After his battle with the gravity Aspect user, Rhys and his group disappeared through the gate. He could barely believe his plan worked.
One second he was ducking a gravity-flattening elbow, and the next, he was stumbling through a field of broken concrete and wind-choked silence.
'Holy shit,' he thought. 'Did that actually work?'
He was out of breath and out of his mind.
If not for the burning sensation crawling beneath his skin, he might've grinned. He might've thrown his arms in the air like a hero from one of those old action movies they used to play at the orphanage. But his body was unravelling too fast for celebration.
The adrenaline blurred the details. But he felt the weight in his chest, the heat pulsing from his tattoo and the haze creeping in at the edges of his vision.
Goro supported Rhys with one thick arm, half-carrying him. Silas took point, his steps quick but deliberate as he led them down the road.
The stone beneath their feet was cracked and ancient. Worn smooth by weather or time…or both. As they walked, it began to slope. The incline was subtle at first, barely noticeable underfoot, but it steepened with every few dozen meters.
Something else happened as soon as they stepped out the gate. Rhys felt naked.
Stripped bare in some metaphysical way. Like something was staring directly at his soul, peeling back every layer of who and what he was. This someone—or some thing—had a gaze that felt like it was everywhere and nowhere all at once. And Rhys instinctively knew that he couldn't hide from it, even if he tried.
Just like the dream, no, the nightmare that he had before he awoke in the Lobby.
Suddenly, a wave of madness rose from within, crashing over his mind like black surf. Ancient whispers gnawed at his skull, thousands of tongues speaking a language older than memory. Some of the voices wept. Others begged. Most accused.
A cocktail of emotions; sorrow, rage, guilt, hunger; settled in his bones like lead and pushed him toward the edge of something he couldn't see.
He stumbled, pressing a hand to his temple as if that would help.
Goro caught him before he fell, one arm locking tight around his midsection.
"Hey, you okay?"
Rhys didn't answer, as he was engaged in an internal struggle for his sanity. The voices spoke in a language Rhys didn't understand, but the intent and emotion struck directly at his soul.
'What do you want from me?'
Seeing his condition, Goro gave him a light shake, at least, he thought it was light. But to Rhys, it was a jolt. It broke the trance. The voices shattered like glass, and Rhys gasped, as if resurfacing from a near-drowning.
Goro spoke again, this time addressing Silas:
"Your Grace, Rhys may be dying."
Silas continued forging ahead, desperate to distance them from the labyrinthine prison as swiftly as possible. Who could predict what might emerge from that gate next? He glanced back, his features tight with mild panic.
"Come on now. We must make haste and descend the mountain." He kept his eyes glued to the prison gate as he spoke:
"Carry him if need be."
Goro glanced at the boy's ochre-skinned face, now clammy and twitching, then nodded once.
"As you wish," Goro replied, and without complaint, he adjusted his grip and hoisted Rhys fully onto his back.
Rhys's body radiated heat, even in the open air. His skin was hot to the touch, too. Goro winced slightly, but said nothing.
Silas then doubled back, placing a hand on Goro's shoulder, his expression unreadable.
"And I asked you to drop the 'Your Grace'. You may have chosen to follow me, but that honour is no longer mine."
The giant nodded his head slowly. "Old habits."
Silas turned forward and resumed walking, motioning impatiently:
"Chop chop, now."
Rhys was listening in on their conversation in silence. His consciousness was in a weird state, like it was slowly pulling away. There was a lot he wanted to say but only managed to ask one question:
"Since when do you talk so much?"
Goro clearly heard him, as Rhys spoke directly in his ear, but he chose to be silent again.
"Well, whatever. Do you." Rhys's words sounded like they were drifting away as he spoke.
With that, the escapees continued on their trek.
***
The road kept winding downward, etched into the mountain's edge like the scar of some ancient wound. The weather remained surprisingly calm—gray clouds overhead, a soft breeze curling between jagged stones, and the occasional gust rattling loose gravel underfoot. If not for the screaming in Rhys's bloodstream, it could've been peaceful.
Rhys was starting to lose track of time.
The pulsing beneath his skin had become rhythmic, like a second heartbeat. One that didn't care whether he lived or not. And forget the extreme fever, something else was exerting pressure. Like it crawling just under his flesh, looking for a way out.
His breath hitched in Goro's arms, coming up short and ragged. Every time he blinked, more of his vision dimmed. His fingers twitched unconsciously and his chest felt like it was full of heated air.
From the corner of his eye, Rhys could see his own skin beginning to discolour, veins blackening, branching out from the mark like roots burned into the surface of his body.
He tried to speak, but his tongue felt thick in his mouth.
"…slow down," he finally rasped, barely above a whisper.
Silas glanced back. His brows furrowed, his pace slowing slightly. He exchanged concerned looks with Goro, but neither verbalized their fears.
Rhys coughed again, violently this time. Steam billowed from his mouth, curling upward in ghostly tendrils. His voice, when it came, was barely more than a wheeze:
"It…burns…"
His words trailed into incoherence, swallowed by the rising wind.
Silas frowned but didn't comment. Instead, he knelt by the edge of the path and tore off a length of cloth from his tattered tunic, soaking it in the melting trickle of a nearby snowmelt rivulet. He climbed back up beside Goro and pressed the rag gently against Rhys's forehead. It sizzled instantly.
Silas flinched, then swore under his breath.
"Silas," Goro called ahead. "He's getting worse."
Silas gave a sigh in response
"I know."
They hadn't stopped since leaving the prison. And the further they got from it, the more Rhys seemed to unravel.
"He's boiling from the inside out."
Goro offered no verbal response, but his grip tightened protectively.
They kept walking.
The road coiled downward into a long sloping pass where the rocks smoothed out and the sky opened up above them.
The path levelled out slightly before narrowing again. Trees flanked them on either side now, the shadows growing longer as the sun dipped past the mountain's shoulder.
Hours of relentless trekking elapsed.
The slope beneath them grew less steep, the stone giving way to dirt and patches of frost-laced grass. The mountain path widened just enough to let the wind slip through in long, whispering breaths.
Rhys stirred against Goro's back, murmuring something unintelligible. His head lolled to the side, the black lines of his mark now creeping along his neck like cracks in scorched porcelain.
Silas glanced at him but said nothing. He simply kept walking, eyes fixed ahead.
The tree line began to thin.
Then the wind sharpened. As if warning them.
Silas halted. Goro followed, leather clogs crunching the last stretch of gravel.
Rhys stirred weakly on his back. "Why'd we stop?"
No one answered immediately.
Before them, the world ended—and began again.
Beyond the last jagged drop of stone, where the descent finally met open land, there was nothing but white. Endless, roiling white. A blizzard, thick and blinding, devouring the horizon.
A jagged line of frost cut across the base of the mountain. Beyond it stretched a wasteland of white. The sky darkened into a bruised, cloud-choked dome, and snow fell in slow, deliberate sheets. The tundra below looked like it had been frozen in time, locked in a storm that never began and never ended.
The air didn't flow from one side to the other. It didn't even blend. It just… stopped. On one side: the crisp mountain breeze. On the other: a blizzard thick enough to swallow sound.
Rhys opened his eyes wider—barely—and muttered,
"Oh, come on…"
Then consciousness abandoned him completely.
The calm of the descent was behind them. And the storm was ahead.
Waiting to devour them whole.