"Everyone. Look down," whispered Atlas.
His voice was not loud, yet it carried the weight of a command.
Without question, they obeyed. Heads lowered. Bodies stiffened.
The world held its breath with them.
Even the wind seemed to die.
No bird cried.
No leaf stirred.
The high grasses, golden and green under a bleeding dusk, swayed only with memory, not with breeze.
It was as if the land itself feared to move.
They waited—hearts pounding, throats tight—waiting for something unseen to strike, to fall, to end them.
But nothing came.
Only silence, vast and crushing.
"One step at a time," Atlas breathed. "No sudden noise."
Raze's voice broke the stillness, barely more than a gasp:
"What is that? And... which way do we move?"
"I am afraid even do not know," Munk whispered, fear quivering in his voice. "Atlas—what is it?"
Atlas said nothing for a heartbeat, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his sword. His eyes, steady and grim, swept down the sloping cliff.
"Down," he said. "If I signal—"
He flicked his gaze meaningfully ahead.
"—Run."
Raze and Munk swallowed hard. The motion itself felt dangerous, loud. Their mouths were dry, their tongues rough as stone.
Atlas felt a small tug at his shirt. Maya.
She clung to him, her usual spark smothered, her body trembling.
Sweat beaded on her brow, and her small fingers clenched desperately at his side.
Atlas knelt, pressing his palm gently to her head, smoothing her hair with a fleeting, fragile tenderness.
Then he pulled her close, wrapping his worn scarf around her, shielding her in a cocoon of cloth and quiet.
"Stay close," he murmured.
"Let's move."
Step by step, they descended the grassy slope.
The cliff curved above them, like the ribs of a dead beast, and the tall grass brushed against their legs like the whispers of unseen ghosts.
Each step felt too loud, each breath too sharp.
And in that silence, Atlas words kept ringing in their heads.
Atlas's voice, low and heavy with dread, crept into their ears:
"I don't know how, but that 'thing' shouldn't be here. It does not belong here, not this high up in the Null. It should not exist."
"The old tongue names it Vernagool—the Smiling Stillborn. It sees not flesh, but soul. And as the old verse warns—"
Munk and Raze whispered the grim words together, as if the very act of speaking them would shield them:
"Of the living through sight,
Of the nature through sound,
And of the dead through smell."
"Good," Atlas breathed. "Remember that. Don't look up. Don't disturb the earth. Our words may pass unnoticed if kept low, but the land itself... the land may betray us."
A long moment passed. Above, the unseen thing loomed. The sky itself seemed to lean closer, as if listening, as if the sky itself was breathing up their necks.
They did not look up. They did not breathe more than they must.
They walked, one trembling step at a time, into the deepening hush of the cliffside, as shadows lengthened and the old, forgotten fears of the world returned to life once more.
The wind returned.
No whisper now. No gentle sigh.It struck like a living thing—an unseen behemoth tearing across the open vale, clawing at cloaks and hair, dragging the dust up into whirling columns. The sky, once heavy and still, rippled under its force, clouds unraveling into thin, desperate fingers of mist.
Raze hunched low, hand raised to shield his mouth against the sudden gale. His voice barely carried through the roaring air.
"Is it gone?" he asked, his words snatched away before they fully formed.
Atlas did not answer. His gaze was fixed to the heavens.
Slowly, almost reverently, he drew his sword from its sheath. The steel made a thin, mournful cry as it slid free—no mere weapon's song, but a lament, as though it too feared what lurked unseen above. He balanced it flat across his palm, angling the blade to catch the reflection of the sky.
The image that answered was blurred, untrustworthy, as if the heavens themselves recoiled from being seen.
Raze, heart pounding like a trapped bird, tugged a dagger from his belt. Its blade was honed to a mirror's polish—a shard of stolen starlight. He turned it this way and that, searching every battered patch of cloud.
Nothing.Only the empty blue, and the sun struggling weakly to break through.
Reluctantly, they lifted their eyes skyward.Nothing waited there.
The pressure eased. Their bodies, wound tight with fear, slackened.They dared a breath.
Maya slipped from beneath Atlas's great shawl. She looked small, pale, her forehead damp with fear-sweat. Atlas knelt before her without a word, pressing the corner of his cloak against her brow, wiping away the fear that clung like morning dew.
Around them, the world stirred hesitantly back to life. The long grass, battered low, lifted trembling heads. The stones stopped moaning underfoot. Even the trees in the far distance, stunted and blackened by the valley's long silence, dared to shudder back into motion.
Maya exhaled, a small, choked laugh breaking from her lips. "My headwrap's soaked through," she muttered, a brittle humor flickering in her voice.
"Tighten it," Atlas said quietly. His eyes never left the heavens. "The wind isn't finished yet."
The others followed suit, re-tying their cloaks and scarves, muttering prayers under their breath. The air, though quieter, still tasted of metal and ash.
Maya turned away, fingers fumbling with the soaked cloth. She faced the valley, the great wide emptiness that spread before them like an ocean of broken green and grey.
Then—the wind struck again.
This time it came not as a roar, but as a shriek, a blade slicing sideways through the valley. It tore the headwrap from Maya's hands, sent it streaming into the air like a banner. Her hair, plaited and pinned, whipped wild around her face. Her braid lifted like a serpent, snapping in the gale.
She grabbed at it blindly—And then she froze.
Her body went rigid, every muscle turned to stone. Her breath left her in a shuddering gasp she could not reclaim.
There, across the valley floor, framed by the rent clouds and bleeding sunlight, was a figure.
It was neither close nor far. It was simply there, as if it had always been.A grey, featureless shape—tall, thin to the point of grotesquery, its limbs hanging long and loose as though its flesh had forgotten how to cling to bone.Its skin—or what passed for skin—was the color of old ashes, smooth and sickeningly seamless.
No eyes marked its face, save two pits blacker than pitch.No mouth, save a crescent gash too wide, too cold, stretching across the lower half of its visage.
It smiled. And pointed.
Its spindly hand rose like a withered branch, the index finger—longer than any should be—stretching toward Maya's bare forehead.
Maya could not scream. She could not breathe.
Then, with a thunderous crack, Atlas seized her by the shoulders and hurled her backward into Munk's waiting arms.
"RUN!" Atlas's voice split the valley open, sharper and more terrible than the wind itself.
In the same breath, he drew his short sword and slashed upward—the steel singing as it carved across the grey creature's crescent smile.
The Vernagool barely moved. It turned its head, as if irritated by a buzzing gnat.
Then it screamed.
A shriek not meant for human ears—shrill and violent, shaking the very bones in their bodies. It echoed off the distant hills, returning again and again until it seemed a thousand beasts screamed with it.
The stones cracked underfoot.The clouds above writhed like wounded beasts.
"Boink! Take her!" Atlas bellowed.
Obeying without hesitation, the small spiked club lashed out, sprouting limbs that hoisted Maya bodily onto its back. Without a second's pause, it bolted, carrying her away in great loping strides.
Maya clung to it blindly, unable to form words. Fear had hollowed her out like a shell.
The Vernagool lunged after her—a blur of grey terror.
"Hey now, don't ignore me like that. Hurts my feelings you know," Atlas intercepted it mid-stride, blade flashing, hacking at its spindly legs.
But his sword bit nothing. It passed through the creature like mist.
"Munk go after Maya, I'll take care of this thing!" screamed Atlas.
"We will be waiting, may luck be with you," without any further questions, Munk followed after Maya.
"And what are you waiting fo-" Atlas words were cut of mid sentence.
"Expand."
Raze, face grim as a storm, his expanded blade ran straight into the creature's chest.
"Don't tell me what to do," said Raze grabbing his blade with all the force he could muster, "By my honor as a Warden of Lord Ares, I shall never flee from battle."
"Owh is that so," said Atlas hanging on to the Vernagool's head.
"Expand," the blade shuddered once—then swelled, the blade erupting outward, rending the creature's torso apart.
The Vernagool stumbled.
Atlas, still gripping its back, was thrown to the ground with a heavy grunt. He rolled, sword ready, heart hammering against his ribs.
Raze stalked forward, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. "There," he said, gesturing at the fallen carcass. "It's done."
Atlas did not move.
He stared at the twitching grey form lying limp upon the earth.
"What are you talking about?" Atlas said, his voice low and hollow.
Raze frowned, approaching cautiously. "The thing's dead. Look right—"
He stopped mid-sentence.
The corpse he had pointed to—was gone.
Only a smear of blackened grass remained.
Slowly, with an ache in his bones he could not explain, Raze turned to follow Atlas's gaze.
And there, not twenty paces away, stood the Vernagool.
Watching.
It tilted its head slightly, almost curious, as if pondering some cruel amusement.
Atlas raised his sword, point trembling.
"We have not landed a single blow on it," he whispered.
"For all this time—"
He swallowed, the truth bitter in his throat.
"—it has only been watching."