Morning never truly came.
The darkness faded, but it did not disappear. A dim silver glow stretched across the plains, and even in daylight, the fractured moon lingered in the sky — pale, cracked, and impossibly close.
Souro stood alone in the endless field of silver grass.
In the light, the grass no longer shimmered. It looked gray now. Drained. As if its life only existed under the moon's gaze.
A cold wind brushed past him.
He looked down at his wrist.
The crescent mark remained faint but visible, resting beneath his skin like something alive.
"This isn't Earth…" he whispered.
The silence of the plains felt unnatural.
Too empty.
Then he saw it.
Far on the horizon, rising from the dull landscape, were walls.
Tall. Black. Broken.
A city.
Souro began walking.
The journey felt longer than it looked. As he drew closer, the damage became clearer. Half of the outer wall had collapsed outward, as if something enormous had burst through it centuries ago.
Above the gate, carved into dark stone, was a crest.
A circle divided in two.
One half bore the symbol of a radiant sun.
The other half displayed a crescent moon.
The moon half was shattered.
A jagged crack split it apart.
Souro felt a strange heaviness in his chest.
Even here… the moon was broken.
"Stop."
The command came sharp and controlled.
Two armored figures stepped forward from beside the gate.
Their armor was dark but faintly luminous, thin lines of energy tracing along the edges like veins of light. Their expressions were hardened by experience.
One of them studied Souro carefully.
"State your Origin."
Souro blinked. "My… origin?"
"Your hemisphere," the guard clarified. "Solar or Lunar?"
Souro hesitated. He didn't understand the question.
Before he could answer, the second guard's gaze dropped to his wrist.
To the crescent mark.
The air shifted.
"…Variable," the second guard muttered.
The first guard's posture stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"You came from beyond the fracture," he said quietly.
Souro swallowed. "I woke up in the plains. That's all I know."
The guard glanced briefly at the sky.
"At the height of the Shattering, five hundred years ago, the moon split. Half the world was consumed in its fall."
His voice carried no drama. Only fact.
"What remains is divided. The Solar Dominion governs the East. The Lunar Territories survive in the West."
His gaze returned to Souro.
"The land beyond the fracture — the Broken Hemisphere — is forbidden."
A pause.
"Nothing human returns from it."
Souro felt the weight of those words settle over him.
But he had come from there.
The second guard rested a hand on the hilt of his weapon.
"Variables are anomalies," he said. "Distortions in the world's balance."
The crescent mark on Souro's wrist pulsed faintly, as if responding.
"I didn't choose this," Souro said quietly.
The guards exchanged a glance.
The gate behind them groaned as it slowly opened, revealing a shadowed passage beyond. Torches burned along the inner walls, their flames pale blue instead of orange.
"You will come with us," the first guard said. "Until the Dominion decides what you are."
Souro stepped forward.
The moment he passed beneath the gate, a low vibration rippled through the stone archway.
Symbols carved into the structure began to glow.
Faint at first.
Then brighter.
The guards froze.
"The barrier…" one whispered.
The crescent mark on Souro's wrist flared painfully.
High above the city, even under daylight, the fractured moon pulsed once.
A deep bell rang from somewhere within the city walls.
Slow.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
The sound echoed across the streets beyond the gate.
The guards drew their weapons.
"It's reacting to him," the second guard said under his breath.
Souro looked past them, into the city's shadowed interior.
People had stopped in the streets.
Looking up.
Looking toward the gate.
Toward him.
Whatever this world feared…
It had just awakened.
And it knew he had arrived.