Western Rim of the Salt Flats – Day Four
The wind had changed again. It now came from the south, dry and cutting, like it had passed over teeth. Ren didn't comment on it. Neither did Zarno. They had walked too far, said too little, and spent too many hours listening for footsteps behind them that never came.
Their boots cracked through the white crust of old salt, leaving shallow, uncertain prints. The dried basin stretched flat in all directions, broken only by the ribs of half-buried animal bones and occasional patches of thorn-grass trying to grow where nothing should.
Zarno walked a few steps ahead, one hand shielding her eyes from the sun. She didn't complain, but Ren could tell her legs were aching. She didn't bounce anymore. Not since they left the last tree line behind.
"You need a break," he said.
She didn't answer at first. Then: "I need a bigger sun."
Ren looked up. The sky was pale and raw. The sun looked like a burn mark in it, angry and still.
They stopped near the collapsed remains of what might've once been a traveler's shrine. Nothing more than a few stones in a circle now, with a rotted plank jutting out from one side.
Zarno dropped her pack and sat cross-legged on the salt. She began peeling dried fruit with quiet, efficient fingers.
Ren crouched near the circle, running a thumb over the edge of the stones.
"What do you think this used to be?" he asked.
She looked over. "Worship. Or warning. Most shrines out here are both."
Ren sat down beside her, took half the fruit.
"No signs of other travelers," he said.
"No signs means no survivors."
They ate in silence.
Later – Dried Riverbed Camp
They found the edge of the basin near sunset, where the salt cracked and gave way to soft earth again—crumbly, tan, dry. The river had been gone for decades, maybe longer, but its path still cut through the land like a scar.
Ren and Zarno set up camp in a hollow near the river's old bend. The rocks here were cooler. The earth remembered water.
He built a small fire with the last of the tinder. The flame barely reached higher than his palm, but it gave enough heat to keep the night cold off their bones.
Zarno sat opposite, stitching something in her lap. Thread, leather, maybe a broken strap.
Ren unrolled the map.
He didn't trust it. Not really. But he'd marked the page himself. Hand-drawn notes. Safe wells. Abandoned settlements. Places to avoid. Haldrith patrol zones. Trails where footprints had vanished.
Zarno looked up. "Anything good?"
He shook his head. "A mining town east of here. Should be empty."
She nodded. "How far?"
"Two days. Maybe three."
She went back to stitching.
The fire crackled.
"Do you ever miss it?" he asked after a while.
"Miss what?"
"Before all this."
Zarno didn't answer immediately.
Then she said, "No one really wants to go back. They want to go sideways—to a version of the past where things were better than they were."
He watched the flame flicker.
"You didn't have anything worth going back to?" he asked.
"I had a name that wasn't mine. A job I didn't want. A bed that didn't feel safe."
Ren nodded, slowly. "Same."
She looked at him. "Did you run from it?"
"I died from it."
She didn't blink. Just returned to stitching.
Elsewhere – Serel Vann
The sky over Daigen Hollow was dark now, but the fires still hadn't gone out.
Serel Vann stood near the well, boots wet with ash and ink. The village had resisted more than expected. Not with weapons—just memory. People whispered about the boy. The girl with the odd eyes. The pen that never scratched wrong.
She burned the boarding house. Then the old widow's shed. The shrine. The path.
Not to punish.
To erase.
Anomalies like Ren bled influence. If left alone, they rewrote what people thought was possible.
She crushed a bone fragment beneath her heel and left the village without looking back. The trail had bent northeast. The ink trace was weaker now, stretched thin. But she could still feel it.
She had studied people like him before. Sometimes, they grew violent. Other times, pitiful. But the dangerous ones—like this one—started trying to fix things.
She quickened her pace.
Back at Camp – Night
Ren couldn't sleep.
The fire was low. Zarno's breath was slow and even, curled against her satchel. He watched the embers shift and fade, then slowly reached for the pen in his pocket.
It twitched.
He opened the book and placed the tip to the page.
It began to write.
"The mining town is not empty."
"Names were carved off the entrance post."
"One still bleeds."
Ren stared.
It had never used words like bleeds before.
He closed the book.
Outside, something stirred.
Not footsteps.
Not movement.
Just presence—like a shift in pressure. A knowing.
He didn't wake Zarno.
He waited.
Then, slowly, the sensation passed.
He fell asleep with the pen clutched tight in his hand.