[Several months earlier – Outskirts of the Dead Sands]
POV: Lukthee one of the sick demons
The air's been thick for days now—too thick to breathe right. It crawls into your lungs like worms and sits there, heavy, rotten. The others in the tent cough until their throats tear open. I think one of them died last night. We didn't move the body. There was no point in doing so.
I lie still, watching the ceiling of stretched skin and bone above us, barely able to keep my eyes open.
Then I hear it.
Footsteps. Not fast. Calm. Steady.
Someone pushes aside the flap and walks into the tent.
A young demon—barely grown. Not one I've seen before. Red skin, smooth and clean like it hasn't been scorched by the sands yet. His horns are black, not jagged like most of ours—smoother, almost curved back slightly. His eyes are sharp. Focused. He's not sick.
He doesn't cough.
He looks around, his expression unreadable. Not disgusted. Not scared. Just… looking.
We all stare back at him. Not sure if he's here to help or watch us rot.
I try to sit up and croak out something—anything—but all I manage is a wheeze. One of the others, an old makaian he probably gonna die soon, half-conscious sitting near the wall, mutters weakly, "You new?"
The red demon doesn't answer. He just gives a small nod.
The sick one lifts a trembling hand. "Then... welcome."
The red demon lowers his gaze slightly, and I think he almost nods again before stepping back out. No words. No judgement.
He wasn't choking in the air.
That wasn't normal.
But in this place, nothing really is.
[Elsewhere – After several hours ]
POV: Kael
He stood under the dull-red sky, flexing his hand, watching as the cut on his palm slowly closed. The wound sealed perfectly, like it had never been there.
He'd known he could regenerate for a while now—it saved him more than once—but something about it still made him curious.
He thought to himself: 'Can this stop? What will happens if I don't want to heal?'
So he focused, not on the wound, but on halting it. On freezing the response. His body resisted, then obeyed.
The cut stayed open.
Not bleeding. Not dangerous. Just… still.
Kael stared at it in silence.
'I wonder when this'll ever be useful, he thought.'
He didn't know the answer. But the possibility was enough.