The wasteland stretched out before Vigdis, an expanse of broken earth and scattered ruins that seemed to echo the stories no one dared to tell aloud. The sun hung low on the horizon, casting long shadows over the skeletal remains of what had once been a thriving world. Cities lay in crumbled heaps, their jagged skylines softened by encroaching sand and moss. Trees—those that still stood—were warped and gnarled, their bark cracked and veined with unnatural patterns.
The world hadn’t ended with a bang or a whimper. It had ended with a reckoning.
There were whispers, of course, murmured in the rare gatherings of survivors. Stories of great, towering shapes that had descended from the skies or risen from the depths of the earth. They hadn’t brought fire and brimstone, not exactly. They’d brought... correction. No one knew their names, not truly, though each settlement had its own monikers for them: the Titans, the Elders, the Cleansers.
What was certain was their disdain. Humanity, fractured and desperate, had been deemed unworthy. Wars raged before the arrival—conflicts over land, resources, the right to survive. The Elders hadn’t ended those wars. They’d ignored them, simply washing the slate clean. Entire cities were swallowed in waves of soil or pulled beneath oceans that rose unnaturally high, the waters gleaming with unnatural light.
No one remembered how long the cleansing had taken. Days? Years? Those who survived hadn’t been keeping track of time. They were too busy clawing their way out of rubble, fleeing shadows that moved with impossible intent, or bowing before ancient beings who regarded them with cold, silent judgment.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
And then the world had... stilled.
----------------------------------------
Vigdis had heard the stories a hundred times before. No one claimed to understand it, not even the wandering seers who spoke in riddles. All they knew was that what came after was different. The rules of the old world no longer applied. The land itself seemed alive in ways it shouldn’t be—trees that whispered, rivers that swallowed whole caravans without warning, and ruins that hummed faintly at night, like breathing tombs. And the creatures...
The creatures were the worst.
Mutated and twisted, they roamed the wasteland with a hunger that couldn’t be sated. They didn’t act like animals, not truly. They were something else, their movements too deliberate, too precise. Some said they were servants of the Elders, sent to ensure humanity never rose again. Others claimed they were the spirits of the dead, warped and vengeful. Vigdis didn’t care what they were. They bled like anything else when she drove her axe through them.
The Hollow King, though... that was different. It wasn’t just another beast or twisted remnant. It was part of something bigger, something older. She felt it in the roots of the tree, in the way its voice had slithered into her mind. The Elders had left behind more than scars on the earth. They’d left guardians—or perhaps jailers. The Hollow King had been one of them, and Vigdis knew there would be others.
But no one dared to ask why the Elders had left the survivors alive at all. Some said it was pity. Others called it punishment. The more zealous claimed it was an opportunity, a test to see if humanity could rebuild something better from the ashes of its hubris.
Vigdis had no interest in pondering the motives of beings she couldn’t hope to understand. All she knew was the here and now: a broken world where life was a constant battle, where the strong survived and the weak faded into the dust.
And if there was some test, she wasn’t about to fail it.