Morning came without sunlight.
Sora stirred before the sky shifted. In Arcanis, time did not pass with clarity. There was no true dawn, no comforting shift from night to day. The sky simply changed colour—ashen purple into pale grey, then a muted golden hue that passed for daylight. It was unnatural, like everything here.
The fire had died to embers.
Shiro slept fitfully beside him, her breath shallow but steady. Her skin had cooled somewhat, but she murmured fragments of thoughts—some in languages he didn't recognize. Words laced with panic. Words that scraped against the inside of his chest like broken glass.
He stood, stretched his sore limbs, and took stock.
No food. No clean water. No allies.
And they had no idea how far they were from the edge of the forest, let alone a settlement.
His eyes drifted toward the western ridge. Last night, he'd seen a flicker of lights there—unnatural, pulsing green and blue, not fire. Not stars.
Magic.
It could be a trap. Or worse—mages.
But he had no choice.
He scribbled a message on a piece of bark in case Shiro woke and he hadn't returned yet, and with his makeshift wooden staff in hand, set off west.
The forest thickened quickly. The deeper he walked, the less the trees seemed like trees and more like sentient growths—roots pulsing faintly, leaves reacting to his breath. At times, he felt the forest itself was watching. Judging.
About an hour in, he found what he was looking for: a pond, deep and glassy.
He tested the water. It was cold, faintly metallic—but clear. More importantly, it was still.
He knelt and drank.
The taste was sharp, biting at his throat like raw magic. Not ideal. But tolerable.
He filled the hollow of a gourd-like plant and made his way back.
That was when the voices started.
Faint at first. Whispers. Mocking.
Not from behind. Not ahead.
Inside.
He froze.
The curse?
No. Something else. Something near.
He turned slowly—and saw the shimmer.
A shape, half-invisible, crouched behind a tree. Its form blurred like heat distortion, limbs too long, too jointed.
He stepped back—and it moved.
Not toward him. Around him.
He was being hunted.
Sora gripped his staff and ran.
Branches lashed at him. The forest thickened deliberately, as if attempting to entangle him. The shimmer darted through the brush, impossibly fast. Not touching the ground. Laughing.
He stumbled into a clearing—and found himself standing before a stone altar.
Ancient. Cracked. Runes glowing faintly across its face.
The shimmer stopped.
The forest fell silent.
He turned to look—and it was gone.
The predator had vanished. No sound. No trace.
And in its place… something else. A sensation.
A pressure in the air, centred on the altar. Not malevolent. Not kind. Merely there. Observing. Waiting.
He stepped forward.
The runes pulsed once.
Then faded.
He waited. Nothing happened.
But something had changed.
He could feel it. Not magic. Not quite. But... a shift.
A toll, perhaps. Or a warning.
When he returned to the makeshift camp, Shiro was sitting upright, blinking slowly.
"I saw something,"
She said before he could speak.
"In my dreams. But I don't think they were dreams."
He offered her the water. She drank, and then looked at him with tired eyes.
"There's something wrong with this place."
"I know."
"And we're not the only ones cursed."
He nodded, though her words unsettled him.
"We'll keep moving,"
He said.
"West. Toward the lights."
She looked past him, toward the woods.
"There are things watching. Waiting. This world... it has rules."
"Then we'll learn them."
She looked at him sharply.
"That's the price, isn't it?"
"For what?"
"For becoming part of this world."
Sora didn't answer.
Because deep down, he feared she was right.