Lucan blinked, eyes stinging as he adjusted to the gray, swirling sky overhead. The world around him shimmered with an strangeness that rooted him in place despite the pain in his body. Every breath he took felt like inhaling through syrup—thick, heavy, and foreign. The air was dense, tinged with something sweet and metallic. He sat up slowly, his fingers still trembling from the energy that had coiled inside him only moments before. A faint buzzing sensation danced under his skin.
Beside him, Lyra sat motionless for a moment, her expression caught somewhere between awe and disbelief. She was scanning the horizon with wide, unblinking eyes. Then her gaze snapped to Lucan's face.
"Your eyes..." she whispered.
Lucan furrowed his brow, confused. He reached up, brushing a hand over his eyelids, and felt a strange warmth beneath his skin. He blinked again, trying to focus on Lyra's face, and caught a faint, eerie glow radiating from his irises—a soft, grayish silver light that shimmered like moonlight trapped beneath glass.
Lyra hesitated, then reached out to gently tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear. "Your hair... some strands—silver." Her fingers brushed through the unfamiliar coolness and smoothness of a few shimmering hairs.
He ran his hand through his hair, feeling the subtle difference. His body felt lighter, leaner, taller—as if some invisible thread had pulled at his bones. Then he noticed a faint, silvery mist curling upward from his skin, ethereal smoke drifting off him like the shedding of old impurities.
Lyra's eyes widened. "And your skin... it's smoother, almost polished."
Lucan swallowed hard, the buzzing under his skin now a steady pulse. The changes were undeniable—he was no longer quite the same.
He forced himself to his feet, swaying slightly as his boots met the cracked obsidian-black ground. The heaviness in his limbs felt off—like the gravity here was different, pulling in unfamiliar ways. He glanced down and frowned. Thin veins of glowing blue light ran through the earth like a circulatory system, pulsing with a slow, deliberate rhythm—as if the very land was alive.
"Where are we?" he whispered.
Lyra didn't answer immediately. Instead, she stepped closer, eyes still fixed on the surreal horizon. In the far distance, jagged mountains loomed like ancient fangs, their peaks sharp and uneven, carved from some blackened stone that absorbed the faint light rather than reflecting it. The mountains rose abruptly from the cracked ground, sharp ridges cutting jagged silhouettes against the swirling, ash-gray sky. Each peak seemed to pierce the heavy clouds, slicing the air with cruel precision, casting long, thin shadows that twisted like dark fingers reaching for the strange heavens above.
Massive crystalline structures extended from the jagged mountain peaks, embedded deep in the stone as if grown by the world itself. These huge, transparent shards refracted the dim light into shifting hues—violets fading into blues and deep greens—each pulsing faintly, alive with a hidden rhythm beneath the rock.
Above the mountains, similar crystals hovered, nearly half their size. They floated without chains or supports, suspended by thin, glowing strands of light. These ethereal veins snaked up from the ground like luminous roots, weaving through the rocky terrain before disappearing into the heart of each crystal. They pulsed slowly and steadily, like the heartbeat of the world, sending ripples of soft light that bathed the rocks and dust in a ghostly glow.
She knelt suddenly, brushing something off the cracked surface.
"The locket." she murmured.
Lucan looked close. There it was, half-buried in a patch of dustless ash, faintly glowing from the residual energy that had torn them through space and time.
Lyra picked it up, staring at it for a long second.
"Who knows..." she said quietly, slipping it into her satchel. "It might still be useful."
Lucan studied her face. Her expression had softened, but a furrow had formed between her brows. She was thinking about something.
They started walking slowly, their steps crunching softly on the cracked ground. The obsidian beneath their feet caught the light now and then, shimmering faintly. In the quiet, Lucan thought he could almost hear a distant pulse coming from the earth—but shook it off as his imagination.
The sparse trees across the plain stood like ancient statues—tall, slender, and skeletal, their trunks smooth and metallic, catching the dim twilight and fracturing it into silver shards. The air around them shimmered, warped by their presence.
Their branches curled into delicate spirals, tipped with translucent, glass-like leaves that flickered faintly with subtle colors. Fragile yet sharp, they seemed ready to shatter with the slightest touch.
Curious, Lucan reached out and touched a leaf. It was cool—almost icy—and unnaturally smooth beneath his fingers. When he plucked it, the leaf didn't snap—instead, it melted into a thick, sticky liquid that oozed between his fingers like warm resin. The goo left a faint shimmering glow and gave off a sweet, earthy scent—like honey after rain.
"It's like everything here is pretending to be familiar," he muttered, wiping his hand on his torn pants. "Just like me—looking like a beggar in a sci-fi movie."
Lyra smiled faintly. "That's how I feel too."
They pressed onward, their footsteps crunching softly against the fractured, obsidian-like ground as they passed beneath a jagged outcrop of crystalline spires. These spires hovered a few hundred feet above the surface, suspended in the air with an eerie grace, each one shimmering with faint, iridescent hues of violet and teal. The light they emitted was subtle but otherworldly, casting delicate, shifting patterns onto the ground below—like stained glass caught in a soft breeze.
Lucan's eyes narrowed as one particular small shard slowly detached itself from the cluster, drifting downward with a deliberate, almost curious slowness. It was no larger than his hand, its edges sharp and angular, facets catching the ambient glow like a jewel crafted by some ancient artisan. The shard hovered silently, motionless for a brief moment, as if assessing them.
Then, almost imperceptibly at first, it began to rotate. The spin was slow and deliberate, pulsing faintly with the same ethereal blue light that coursed through the veins of the earth beneath their feet. The gentle glow deepened, becoming more intense, as the shard's rotation picked up speed. It spun faster and faster, the light inside it brightening and sharpening with each revolution.
Suddenly, the shard's direction shifted. It swung sharply toward Lyra, its movement precise and unnervingly purposeful. The spinning intensified—whirling faster, sharper, a blur of blue light against the dim landscape. The air around them seemed to vibrate in response. A low hum filled the space, growing louder and more piercing by the second, until a high-pitched vibration set Lucan's teeth on edge, making them ache with the relentless intensity.
"Lyra—" Lucan's voice caught, urgent and raw.
Before he could finish, the shard shot forward like a bullet released from a gun, a streak of blinding blue slicing through the air with terrifying speed, aimed straight at Lyra's chest.
Without thinking, Lucan lunged. His body moved on instinct alone—stepping between Lyra and the shard, arms raised defensively, though what he intended to do, he didn't know. It was a desperate act born from sheer reflex.
The shard closed in rapidly, its energy crackling visibly as it neared. But at the last heartbeat, just centimeters from Lucan's chest, it froze. Time seemed to slow, the shard suspended mid-air in a frozen moment of tension. The humming abruptly ceased, and the vibrant blue light within it dimmed to a faint glow, as if whatever had driven it lost interest.
Then, as if reluctantly released, the shard drifted upward again, its motion calm and indifferent. It floated back to rejoin the cluster of spires, settling silently into place as if nothing had happened.
Lyra's breath came out in a shaky whisper. "What the hell was that?"
Lucan's chest heaved with rapid breaths. He wasn't afraid—at least, not in the way he thought he should be. The adrenaline was gone, replaced by a strange buzzing sensation under his skin, like static electricity coursing through his veins. His fingers tingled, and a warm pulse throbbed deep in his core.
Whatever strange force had stirred within him during the rift, whatever cosmic energy had awakened, it lingered still—alive and potent beneath his skin.
"It's like this place is charging itself... or feeding something," he murmured.
The silence between them grew heavy again. He felt a strange instinct in his gut—like something was watching them, even though nothing stirred.
"Do you think anyone lives here?" he asked.
"I don't know. But I don't want to find out." Lyra said. She had her arms wrapped around herself now, the initial wonder giving way to cautious awareness.
As they walked further, they came across a hill made of shimmering shale. They climbed it slowly, and from the top, the landscape spread wide like a dream rendered in foreign geometry. Hills curled unnaturally. Light bent subtly around certain corners. Trees shimmered with spectral colors. There was beauty here, but also unease.
Lucan sat down, breathing deeply.
"I miss the sound of cars." he said, half-laughing. "Birds. People yelling about stupid things."
Lyra smiled faintly. "Even the awful coffee from that park."
They were quiet again, lost in the vastness.
Lucan leaned back, eyes tracing the twin suns low in the ash-gray sky, their pale flicker and dull ember casting cold, shifting shadows that seemed to breathe with the restless pulse of this strange world.
"You think we'll ever get back?" he asked quietly.
Lyra didn't answer immediately. She pulled the locket from her satchel and traced a finger over its dusty surface, wiping away the grime with a slow, thoughtful motion.
"I don't know." she said at last. "But this locket brought us here. Maybe it can lead us somewhere else—somewhere better."
Lucan's heart tightened. A flicker of fear gnawed at him—the fear of what awaited beyond, or what he might become along the way.
Yet, despite the uncertainty, they pressed forward, drawn toward the towering crystal mountains. Each step felt heavier with doubt, but also with a fragile hope—hope to find something, or someone, neither of them fully understood. The path ahead was veiled in mystery, but turning back was no longer an option. Whatever awaited beyond those shimmering peaks would change everything.
And somewhere in the silence, something was already watching.
[End of Chapter 5]