The world twisted.
One moment I was standing in the white world, surrounded by corpses and strangers. The next, I was falling through nothingness – a void of black and grey, where up and down had no meaning. My stomach lurched into my throat. My hands grasped at empty air.
I hit ground hard.
Ashes.
I coughed, spitting black dust from my mouth. The ash was fine, almost powdery, and it filled my lungs like smoke. I could taste it – bitter, acrid, like burnt wood and charred bone. It coated my tongue, my teeth, the back of my throat.
The air was hot and thick, smelling of sulfur and burnt wood – the smell of a forest fire, but without the forest. The heat pressed against my skin, dry and suffocating. Sweat beaded on my forehead, then evaporated almost instantly.
I pushed myself up, squinting against a sky the color of bruised meat. Deep red clouds churned slowly, endlessly, blocking any glimpse of sun or stars. The light was dim, diffuse, like the inside of a dying ember. Shadows stretched in every direction, long and twisted.
I was alone.
The white cloth was gone. I wore my school uniform again – the same jacket, the same trousers, the same sneakers I had worn when I met the Ferryman. But the blood was still there. The man's blood. My hands were still stained, rust-colored and dry. It had flaked off in some places, revealing pale skin beneath.
Around me, ruins.
Crumbled walls of black stone rose from the ash like graveyards. Collapsed archways leaned against each other like drunkards. Statues of people I didn't recognize – kings? gods? – lay broken on the ground, their faces worn smooth by time and wind. Some had been decapitated. Others were missing limbs. One was buried up to its chest in ash, its stone eyes staring at the red sky.
And in the distance, impossibly tall, a tower pierced the red clouds.
The Spire.
It was black – blacker than the stone, blacker than the ash, blacker than anything I had ever seen. It absorbed light. It seemed to drink the red sky, pulling color from the clouds. The edges of the tower were sharp, angular, like a shard of obsidian driven into the earth.
I stared at it for a long time.
The panel appeared unbidden.
Floor 1: Ash Barrens
Mission: Survive 7 days.
Objective: Reach the gate to Floor 2.
Reward: 10 Soul Shards. Ranking bonuses available.
Failure: Death.
Seven days. Survive.
The words were cold, clinical. They offered no comfort, no hope. Just a deadline. A countdown to death or salvation.
I looked around. Other survivors were appearing in flashes of white light – some nearby, some far. Most looked as lost and terrified as I felt. Some were crying. Some were praying. Some were already fighting over scraps of metal that could be used as weapons.
I saw him first. The white-haired boy – Hunter. He materialized twenty meters away, already on his feet, already scanning for threats. His blue eyes swept the horizon, cataloging every shadow, every sound. His hand rested on the hilt of his broken sword.
His eyes found mine, held for a moment, then moved on. He was not looking for friends. He was looking for dangers.
Then I saw her.
The scarlet-haired girl – Sage.
She appeared on a collapsed pillar, standing as if she had always been there. Her white cloth was gone, replaced by the same school uniform as the rest of us. But her hair was the same – long, scarlet, catching the red light, almost glowing. It fell past her shoulders like a river of blood.
Her blood-red eyes swept the landscape with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times.
Because she had.
I didn't know that yet. I didn't know anything about her. But something about her calmness grated against my panic. She was not afraid. She was not confused. She was not lost.
She looked at me. Not through me. At me.
Then she turned and walked toward the tower.
Hunter followed. Not with her – just in the same direction.
I stood alone, surrounded by ashes and strangers and the ghosts of the people I had killed.
The ash crunched under my feet. The wind howled, carrying the smell of sulfur. The red sky watched.
For Yuki.
I took a step.
The ash was deep – up to my ankles in some places. It shifted with each step, unstable, like walking on sand. My sneakers sank into it, making a soft, grinding sound.
The ruins grew denser as I walked. The buildings were taller here, less collapsed. Some still had roofs – jagged, broken things that leaned at dangerous angles. The ash was thinner, revealing patches of black stone that glistened as if wet.
I passed a statue of a woman. She was tall, regal, her stone robes flowing around her. Her face was serene, beautiful, but her eyes were missing – chiseled out or worn away by time. In her hands, she held a book. The pages were blank.
I passed a collapsed archway. The keystone had fallen, splitting the structure in two. The stones were black, covered in symbols I didn't recognize. They looked like words, but the language was ancient, forgotten.
I passed a fountain. The basin was dry, cracked. In the center, a stone figure knelt, its head bowed. Water no longer flowed. Only ash.
The silence was oppressive. There were no birds, no insects, no sounds of life. Just the wind and the crunch of my footsteps.
Then I heard it.
A scream.
Not human. Something else.
I froze.
The scream came again – high, thin, like metal scraping against bone. It echoed off the ruins, bouncing back and forth, multiplying.
My panel flickered.
Warning: Hostile creatures detected. Ash Skitters – Class 1.
Class 1?
The shapes appeared in the distance – dark, low to the ground, fast. They moved like spiders, their six legs carrying them across the ash with terrifying speed.
I counted six. Then twelve. Then more.
I ran.
My sneakers slipped on the ash. I scrambled behind a broken wall, pressing my back against the cold stone. My heart hammered against my ribs. My breath came in short, ragged gasps.
Don't see me. Don't see me.
The chittering grew louder. Closer.
I peered around the corner.
One of the creatures had stopped three meters away. Its head – if you could call it that – swiveled toward my hiding spot. It had no eyes – just clusters of small holes where eyes should be. The holes twitched, as if smelling the air.
It smelled me.
It lunged.
I rolled. The creature crashed into the wall, cracking the stone. Shards of rock sprayed my face. I scrambled backward, kicking ash into its face. It shook its head, screeching.
The others were coming.
I grabbed a loose rock – useless – and backed away. My hand closed around the dagger at my belt. The same dagger from the white world. The same dagger that had killed a man.
I'm going to die here.
In the first hour.
A blade whistled past my ear.
It embedded itself in the creature's skull. The thing twitched, spasmed, then went still.
I looked up.
Hunter stood on top of the collapsed wall, a second blade already in his hand. His blue eyes were cold. His white dreadlocks were streaked with ash.
"Move," he said. "More are coming."
He jumped down, yanked his blade from the corpse, and grabbed my arm. His grip was iron.
"Run."
We ran.
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