───────────────⋆˖☽ 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒎𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒂𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑫𝒂𝒓𝒌 ☾˖⋆──────────────

The Cursed Moon glared down at me through a jagged tear in the earth. I was wreckage, stranded at the bottom of a shallow grave, a profound ache settling into the marrow of my bones. When I tried to command my arms, they refused, leaden and foreign. Something cold and heavy slid through my veins, an unwelcome tide.

A voice, ancient and clear as struck glass, echoed not in my ears, but in the hollow spaces of my mind. Child, your time is near.

My eyes flew open. I scanned the oppressive dark, a void so complete it felt like a physical weight. There was nothing. Not a shape, not a shadow, not the barest whisper of a presence. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought,” I rasped. The sound was a dry scratching in my throat, followed by a pained chuckle that sent a spike of agony through my skull.

But I couldn’t just lie here. Not like this.

Gritting my teeth, I fought for control. Every muscle shrieked in protest as I dragged my body upright. The world swam in a nauseous haze. By the time I was sitting, each breath was a ragged, stolen thing. This pain will fade, I promised myself, a hopeless lie. It has to.

Then I heard it. Not a whisper, but a promise of violence: the rhythmic, heavy thump of something massive walking on the ground above. It was getting closer.

“I have no time,” I muttered, a raw edge of desperation in my voice. “My bow. I need my bow.”

Ignoring the fire in my joints, I forced myself onto my hands and knees. The only light was the eerie, spectral glow from the twin moons—one crimson, one silver—that bled through the opening above. My hands swept across the cool, loose dirt in blind, frantic arcs. My fingers brushed against the delicate fletching of an arrow. I pulled it free and, by feel alone, slotted it into my quiver. A few more followed, but the bow itself remained lost to the darkness.

“By the moons!” I snarled, the frustration a bitter taste in my mouth.

My gaze snapped back to the hole, to the cruel light. And there it was. My bow, wedged in a tangle of thick tree roots near the edge, a shadow within shadows. A wave of relief, so potent it almost buckled my knees, washed over me. At least it isn’t broken. A direct fall would have snapped the string, and I had nothing to repair it with.

Carefully, I pushed myself to my feet, my legs trembling under the strain. The damp, heavy scent of overturned earth clung to me like a shroud.

A ladder of gnarled roots clung to the dirt wall beside me. I found a foothold, my boot digging into the loose soil. My fingers sank into the woody tangle, and I began to haul myself upward. Inch by agonizing inch. I reached for a higher handhold, pulled—

The world dropped.

The roots tore free in a shower of dirt and stone. My grip vanished. My entire weight swung violently onto my other arm. It screamed in protest as the wall scraped down my forearm, leaving a raw, fiery kiss in its wake.

Ignoring the stinging pain, I scrambled for purchase. My free hand slapped against the wall, searching, until my fingers closed around another, thicker root. I gave it a hard, testing tug. It held firm. This one will hold.

With renewed determination, I continued the climb. My head finally broke the surface, emerging into a forest unnervingly silent. No crickets, no rustling leaves, nothing. I ignored it. My focus narrowed on my bow. My fingers stretched… just… touching the smooth, familiar wood. I worked it free with one hand, slung it over my shoulder, and hauled my battered body the rest of the way out of that earthen prison.

The forest was a maze of shadows. Then, a sharp snap echoed from the east. A trap. Near Caelfall. I’d been gone too long.

I started to run, but a sound stopped me dead: the wet, tearing noise of flesh being ripped from bone. The coppery tang of fresh blood, thick and cloying, hung in the air. My stomach lurched. I knew this clearing. This was where I had slain the Crescent Moon Walker.

My eyes scanned the gloom until they found it. A slender, ink-black figure was hunched over the carcass, its form a hole in the night. Long, wicked claws, like polished obsidian, dangled from its hands.

A Nyxraith.

I took a slow, deliberate step back. Fighting one up close was suicide. They were faster than a striking Glimcoil. I took another step. My boot scuffed a loose rock. It clattered against another. The sound was a thunderclap in the silence.

My heart froze. My head snapped up. Its eyes, two points of pale blue fire, locked onto mine. A row of large jagged teeth, like shards of broken glass, lined a gaping maw. It held my gaze for a heart-stopping moment, then deliberately reached down, hooked its claws into the Moon Walker’s corpse, and dragged it deeper into the shadows.

It turned its back, once again focused on its meal. It wasn’t an oversight. It was a dismissal. An insult. I didn’t care. My aching body screamed, but I found the nearest tree and scrambled up into the branches. Fool, I cursed myself. Moving on the ground at night. If that Nyxraith hadn’t already found a feast, I would have been its next course.

“Focus,” I whispered, the word a puff of steam in the cool air. I began to move through the canopy, branch by branch. Each leap was a negotiation with gravity and agony. My pace was dangerously slow. Every shadow below now held a new terror.

My eyes swept the horizon. To the east, upstream from Caelfall, a pillar of dark smoke stained the sky, fed by the angry orange glow of a large fire at its base. Stonehollow. A pang of dread shot through me. I hope they are safe.

A piercing screech ripped through the air, snapping my attention back toward Caelfall. I was close. I drew my bow in a single, fluid motion, nocking an arrow as I scanned the canopy for the source. The forest fell silent again. Then another sound: the sharp thwack of a trap springing somewhere below.

It was going to be a long night. At least the cursed moons only rise once a week. The thought was a small, cold comfort.

That screech again, closer this time. I pushed myself faster, my muscles burning with the effort. I settled in a massive oak about three hundred feet from the town wall, my eyes locking onto the chaos below. Another Nyxraith.

On the rampart, a lone guard fumbled with his bow, his hands trembling so badly he looked as if he might drop it. He loosed a desperate shot. The arrow sailed harmlessly into the dark. The Nyxraith ignored him. Its long claws made a grating, scraping sound against the wood as it began to scale the wall.

High ground. Perfect vantage. I just needed its attention.

In one smooth motion, I swung my bow from my shoulder and nocked an arrow. I didn’t aim for the creature. I aimed for the ground five feet behind it. I drew, anchored, and released.

The arrow slammed into the earth with a solid thump. The Nyxraith whirled, its head snapping in my direction, dropping from the wall. It let out an ear-splitting shriek, its maw gaping.

Too late. My second arrow was already on the string, the tip aimed squarely at the space between its glowing blue eyes. I let it fly.

The arrow struck home with a wet, solid impact. The Nyxraith staggered, a look of alien shock on its face. Its legs gave out. It slammed hard against the wall and crumpled into a lifeless heap at its base.

The rest of the night was a blur of black limbs and glowing eyes, the constant twang of my bowstring a counterpoint to the shrieks of dying monsters. The siege broke only when the Cursed Moon vanished and the first hint of gray dawn stained the horizon. Cold clouds rolled in, and a wind that promised a storm whipped through the trees, a perfect match for the tempest of exhaustion raging within me.

My eyes burned. Every muscle was a taut, screaming wire. I didn’t walk back to my small camp; I stumbled. The fire pit was a ghost, a circle of cold, dead ash.

My hands, clumsy and numb, fumbled with the tent flap. I didn’t lie down. I collapsed onto the bedroll, the crushing weight of the long night pressing me into the earth.

A final, ragged thought escaped into the darkness. I can’t fight sleep any longer.

And the world dissolved.

──────────────────◯ ☽ ◑ ● ◐ ❨ ◯──────────────────

𝓣𝓱𝓪𝓷𝓴 𝔂𝓸𝓾 𝓼𝓸 𝓶𝓾𝓬𝓱 𝓯𝓸𝓻 𝓻𝓮𝓪𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼 𝓬𝓱𝓪𝓹𝓽𝓮𝓻! 𝓘’𝓭 𝓵𝓸𝓿𝓮 𝓽𝓸 𝓱𝓮𝓪𝓻 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓽𝓱𝓸𝓾𝓰𝓱𝓽𝓼 𝓲𝓷 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓶𝓶𝓮𝓷𝓽𝓼 𝓫𝓮𝓵𝓸𝔀.

𝓘𝓯 𝔂𝓸𝓾’𝓻𝓮 𝓮𝓷𝓳𝓸𝔂𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓼𝓽𝓸𝓻𝔂, 𝓹𝓵𝓮𝓪𝓼𝓮 𝓬𝓸𝓷𝓼𝓲𝓭𝓮𝓻 𝓪𝓭𝓭𝓲𝓷𝓰 𝓲𝓽 𝓽𝓸 𝔂𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓵𝓲𝓫𝓻𝓪𝓻𝔂 𝓽𝓸 𝓰𝓮𝓽 𝓷𝓸𝓽𝓲𝓯𝓲𝓮𝓭 𝓪𝓫𝓸𝓾𝓽 𝓷𝓮𝔀 𝓾𝓹𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓼. 𝓘𝓽 𝓽𝓻𝓾𝓵𝔂 𝓱𝓮𝓵𝓹𝓼 𝓪𝓷𝓭 𝓲𝓼 𝓭𝓮𝓮𝓹𝓵𝔂 𝓪𝓹𝓹𝓻𝓮𝓬𝓲𝓪𝓽𝓮𝓭!