Everything was black.
Not the gentle shadow behind closed eyelids, nor the kind of darkness one tames at night. No. This was total blackness. Absolute. A denial of existence. The kind of black that doesn't hide the world—it replaces it. A bottomless abyss with no horizon.
A bark tore through the silence.
Short. Broken. Strangled in a frozen breath.
Rays stirred. More by reflex than will. He opened his eyes, but there was nothing to see. As always. The darkness wrapped around him with its formless familiarity. A ceaseless void.
The ground beneath him was frozen, coarse, hard like ancient stone. At first, he thought it was snow. But no—too dry. Frost, maybe. Thick, biting, clinging to his skin like a second flesh.
A second bark, closer now.
Rex.
He tried to speak, but his lips were cracked from the cold. Coagulated blood, frozen by the wind, glued them into a painful grimace. His throat gave only a rasping croak, like sandpaper tearing flesh.
He reached out his fingers.
Pain. Each knuckle groaned like a rusted hinge. Nerves screamed. He was no longer a body—he was a pile of broken fragments.
He forced himself. Slowly. To sit up. Then to rise.
His spine creaked like a branch under frost. A white-hot pain flared in his neck. He wavered. Breathed in gasps.
His breath formed invisible clouds in a world with nothing to see.
But he could hear. He could feel.
He could sense.
The world around him existed in vibrations. Every sound—the jagged breath of Rex, the crackling wind, the moaning ice—painted a trembling fresco in his mind. Incomplete. Like a charcoal sketch erased as it's drawn.
A world of shifting outlines, sketched in noise.
He listened closely.
"You hungry, buddy?"
The bark came, weaker now, but clear. Loyal. Present.
Rays smiled, just a little. A grimace that tugged at his wounds.
He stood. Or tried to. His legs were two dead logs. His back screamed. His shoulder was stiff—possibly dislocated.
He took a step.
Then another.
Each stride was a victory—over the cold, over the pain, over the void.
"The merchant's cart..."
He stopped. Closed his eyes, an instinctive gesture. And reached out with his senses.
Echolocation. His only eye. His only guide.
He let his breath go. Listened for the world to answer.
A pulse.
An echo.
The ground cracked to his right. A shape. Broad. Still. Two hundred steps away.
The cart's silence screamed of death.
He called up what little power he had left. A telluric whisper, a thin wave he sent rippling through the ground beneath him. The earth answered in shivers. An ancient presence. Frozen wheels. Dried blood. A mark carved into stone by metal and panic.
It was there.
He tilted his head slightly toward Rex.
"Stay here."
The dog whimpered. A hoarse protest, full of loyalty.
"I know... I don't want to be alone either. But if I fall, you've still got a chance. You can still make it back."
He placed a hand on the animal's head. The fur was icy. Frosted. But alive. The only warm anchor in a world of cold.
"You're a good boy. The best."
He turned away.
And walked.
The wind bit at him, the snow tore at his feet. He wasn't walking—he was surviving. Crawling, falling, getting up again. His breath quickened, each step carved a new debt into his body.
The world trembled. Every crack of ice. Every gust. Every breath.
He fell.
The cold swallowed him.
He was nothing more than a lost silhouette in a white desert he could not see.
But he rose. Again.
He reached it.
The cart was there. Silent. Frozen. Dead.
He sensed its mass. A frosted carcass, heavy with frozen memories. He didn't look for the merchant's body. No need. The silence was enough.
His fingers fumbled blindly. A bag. Rigid. Icy. He forced it. The fabric cracked.
Food.
He clutched it to his chest like a treasure.
Then turned back.
The snow was heavier. The wind more cruel.
He counted his steps.
Ten. Twenty. Thirty. Each footfall was a prayer. He could hear his own exhaustion vibrating through the ground.
And suddenly...
A bark. Faint. But there. A beacon in the void.
Rex.
He picked up his pace. As best he could.
He fell again.
But this time, he crawled.
He made it.
The dog hadn't moved. Curled up. Trembling. But there.
Rays collapsed beside him. Opened the bag. Pulled something out.
"Here."
The dog licked him instead of eating.
A silent gesture. A thank you.
Rays smiled. Gently.
Then whispered into the dark:
"Tomorrow, the monsters will come."
His voice was calm. Simple. Like a man who already knows the end.
"I'll hold them off. Just long enough. So you can run. Toward the light."
He let himself sink. Resting his head against Rex's flank.
The world stayed black.
But it was less empty.