As the sound of footsteps multiplied, Erikos didn't just feel fear…
He felt something deeper—
as if time itself was beginning to turn backward, and whatever had been left behind… had come looking for them.
Isolde whispered, her eyes fixed on the stairway they had descended:
"We have to seal it… if it's not already too late."
But the entrance was no longer as they'd left it.
The stone doorway had merged with the wall—seamless, solid.
No hinges.
No handle.
No way out.
The air turned dense.
Breath became smoke.
A cold unlike any natural chill spread from the stone beneath their feet—a cold that didn't just touch the skin, but the soul.
Then, the lantern died.
But this wasn't simple darkness.
It was the absence of existence.
No light.
No time.
No self.
From the heart of that nothingness, a sound emerged—
Not a whisper, but a pressure, like a thought inserted directly into the skull.
"Your name is written in the sand, Erikos.
And all whose names are written… must be reshaped."
He screamed—
But heard no sound.
He turned wildly, searching for Isolde—
but saw only a shadow moving across the stone…
a woman sinking into the wall,
as if the wall were water,
and she was being swallowed.
---
When the light returned—dim and broken—he was no longer in the same room.
No trace of the chamber.
No trace of the black sand.
No Isolde.
But the floor beneath him was unchanged—
the same Oldrak runes burned into the stone, still pulsing with unseen intent.
He moved forward, slow and unsure.
The walls around him were etched with faded murals, depicting a history that had no record.
Eyes painted in ancient pigments followed his every step.
At the end of the corridor stood a wooden door—old, cracked, slightly open.
He pushed it.
And found himself… in his childhood bedroom.
But not as he remembered it.
Everything was coated in a thin film of black dust.
The framed photos from his youth still hung on the walls—
but in every single one, he stood next to a faceless figure.
In the far corner…
Isolde sat.
She didn't turn.
She was muttering something… over and over.
Words not meant to be heard.
He stepped closer.
> "Isolde?"
She lifted her head.
But her face wasn't there.
Her face was a mirror.
And in that mirror, Erikos didn't see himself.
He saw Ramata—
rising from beneath the sand.