Elias stepped out of the cave expecting silence.
The air outside was warm, drier than he remembered from before. The sun was already climbing and threw sharp light across the landscape, bleaching everything pale. It wasn't like the ceiling lamps of the undercity—those buzzing, distorted fixtures that stuttered and flickered. This was steady. Brutal. Unblinking.
It painted the broken ground in long shadows. Every shard of rock looked like a blade. Every dip in the sand cast darkness like a trap. He took one step forward, and something cracked beneath his boot.
Bones.
Thin ones, desiccated and light. Not human—he told himself that quickly—but the detail did nothing to soothe him.
He brought his hand up to shield his eyes from the sky. It was too open. Too wide. He hated it immediately. There was nowhere to look that didn't feel exposed. Every direction ran on forever, barren and violent in its stillness.
He swallowed.
I hate this.
Inside the undercity, ceilings existed. Walls existed. A shape to the world existed. Even when everything was suffocating, at least you knew where the suffocation came from. It came from above. It came from orders. It came from people with faces and ranks.
But here… the whole world could see you. Judge you. Crush you with its indifference.
A sound tore through the still morning air—sharp and distant, like a scream strangled in the wind.
Elias froze.
His heart didn't race. It just… stopped for a second.
He lifted his eyes toward the direction of the sound.
The sky stared back.
He heard it again. Louder now. Not a voice, not words—just raw, animal panic. Something dying or something wanting to make others die.
He backed a step instinctively, boots sliding on loose grit.
A single black dot hung in the blue. It wasn't there before. It pulsed, moving, drifting downward at first like a failing star.
Elias squinted.
It grew.
Not falling. Descending.
His throat tightened. He didn't know whether to run inside or sprint in any direction that wasn't directly beneath that thing.
He took another step back.
His mind flickered with the dream—a younger version of himself dragging him down, voice in the dark reminding him he was small. Useless. Dependent.
Move, something in him said.
But he just stood there, breathing too fast, eyes glued to the black shape swelling in the sky like a bruise.
The screams came with it now—a horrific chorus layered over wind and motion. Something massive cutting through atmosphere, shredding the air with every wingbeat or whatever those limbs were.
He stumbled until the heel of his foot hit rock.
Please… not an Omega.
They had only seen Omegas in the wasteland. The scavenging shapes at night. The shadowy birdlike silhouettes circling ruins. The soldiers Reina had spoken of—the monsters that brought the Novas to ruin.
What if this was one?
What if this was the moment he woke up just to die?
He lifted an arm as if it would protect him.
The shadow grew wings.
No.
Not wings.
Something like thick fur.
Brown.
Huge.
A shape that didn't match Omega silhouettes at all.
It tore downward like a falling meteor and the wind punched his ears. Sand roared around him. Elias flinched and ducked, throwing himself sideways. Heat from friction washed over him—like standing beside a furnace mid-breath.
The creature slammed into the ground thirty meters away, kicking up dust in a vicious circle. The force rattled the earth under his palms.
He coughed.
He blinked through the haze.
Its body slowly came into focus.
Brown fur. Thick, layered, rippling like armor. Broad shoulders. Heavy trunk limbs. A flat tail the size of a steel door slapped the ground behind it.
And the ears—huge, triangular, like sails on the sides of its head, constantly flicking in the wind.
It was large enough that a house could have rested on its back, long enough that it could straddle the roadways of Orion's undercity tunnels.
Elias staggered to his feet.
The creature huffed—steam-like air spilling from nostrils the size of barrels. It wasn't the shriek he heard earlier. That must've been something else. The screams weren't from it—they came from the wind the creature carved as it flew.
He took one step forward, half in awe, half terrified.
A voice cut through the distance like a lifeline.
"Elias!"
He blinked. He knew that shout.
Luke.
"ELIAS!"
The voice was stronger this time. It came from the creature's back.
Elias squinted—the sun was a knife—but he could see movement.
A figure swung down first, sliding off the creature's flank with practiced ease. Thick boots hit the sand.
Luke.
He looked exhausted. Dust in his hair. A bruise on his jaw. But alive.
Elias sucked in a breath.
Then another person slid down—smaller, arms flailing as they landed and almost stumbled into Luke.
Silo.
He looked shaken, but his hands were moving, gesturing wildly as if trying to argue about something. Elias could already hear his tone, even without words—panicked, complaining, whining about how they were nearly eaten or thrown off or who knows what.
Reina then descended with precise strength, barely making a sound when boots hit the ground.
Her expression was unreadable—focused, cold, alert. Sunlight caught the edge of her cheek and highlighted the dust streaks and sweat marks across her neck. She carried herself like a soldier who'd stepped straight out of a training chamber—direct and economical. The wildness of the wasteland clung to her, but she didn't look afraid of it.
And then the last figure lowered himself down from the creature's back.
Slowly.
Painfully slowly.
The old man.
He gripped the beast's fur like he'd done it a thousand times, slipping down without effort. His boots barely disturbed the earth.
Elias stared at him.
The old man didn't look triumphant. He didn't look pleased. He just turned his head, glanced at Elias once, and exhaled like he was disappointed they hadn't already figured something out.
Elias tried to speak. Nothing came out.
Luke jogged forward—stumbling halfway, still winded.
"Elias—hey—hey, are you awake? Are you all right? You were out for—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Because Elias wasn't answering.
Elias couldn't answer.
His mind was stuck on something else.
He whispered without meaning to:
"I hate the sky."
Luke blinked. "…What?"
Elias pressed a palm against his forehead.
Reina shoved Silo's hand down and muttered, "We didn't almost die so you could whine about clouds."
Elias turned toward them slowly. "You were on… that?"
He pointed at the creature.
Silo puffed up his chest. "I rode it first."
"You screamed and tried to throw yourself off its spine," Reina corrected flatly.
Elias swallowed, then forced the question out: "…What is it?"
All three of them turned their heads toward the old man.
He was standing beside the creature, patting its flank like someone calming a restless mule.
"It's called a Dropbear," the old man said. His tone was so casual it sounded like he'd said the same line a thousand times. "Or at least that's what stupid humans started calling them when they lost the original name."
He glanced at Elias.
"It flies, if you hadn't noticed."
Elias stared at the huge ears. "With… those?"
"Yes," the old man said dryly. "With those. Not everything needs wings to go where it wants."
The Dropbear snorted and shook itself, the fur rippling like a tide. Elias almost flinched again.
The old man didn't miss it.
"You'll want to get used to heights sooner than later," he said. "Out here, things that crawl get eaten first."
Elias' throat tightened again.
He didn't ask eaten by what.
Because he already knew.
Silo stepped closer to Elias and whispered—too loud to be subtle—
"Want to go again?"
Reina elbowed him. "Seriously."
"You're scared of the sky and the wind," Silo muttered, "maybe the sun too? What's next—sand?"
"I don't trust sand either!"
Elias almost laughed.
Almost.
He looked back at the old man.
"…Why did you help us?"
The old man finally turned to face him fully.
His eyes weren't warm. They weren't kind. They weren't angry.
They were tired.
"Because," he said, "you are unbelievably unprepared, and the wasteland does not tolerate idiots."
He gestured at the Dropbear.
"And you were about to be trampled."
Elias opened his mouth to speak again but the old man raised a hand.
"Questions later. You look like a corpse and he—" he jabbed a thumb at the Dropbear "—needs water."
He started walking past Elias, toward the cave entrance.
Luke clapped Elias' shoulder once. "Welcome back."
Silo trudged behind them, muttering about being eaten alive.
Reina paused just long enough to look Elias in the eyes.
"You didn't die," she said simply. "Good. Keep it that way."
Then she followed.
Elias stood alone for a moment—just long enough to look back up at the hateful sky.