Vesper Evernight opened his eyes slowly.
An unbearable heat pressed against his flesh, crawling under his skin, as though the desert itself sought to sear him from the inside out. The air was dry, oppressive, like inhaling smoke from a fire that never burned out. His lips cracked as he gasped, eyes squinting against the harsh light of a colossal red sun, suspended eternally in a sky devoid of clouds.
He blinked again. Sand. Endless. No trees. No mountains. No buildings. Just a golden, rippling, cruel expanse.
"What... what the hell..." he murmured, barely audible to himself.
His first emotion was confusion. Then came fear, and then, bitter frustration.
Last night... what had happened last night?
He strained his memory, but all he could recall was walking home from his late class at the university. He remembered the pale streetlights, the weight of his backpack, the quiet of the neighborhood. Then — nothing. Not even darkness. Just absence.
Am I dreaming?
He stood up. His joints ached as if he'd been lying on solid rock for hours. The heat was a constant insult, making sweat pour from his body — only for it to evaporate a moment later, stolen by the arid air.
I have to move.
Instinct overpowered reason. He started walking. No plan. No direction. Just motion. It was better than standing still. The sands shifted beneath him with every step, dragging his strength down like a silent predator.
Minutes passed.
Hours.
The sun never moved.
Nothing changed. No landmarks, no wind. The desert mocked him with its sameness.
Time melted away.
Desperation began to bloom in the corners of his mind.
He stumbled and collapsed. Sand filled his mouth, his nose. He spat and coughed.
"This is a dream. Just a dream. I'll wake up soon. Any second now."
He closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, the same sun glared down at him. His heart sank deeper than he thought possible.
A strangled curse escaped his lips. Then another. And another. His voice cracked with the effort. No echo answered.
Tears blurred his vision.
He allowed himself a moment of weakness. A moment to cry, to curl into himself like a dying animal. No shame. No witnesses.
But weakness, too, passed. Hunger began to gnaw at him. His throat felt like torn sandpaper.
And so he walked.
He walked for what felt like two full days. Maybe more. He couldn't be sure. There was no nightfall. No stars. No moon. Only the unchanging sun and the desert that refused to shift.
He rested when his legs refused to move. Sometimes he blacked out, only to awaken in the same position, unsure how long he had slept.
Each time he rose again, it was slower, heavier. His lips bled. His breath was shallow. His eyes began to hallucinate faint shapes that vanished when he tried to focus.
He screamed sometimes. Not for help. Not out of hope. Just raw, animal frustration.
But nothing answered.
He began speaking to himself, just to remember what a voice sounded like.
"Maybe I'm already dead. Maybe this is some kind of purgatory. Or maybe I lost my mind."
He chuckled. The sound startled him.
Then he collapsed again.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed sideways into the sand, this time not bothering to get up.
So this is how I die. Alone. In some void between life and death. Or maybe this is hell.
He turned his face to the side, the grains of sand scraping his skin like a thousand tiny razors.
Maybe... maybe I was never meant to live that long anyway.
He thought of his life.
A quiet, isolated boy.
A teenager who hid in libraries more than parties.
A young man who walked through campus like a ghost no one noticed.
He had no lovers. No real friends. Only a few acquaintances who would forget him the moment he disappeared. He studied because it gave his life some illusion of meaning.
Was he happy?
No.
But content? Sometimes. He accepted the dull ache of mediocrity because at least it wasn't pain.
But now...
This pain was real.
Not emotional. Not symbolic. But physical. Unrelenting.
Maybe this is what I needed. A reason to feel.
His lips curled in a broken smile.
Just as his consciousness began to flicker like a dying candle — he saw it.
A shimmer. A mirage?
No — water.
His brain screamed in protest, calling it a hallucination.
But his body moved before thought. He dragged himself forward. Every grain of sand burned his skin. Every muscle screamed. But the vision grew closer.
It wasn't a puddle.
It wasn't an oasis.
It was... a wave.
Vesper's mind failed to grasp it at first. He froze.
A giant wave — impossibly large — over 250 meters tall. A wall of dark, cold water stretching across the horizon. Towering. Still.
It did not crash. It did not surge.
It stood.
Frozen in place. Fluttering, trembling — but unmoving, as though time itself had paused for this singular moment.
Vesper approached. Ten meters away, and the full scale of it became clearer.
He was an ant before a mountain. His neck craned until it ached. He could not see the peak. Only that dark, oceanic blue that pulsed with unknowable depth.
What is this?
He hesitated. His instincts screamed to flee. But where? The desert offered no mercy.
He stepped forward.
Closer.
Then, finally, he raised his right arm and pressed his hand into the wave.
The water was cold. Not just uncomfortable — but biting. It pierced through his skin like ice-dipped needles.
Still, he stepped in.
And in.
Until his entire body submerged.
The water took him. Not gently. Not like a mother's embrace. But like a beast swallowing prey.
A vortex spun around him, dragging him deeper. Pressure built. His lungs screamed.
He flailed, but it was useless. The current was too strong. It didn't just drag his body — it consumed his thoughts, his past, his self.
He was dying.
And he knew it.
Is this it?
He remembered his mother's soft hands.
He remembered the dusty pages of his favorite book.
He remembered the lonely campus nights.
And yet, no panic.
Only clarity.
I never really lived. Not truly. But... that's okay, isn't it?
His mind dimmed.
His eyes closed.
Let it end.
Silence.
Darkness.
And then... nothing.
---
Vesper floated in black.
Not water. Not space. Just absence.
Time meant nothing here. He could have drifted for minutes or centuries.
And slowly, like bubbles rising from a drowned corpse, thoughts returned.
Am I still alive?
He wasn't breathing.
Yet he wasn't gasping either. No pain. No cold.
Just floating.
He tried to move his limbs. They moved, yet it felt meaningless — like motion in a dream.
Is this... the afterlife?
He heard nothing.
But then a whisper.
"You do not belong."
It was not a voice. It was a thought pressed into his skull. Heavy. Ancient.
Vesper's mind recoiled.
"Who—?"
"You are unfinished."
A pause. The void seemed to pulse with awareness.
"Do you wish to ascend?"
The word struck something primal in him.
Ascend?
What does that mean?
The void did not explain. Instead, it offered a feeling. A glimpse. Of power. Of dominion. Of standing over the corpses of gods.
He should have been terrified.
Instead, he smiled.
Not out of arrogance.
But hunger.
"Yes," he whispered. "Yes."
The void shattered.
And Vesper screamed
...