient weapons being drawn: the hiss of strange metal vibrating with unnatural tension. They were the warriors of legends, men wielding myths instead of rifles, advancing with steps that promised justice—but, for his family, arrived too late.
The crash of the door being torn down should have been the last thing he heard, but at that moment, the world seemed to fall silent. Then came the whisper. Soft. Close. So clear that Royd felt icy breath brush the back of his neck.
"Royd."
It didn't come from outside, from the chaos of soldiers. It didn't come from Any's trembling lips. It came from nowhere, as if darkness itself had learned to speak his name.
His eyes shot open.
The nightmare dissolved in an instant, leaving only a trail of cold sweat and a racing heart. Royd blinked, trying to catch the fragments of the dream, but the images slipped through his fingers like sand. Only one sensation remained: a weight in his chest and the echo of a voice he couldn't identify.
The sway of the caravan brought him back to reality. Any slept curled against his arm, unaware of her brother's anguish. Royd rubbed his face and inhaled deeply, feeling the air burn slightly in his lungs. The atmosphere was thick, heavy with the metallic humidity of the roots; an air that felt increasingly alien, as if the Green Fragment were claiming oxygen for itself, expelling those who did not belong to its nature.
He peered through a gap in the tarp. The sky was a leaden gray. On the horizon rose the colossal silhouette guarded by the motionless Sentinel. Royd sighed, letting oblivion finish erasing the horror of the night.
The Earth was dying, and the visit to the Green Fragment promised no new beginning. It was simply the edge of the abyss, and they were about to leap.