Alex ran until his legs burned.
Then he ran further.
The clicking followed, rhythmic and patient, never quite catching up. The ivory figures flickered at the edges of his vision—there, gone, there again—like thoughts he couldn't fully dismiss.
When his body finally forced him to stop, he didn't collapse.
He observed.
The clicking had rhythm. The ivory figures appeared at intervals. The comet moved in predictable arcs across the void overhead.
There were patterns.
Patterns could be learned.
Patterns could be survived.
Alex steadied his breathing and started cataloging.
— — —
The figures appeared when he stopped moving.
He'd tested it three times now. Every time he slowed to a walk, they manifested. When he ran, they vanished—not fleeing, just… absent. As if they only existed in stillness.
Solution: keep moving. Never stop completely.
The clicking indicated proximity.
Louder meant closer. Softer meant distance. When the sound faded to almost nothing, he was safe—or at least safer.
Solution: move toward silence, away from noise.
The comet marked safe directions.
When it was visible, the pressure on his chest eased. The air felt less thick. His thoughts cleared slightly.
Solution: follow the comet's path.
Looking directly at them made them more real.
When he stared, they solidified—edges sharpening, red eyes brightening. When he used only peripheral vision, they remained translucent, manageable.
Solution: never look directly. Acknowledge without focus.
Alex exhaled slowly.
This wasn't incomprehensible.
It was just hostile.
And hostile could be outsmarted.
— — —
He moved with purpose now.
Not fleeing—navigating.
The comet drifted westward in its slow, pulsing arc. Alex followed, keeping it always ahead, always visible. When the ground smoothed too much, he angled toward ridges. When the clicking grew louder, he adjusted course.
The ivory figures still appeared, but less frequently. Manageable. Predictable.
Alex felt something he hadn't felt since entering the west:
Control.
Small. Fragile.
But present.
Hours passed. Maybe days—time still refused to behave correctly. But the rhythm held. The patterns remained consistent.
He was surviving.
More than that—he was adapting.
The system didn't contradict him. No warnings appeared. No sudden escalations.
The west allowed his assumptions.
That should have been the first clue.
— — —
The clicking stopped completely.
Alex froze mid-step, listening.
Silence.
Total. Absolute.
Not the absence of sound—the presence of quiet, as if something had muffled the world.
Then he remembered:
Silence means distance. I've moved away from the danger.
Relief flooded through him, warm and unexpected.
He'd done it. Found the safe zone. Navigated correctly.
The ivory figures didn't appear.
The comet remained visible overhead, steady and brilliant.
The ground beneath him was textured—shallow grooves running in parallel lines, exactly what he'd been seeking.
Safe.
Alex allowed himself to stop.
Really stop.
He sat, back against nothing, and let his muscles unclench. His breathing slowed. The tension that had kept him moving for days finally released.
For the first time since entering the west, he closed his eyes.
Just for a moment.
Just to rest.
The pale expanse around him rippled.
Not stone shifting.
Surface contracting.
The comet overhead pulsed
The ivory figures reappeared.
All at once.
Dozens of them, manifesting in a perfect circle around him. Still flat. Still two-dimensional. Still staring with patient red eyes.
Not attacking.
Not approaching.
Waiting.
Then, in unison, they turned.
Every red eye shifted toward the same direction.
Toward the edge of the surface.
Toward a drop Alex hadn't seen because the light bent wrong around it, because distance didn't mean the same thing here, because he'd been walking on curvature his mind interpreted as flat.
Toward the cliffs.
The surface beneath him contracted again.
Harder this time.
Not threat.
Guidance.
— — —
Alex ran.
Not toward safety—there was none.
Toward the edge, because the alternative was staying here, on this, inside this.
Behind him, the surface rippled in waves, texture folding inward. The ivory figures didn't chase. They collapsed into the pale flesh like drawings erased, absorbed back into the thing that had projected them.
They had never been separate entities.
They were marks.
Attention.
Focus points where something vast was looking.
The cliff edge approached—a sharp line where pale became dark, where surface became void.
Alex didn't slow.
His wings flared.
He jumped.
And as he fell—
The white plane above him curved.
Bent.
Pulled inward at the edges like fabric drawn tight.
Not landscape.
Not horizon.
Curvature.
He'd been walking on something rounded.
Something immense enough that its surface felt flat.
Something that breathed.
The clicking resumed.
Not from below.
From behind.
From above..
Shatter. Pause. Shatter. Pause.
— — —
Alex's wings caught air, halting his fall with a violent jerk.
He didn't look back.
Couldn't.
Below, the cliffs rose to meet him—jagged formations of dark stone, edges too sharp, surfaces too organic. Not refuge. Not escape.
The next stage.
He descended toward them, wings beating hard, as understanding settled cold and final in his chest.
The comet had been bait.
The silence had been arrival.
The patterns had been permission.
The city didn't fear intelligent prey.
It cultivated it.
Let it think. Let it learn. Let it feel competent.
Because smarter food lasted longer.
Struggled more beautifully.
And when it finally understood what it was inside of—
That was when it tasted best.
Alex landed hard on the nearest cliff edge, boots scraping stone.
Above him, the white plane continued, patient and unhurried.
It had let him think he understood.
And now it was letting him run.
For now.