The ash fell like grey snow, coating the black rocks of the trench. It didn't melt. It just accumulated, burying the dead in a layer of silence.
Ethan sat on a crate of spent ammunition, cleaning his fingernails with a dagger. Across from him, Jude was slumped against the muddy wall. His armor was shattered, and the dark stain spreading across his stomach was no longer bleeding. It had stopped. That was usually the sign.
"It's cold," Jude whispered. His teeth chattered, a sound like dry dice rattling in a cup. "God... why is this planet always so cold?"
Ethan didn't look up. "Your body is shutting down, kid. The cold is internal."
"No," Jude insisted, his voice weak but frantic. He turned his head, his eyes searching the churning, bruised-purple sky. "It's this place. There's no fire in the sky here. Only storms."
He looked at Ethan. They were countrymen in a graveyard of stars.
"Do you remember... June?" Jude asked. His eyes were losing focus, drifting. "The heat? The way the asphalt used to smell when it baked?"
Ethan paused. A memory flickered in his mind—a shimmering road, the buzz of cicadas, sweat sticking his shirt to his back. It was faint, eroded by the Curse, but it was there.
"I remember," Ethan said softly.
Jude reached out a trembling hand. His fingers were blue. "I can't feel it anymore. The cold... it's eating the memory. I don't want to die in the cold, Ethan. I don't want this purple sky to be the last thing I see."
He grabbed Ethan's wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong, fueled by the terror of the end.
"Tell me," Jude begged, tears cutting through the grime on his face. "Remind me. What does it feel like? The sun. The real one. Not this lightning. The warmth."
Ethan looked at the dying man. He saw the desperation. He saw the fear of the void.
Slowly, Ethan sheathed his dagger. He leaned forward, blocking the view of the alien horizon with his own shoulders.
"It feels heavy," Ethan lied—or maybe he was telling the truth. He wasn't sure anymore. "It feels like a weight settling on your skin. It presses down on your eyelids, turning everything red and gold."
Jude stopped shivering for a second, listening.
"It makes the air taste like dry grass," Ethan continued, his voice low and steady. "It warms the bones. You don't shiver in June, Jude. You just breathe, and the air fills you up with light. It's quiet. It's safe."
Jude let out a long, shuddering sigh. The tension in his jaw unspooled. The terror in his eyes smoothed out into something distant and peaceful.
"Safe," Jude whispered. "Yeah. I can... I can feel it."
He smiled. It was a ghost of a smile, directed at a summer that was light-years away.
"I'm going back there," Jude murmured. "I think I'll just... take a nap in the sun."
His grip on Ethan's wrist loosened. His hand slid off, falling into the grey ash with a soft thud. His chest hitched once, then settled into stillness.
The wind howled over the trench, carrying the screams of the demons patrolling the perimeter, but Jude didn't hear them. He was gone.
Ethan sat there for a long time. He looked at the dead man's face. It was peaceful. The fear was gone.
"You lucky bastard," Ethan whispered to the corpse.
He felt the familiar, hateful surge of his Curse—his own wounds knitting together, his heart beating with a rhythm that refused to stop.
"You get to go home," Ethan said, standing up and turning his collar against the freezing wind. "You get the warmth. I just get the morning."
He picked up his sword and walked out of the trench, leaving the lucky one behind in the dark.