The passage sloped upward.
Anakin hadn't noticed it at first, too focused on putting distance between himself and the chamber of corpses, but after what felt like an hour of walking through the dark with nothing but stone walls and the echo of his own breathing for company, the incline became impossible to ignore. His legs burned with each step, and the air—which had been stale and thick with the smell of blood —was slowly changing.
Fresher. Colder. Moving.
He could feel wind.
The passage widened as he climbed, rough stone giving way to something that might've been stairs once, before time and erosion had worn them into a treacherous slope of broken rock. Anakin used his memory to lodge his hands into the walls, the floor was loose and could very well give out under his weight, he carefully treaded the slope, one step at a time. It really was strange how he knew all this, his memory was a little fuzzy but maybe he had climbed a mountain before.
A crack of pale light tore through the black, growing wider with each step he took.
Anakin climbed faster, ignoring the way his wounded arm screamed in protest and his muscles threatened to give out entirely. The light grew brighter, and the wind stronger, hen suddenly he was pushing through a narrow gap in the stone and stumbling out onto the surface.
He stopped.
Just stopped, and stared.
A vast labyrinth of crimson coral, a gray sky, endless red. The Forgotten Shore stretched out before him in all its ruined glory, and Anakin felt something in his chest tighten. Not quite dread, not quite awe, but something between the two that made it hard to breathe for a moment.
"Fuck," he said quietly, the word swallowed by the wind. "I really am here."
There was no denying it now. No pretending this was some other world or a fever dream his dying brain had conjured. This was the Forgotten Shore, exactly as described in the novel, and he was standing right in the middle of it.
Anakin felt his stomach sink as he took it all in. The crimson coral stretched in every direction, forming twisting passages and towering walls that created a maze with no clear path. Some formations rose dozens of feet high, sharp and jagged like frozen flames. Others created low valleys where shadows already pooled thick , the massive skeletal remains of creatures that defied comprehension—ribs the size of buildings, skulls with eye sockets large enough to walk through, vertebrae stacked like monuments to ancient death.
This was the Forgotten Shore. No denying it now.
"Fuck," Anakin said quietly, sitting down on a chunk of coral that had broken off from a nearby wall. His legs gave out, and the gauntlets scraped against the rough surface as he braced himself. For a moment he just sat there, trying to organize his thoughts into something resembling a plan.
Alright. What did he know?
The Forgotten Shore was the remains of an ancient kingdom, drowned by the dark sea and populated by nightmare creatures that got significantly more dangerous at night. The tide came in when the sun set, bringing the really nasty things with it—creatures that made Stone Hounds look like puppies. Anyone caught on the ground after dark was dead. The coral labyrinth would flood, and anything in the passages would be swept away or devoured.
The only safe place was high ground. Up on the bone structures or the taller coral formations, above the tide line, where you could wait out the night and pray nothing with wings or climbing ability decided you looked like dinner. And even that wasn't guaranteed safety.
The Dark City was somewhere to the north—far to the north, maybe months of travel through this nightmare maze. That's where all the survivors eventually gathered because it was the only place with stable ground and fortifications strong enough to keep the worst creatures at bay. The path there was dangerous, but staying anywhere else was suicide.
In the novel, Sunny had spawned near the headless statue and met Nephis and Cassie there. Then they'd traveled north together, fighting through nightmare creatures and much worse until they reached the Dark City and all the political nightmares that came with it.
The headless statue. Anakin tried to remember the description from the novel. It was supposed to be somewhere in the labyrinth, a massive stone statue with no head, ancient and weathered. A landmark. If he could find it, he'd at least know where he was in relation to the broader geography.
But looking around at the endless crimson maze, finding anything specific seemed impossible. Every direction looked the same—twisted coral passages, bone structures jutting up like grave markers, and shadows growing longer by the minute.
North. He needed to go north eventually. But where the hell was north?
Anakin stood and turned slowly, scanning the horizon. The coral labyrinth extended as far as he could see in every direction, a sea of red broken only by the pale bone structures. No sign of the Dark City—it was too far away, hidden beyond the curve of the shore or behind the taller coral formations. No sign of the Crimson Spire either. He was on his own for navigation.
Then he remembered something from the novel. A detail about the sun and the spire. The sun rose from behind the Crimson Spire in the Dark City. Which meant the spire was to the east. Which meant—
Anakin looked up at the dying sun, tracking its descent toward the western horizon. If the sun set in the west, and the spire was to the east, then in the morning when the sun rose, he just needed to walk with it on his right to head north. Simple enough.
Assuming he survived until morning.
His eyes snapped back to the sun, and dread coiled in his gut. It was already touching the horizon, a dim red circle bleeding into the gray sky. Maybe half an hour until full dark. Maybe less.
"Shit," he muttered.
He needed to find high ground, and he needed to find it now. His eyes scanned the nearby area, looking for anything tall and stable enough to climb. The bone structures were the obvious choice—massive ribs or leg bones jutting up from the coral, high enough to be above the tide. But they were also smooth and difficult to climb, especially with an injured arm.
There—maybe three hundred yards away through the coral passages—what looked like a massive skull partially buried in the formations. It had height and, more importantly, the eye sockets would provide shelter from the wind and maybe conceal him from anything flying overhead.
Anakin started moving, his tired legs protesting every step. He had to navigate through the narrow coral passages, the sharp formations pressing close on both sides. The coral cut at his exposed skin as he squeezed through tight spaces, and more than once he had to backtrack when a passage ended in a dead end or a drop he couldn't safely navigate.
The wound on his arm throbbed with each movement, and he could feel dried blood cracking on his skin. Add that to the list of problems, right after "don't die tonight"
Something skittered in the coral to his left—a sharp clicking sound that made him freeze. Anakin turned slowly, and caught a glimpse of something pale and segmented disappearing into a crack in the formation.
A Carapace Scavenger? Had to be. The crab-like creatures that populated the shore, usually scavenging corpses but perfectly happy to create their own meals if the opportunity presented itself. The novel had described them as being everywhere, patient predators that waited for aspirants to make mistakes.
Great. One more thing to worry about.
Anakin kept moving, faster now, eyes scanning both the path ahead and the coral walls around him for more movement. The clicking sound followed him, staying just out of sight, and he could swear he felt eyes watching from the shadows.
The sun dipped lower, and the shadows in the coral passages deepened
Anakin was halfway to the skull when he noticed something that made him stop in his tracks.
Now that he was out in actual light, he could see himself properly for the first time since waking up. His clothes were torn and bloody from the fights, sure, but that wasn't the problem.
The problem was that "clothes" was a generous term for what he was wearing.
Or rather, what he wasn't wearing.
He looked down at himself in growing horror. Tattered remains of what might've been a shirt hung from his shoulders in strips. His pants were barely holding together, more holes than fabric at this point. And his boots—he didn't even have boots. He was barefoot on the crimson shore, covered in blood and grime, essentially naked except for stone gauntlets and some strategic shreds of cloth.
"You have got to be kidding me," Anakin said to the uncaring sky. "I'm fighting nightmare monsters with my ass hanging out?"
What was he, a cave man? He shook his head, even they had hides.
A laugh bubbled up from his chest, slightly unhinged Because of course. Of course the universe would add this indignity on top of everything else. The clicking sound grew louder, closer, and Anakin's laughter cut off. Naked or not, he needed shelter. Now.
He started running toward the skull structure, the sun finally touched the horizon and the tide began to rise.