We ran.
Branches clawed at our arms. Red grass whipped at our legs. The strange trees — bark like stone, leaves like paper — blurred past.
No one spoke. There was nothing to say.
We had to get back to camp.
Then came the sound — a deep, guttural roar, loud enough to make my bones tremble.
It was here.
Moments later, a thud like a mountain falling shook the ground beneath our feet. Then… silence. No birds. No wind. Just the rush of blood in my ears.
A flash of yellow light lit the sky ahead, spilling between branches like the sun exploding through the leaves.
Then came the smoke.
Thick, black plumes rising over the treetops.
"No…" I breathed, picking up speed. My legs burned. My lungs screamed. But I didn't stop.
We burst through the tree line — and the world changed.
The camp was gone.
Where once there had been scattered lean-tos, beds of pine needles, woven grass ropes holding up bent branches… now there was only ash.
And in the center of it all… the dragon.
I had seen it in the distance — but never like this.
Its wings were tucked tightly to its sides, glowing embers trailing off its scales like falling stars. Its body was long and coiled, like a serpent carved from molten metal. Orange eyes scanned the ruin, slow and unblinking. Each breath it took sent smoke curling into the sky. The grass beneath it was blackened, smoldering. Its claws left craters in the earth.
It didn't roar.
It didn't strike again.
It just watched.
Then its gaze landed on me.
The world stopped.
Its eyes weren't just looking. They were seeing. Like it was peering into me — past the clothes, the skin, the fear. Straight into the part of me that burned to create.
My legs locked in place. My hand went to the chisel on my belt.
And then, without a sound, the dragon stretched its wings wide and launched into the sky. It soared toward the far-off mountain range, vanishing behind the clouds like a ghost returning to its lair.
When it was gone, silence returned — heavy and unnatural.
I stepped forward into the clearing around the Thing.
The Obelisk still stood tall. Still humming with energy. But it had changed.
Where once it pulled, now it pushed. My inner compass — the strange feeling that had guided us since we awoke here — had shifted. It now pointed away, toward the same direction the dragon had flown.
But we couldn't follow it. Not yet.
Not after this.
I looked around.
Where our community had stood, there was now only destruction.
The grass was scorched. The stick shelters were reduced to blackened frames or piles of charcoal. The long pine needles we'd used for bedding were gone — consumed in flame. Not even smoke rose from them anymore. Just heat. Just emptiness.
I staggered toward what had been my home — a modest lean-to I'd made from forked branches and green twine.
Gone.
In the gray dust, I saw something buried beneath a mound of ash.
I reached down.
A blackened stick.
The handle.
My first creation.
The one I'd chiseled with my bare hands and a borrowed branch for a hammer. It had meant something. It had been mine.
I turned it over once — and it crumbled to dust in my palm.
I knelt there in the ruin, ashes swirling around me like snow.
"What's the point?" I whispered. "Why create anything if it can all be taken away?"
Marra and Lyra caught up to me moments later.
The three of us stood in silence, staring at the destruction.
"This doesn't make sense," Marra muttered, her voice breaking. "Why would it attack? We didn't do anything…"
I didn't have an answer.
We split up, checking the ruins. Some of the outer campsites — the ones made by people who had left earlier in search of food or resources — were untouched. And after a while, people began returning from the forest in small, shaken groups. Others might still be alive, we thought. But the ones who had stayed?
Gone.
Only a few burnt bodies remained.
We buried what we could.
There were no proper graves. No tools. Just hands, sticks, and time. I carved a marker using the last half-burnt branch I could find — pressing my chisel gently, slowly, like I was afraid it too might vanish.
A hammer, simple and rough.
Then a circle, incomplete.
I stood the marker upright in the ground and whispered, "I'll remember."
Some gathered. Others prayed. No one spoke.
Lyra stood off to the side, unmoving, her eyes blank. Like if she blinked, she'd wake up, and all of this would disappear.
I walked to her.
"We'll rebuild," I said. My voice barely rose above the wind. "Not here. Somewhere new. But we will."
She didn't answer.
But she didn't walk away either.
That was enough for now.
Kairo sat alone near the marker he'd carved — the soil still loose, the ashes still warm. Behind him, the faint murmurs of survivors began to stir, voices laced with pain and confusion. No fire. No shelter. No food. Just each other… and what remained.
He held the chisel in both hands.
It was still intact. Still sharp.
Still his.
Gently, he pressed its tip into the earth beside him and began to carve — not into wood this time, but into the dirt. Rough lines. Circles. Walls. Arrows.
A plan.
He didn't know what it would become — only that it had to begin now. Not for him. For all of them.
A shadow crossed over him. Lyra.
She knelt beside him, watching in silence. Then Marra. Then others.
"What are you drawing?" someone asked quietly.
Kairo didn't look up.
"A home," he said.
"One that won't burn so easily."
The chisel paused in his hand. His eyes lifted to the horizon — to where the dragon had flown.
His voice was calm, but steady.
"There's more out there. And I'm going to build something that can survive it."
And as the ashes settled and the sky dimmed, the survivors gathered not to mourn — but to watch the first marks of something new.