Orin and Liora had been wandering for days through the endless expanse of the glowing wilderness. The ground beneath their feet pulsed with an energy they couldn’t understand, and the sky above was an eternal twilight, filled with constellations that shifted every time they glanced up. This world didn’t obey the rules they once knew—it was as if the very fabric of reality was broken into pieces.
It all started with a faint hum they couldn’t place. At first, they thought it was the wind, but the sound grew stronger the further they walked. Then, as they passed through a shimmering forest, the ground beneath them cracked open. What they saw below was a fragmented path—pieces of a road suspended in mid-air, glowing with an energy that made their hearts race. The path led deeper into the unknown, disappearing into a void of darkness.
. . .
Liora stared down at the path, her eyes wide. “Do you feel that?”
Orin nodded. He felt it too—a pull, like gravity, drawing them toward the path. But something about it felt wrong, like it wasn’t meant for them. Yet the hum in the air became more insistent, almost like it was calling them, guiding them toward the fractured path.
“We have to follow it,” Orin said, though he wasn’t sure why. It was as if his feet were already moving, taking steps before his mind could catch up.
The path itself was unstable. Each fragment hovered in the air, disconnected from the others, yet somehow creating a bridge across the void. As they stepped onto the first piece, the fragment trembled beneath their weight but held firm. They moved carefully, stepping from fragment to fragment, the humming growing louder with every step.
. . .
Suddenly, a flash of light erupted from below, and they found themselves surrounded by shadows—faint, ghostly figures that seemed to appear and disappear in the air around them. Orin and Liora froze. These weren’t people; they were fragments of memories, pieces of lost moments from a world they didn’t understand.
“They’re showing us something,” Liora whispered, watching as the figures moved silently, reenacting scenes from a forgotten time.
The figures weren’t just images—they were connected to the path. Each step they took brought more of the memories to life, as if the path itself was a thread weaving through time. But what lay at the end? Orin wasn’t sure, but they couldn’t turn back now. Something was waiting for them, something that had been broken for centuries.
The final fragment of the path hovered at the edge of the void. As Orin reached it, a figure appeared—a tall, shadowy being that seemed to command the memories around them. The hum became deafening, and the air thickened with energy.
“This is where it ends,” the being said, its voice a soft whisper in their minds. “But it’s also where it begins.”
. . .
Orin and Liora stared into the void beyond, realizing that this path wasn’t just a road. It was the key to everything—a fractured piece of a larger world they were only beginning to understand. But before they could step into the final fragment, the shadows closed in, and the void swallowed them whole.
