Chapter 3

You turn right, the ash crunching noisily underfoot, its bitter scent squirming into your nostrils, clawing its way into your lungs. It burns like acid, but its pain is somehow comforting, a familiar sensation in this blighted, alien realm. As you plod onward, your gaze wanders from the horizon, to your own shambling feet, which you realize only now are bare, their skin pale and gaunt, grey as the soot on which you stride. When you reach down and attempt to brush the silken ash away, you realize that it is in fact, the true color of your flesh; your veins black tendrils curling beneath, a faint pulse rushing through them, pressing gently against your withered fingertips.

Disturbed, you straighten, and continue on your way, muscles blazing with pain, heart never hastening nor slowing, its steady rhythm a distant thunder in your breast. The path ahead leads to a shallow grave, from which faint footprints lead farther into this desert of ash, yet quickly fade away, erased by the gentle winds that rouse small dervishes from the earth; languid sprits that whirl slowly across the rough ground, before vanishing entirely.