Guided by the ocean’s currents, the vessel made a gentle landing on the island’s shores. People started jumping off as soon as they came to a complete stop. The sands were a darkened gray; the world had lost all color in this place but they coped. A thick fog was stale, blanketed whatever skies were above. The chilly winds howled, biting sharply into their exposed skin, leaving a stinging chill. It was the cold that seeped into the very bones, numbing the fingers and turning breath into clouds of mist. Each blow of wind carried a strange, hollow sound, as if the mountain before them was exhaling, firmly warning them not to approach. It was the cold that felt alive, creeping under the clothes and lingered long after it had passed. Sky and Maia were among the last to get off.
Sky jumped down first, helped Maia, and gathered their belongings. All Sky had on him was a crudely put together sling bag with a journal and writing implements. Back at home, Sky was an artist who’d spent his days cataloging the things he saw by a collection of sketches. He began drawing the island and the surrounding people. This was no place for the living to be.
“I don’t understand. Where are all the people?” Sky asked. A question that seemed to get everybody concerned about where they were. Even Zain was on edge. This was uncharted territory for him. The people started walking around, not sure what to look for. The fog that enveloped the waters was still strong where they stood. Sky walked along the beach to catch signs of other ships that had long since decayed, some older than others. One ship had the rear half of its hull already given up to the ocean depths.
Sky and Maia stood before the ship’s crumbling hull, its once-majestic frame now weathered by the sea and time. Maia squinted at the faded carvings, her fingers brushing over the intricate designs. "This doesn’t look like any ordinary ship," she muttered.
Zain approached, his eyes scanning the ship’s remains until they settled on a faint symbol etched into the bow, half-obscured by the elements. His breath hitched. The insignia was unmistakable — its details were just barely visible through years of wear. A single eye, intricately carved, sat at the crest’s center, framed by wings that seemed to emerge from the wood itself. The eye was unlike any symbol he had seen before—ancient, watchful, and imbued with a strange sense of authority. Above it, a delicate crown rested, surrounded by faint stars that faded with the woods’ decay.
There was no mistaking it. This was the royal crest of Elysian. But why here? And what had happened to the ship’s inhabitants?
He glanced back at the others, who seemed unaware of the ship’s significance. His heart raced. “This ship... it belonged to someone of great importance,” he said, his voice low. Zain traced the crest with his fingertips, recognizing the royal mark he had only seen once before—the symbol of the Elysian royal family.
He crouched by the ship’s decaying bow, his fingers tracing the faint outlines of the royal crest. The eye, though weathered, still held an eerie presence, framed by delicate wings. Without a word, he drew his knife and carefully began carving around the symbol. The wood splintered and groaned under the blade, but he was meticulous, ensuring the piece would remain intact. After several moments, he held it up — a fragment of the hull, the crest of Elysian royalty unmistakable even in its worn state.
He tucked the piece into his coat, but not before wrapping it in cloth. This would be the proof he needed. He knew, somehow, that whatever happened here, Elysian was involved in ways he did not understand.
As Zain examined the ship, something else caught his eye. In the sand near the stern, a faint set of footprints trailed away from the wreck, leading toward the dense trees at the island’s edge. His heart quickened. The prints were shallow, almost lost to time, but they were unmistakably human.
"Someone walked away from here," he muttered, more to himself than to the others. Could it be possible? Could one of the ship’s passengers still be alive, wandering the island?
He straightened, glancing back at the crest he had just cut from the hull. If this ship truly belonged to Elysian royalty, the stakes were even higher. He couldn’t leave without knowing.
“We have to follow these tracks,” he said, his voice firm. “There’s a chance someone from the ship is still out there.”
A person asked in protest. “What? Look for other survivors? Look around you, there’s no one here. They’re probably all dead. Not to mention there was that ship chasing us!”
Zain held firm. He felt the desperate atmosphere. He could see everyone wanted to leave, but he had a responsibility.
“If there are people still alive and their ship broke down here. They’ll need help. No one gets left behind.”
His speech was unsteady, barely holding his composure, but it was enough to calm the group. The mists and fog were still heavy, but they could see that the tracks led deep within the towering, mountainous structure itself. There was nothing for it. The small crowd of people made their ways in. The unwelcoming atmosphere of the cold and dry air didn’t make sitting on the beach to be the most welcoming prospect. As they made their way in, Sky thought he glimpsed something out far into the fog, the shape of a broken down ship out far into the distance.
Heading into the only entrance of the mountain they could find, Sky couldn’t help but feel an ominous presence with every step. Surely he wasn’t the only one feeling troubled by this. His mother’s grip on his hand was tight. Whenever he tried showing the slightest sign of wanting to walk in a different direction, Maia, out of motherly instinct, would pull him toward her. Her grip tightened, her knuckles white with strain. Every step was like knowingly walking into the jaws of death.
Her pulse raced, and every instinct screamed to turn back. But she swallowed the fear, tightening her grip on Sky’s hand. She had to stay strong—for him. With every unfamiliar sound around them, her heart pounded louder. Echoes off the cavern walls were like a distant scream. The thought of being lost, the need to turn back, gnawed at the edges of her mind. She looked at Sky, who was oblivious, lost in his sketches, absorbing every detail, and pulled him closer. They had barely survived the unrelenting seas. What if she couldn’t protect him now? The thought made her shiver, stabbed her heart with dread. Her hands shook, but she forced them still, clenching her fists. She couldn’t let him see her fear. Not now. Every parent was feverishly keeping vice lock grips on their children. If the mist and atmosphere here were anything to go by, it was that getting lost was very easy here in this place.
The mountain itself was vast. Rocks and formations of unnatural construction revealed great caverns and chasms. Illuminated by a dim dark cyan light that seems to radiate throughout all the inner structures of the mountain. The tracks they followed suggested that whoever came through here also had the idea of taking up shelter.
They had imagined to finding a group of people huddling together, making a fire deep within the mountain trying to keeping warm.
Sky, pondering on how to help with the search, asked Zain. “How do we know if we have found them?”
“That’s easy. They’ll be people who look like us.”
Further into the mountain, the caverns began splitting. So did the foot tracks. Zain, not wanting to lose time, instructed the crowds to split up in smaller numbers to speed up the search, but to remain cautious and close by. He reassured them they would be out of this soon and to always keep sight of one another. He commanded, “Explore the rooms and see what you find.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The crowd exchanged uneasy glances, their feet rooted in place. Doubt flickered in their eyes, but deep down, they couldn’t deny the truth in Zain’s words. The escort ship was still out there looking for them. They had to make it in due time back and quick. The crowd dispersed, exploring the various chambers cautiously.
Sky and his mother began their search, following other people. Everyone strolled around with careful pace, exploring the various chambers but hardly finding anything useful. Certainly no people. Zain left the crew to watch over the refugees while he searched on his own.
As they walked around, Sky took notice of one child who was following in the footsteps of his own. Like her own little hopscotch game. He found it amusing for a while until he noticed the leaps she was taking grew further apart. He looked at the ground to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. It confirmed what he was feeling. Among the footprints he had first noticed of the group of people walking together, there was another set of footprints; someone running in the opposite direction. He followed the little girl gleefully, ignoring the fact that she was too far away from her parents.
He caught her before she ventured off too far on her own. The slight commotion caught the attention of her parents, who came rushing, yanking her from his grip. Though repulsed by their roughness, Sky understood—fear gripped everyone here. As far as everyone was concerned, it was everyone for themselves. He continued following the tracks of the running man. His mother soon took notice and, not wanting to draw attention, paced quickly to him. “Sky, what are you doing? Keep close to me.”
It barely took her a moment before she noticed the tracks he was following, and it was enough to get her curious. She looked back to see the other group of survivors were still murmuring amongst themselves, wanting to get home quickly. She changed her mind when it led to the idea that they might find something of use. “Let’s look at where this goes.”
As they followed the tracks deeper into the cavern, the darkness closed in around them. The tracks turned several corners, and even spanning over the open areas and chasms. The spread and distance of the steps told a story of their own. Whoever they belonged to had obviously been running and eventually gotten lost.
The tracks led them to a large, open, cavernous chamber. Sky’s breath caught in his throat as he saw it—a twisted, decayed body, half-hidden in the shadows. The man’s head was grotesquely twisted, his face frozen in a mask of terror. Sky gasped. His mother held him back as she inspected the corpse.
The air around the still rotting body was heavy with an awful smell. The man’s clothes were soaked, but his body had decomposed rapidly. There was no mistake. This was one refugee that had landed on the shores before their arrival. Sky noticed the frozen expression on the corpse’s face, motionless and twisted, as if the man were trying to escape something that never came.
Dark thoughts of isolation flooded Sky’s mind. This man had died alone in the worst place imaginable. Did he have a family? Unrealized dreams? Was he abandoned? The emptiness of the cavern pressed in, making the silence unbearable. Surrounded by the cold, unforgiving stone, with no one to hear his final breath.
There was no comfort here, no voices to call out to, only the echo of his own footsteps fading into the endless abyss of death. He must’ve known he was alone, abandoned in the mountain’s heart. Sky shuddered, picturing the man’s last thoughts: fear, desperation, the unbearable knowledge that no one would come looking for him. He had the unique privilege of thinking about dying. The thought was more terrifying than the death itself. There was no way this was an accident. Something had taken him. But when he looked back towards the tracks that had led them here, he couldn’t put it together. There was nothing else following him. The pieces didn’t fit.
He took out his journal and began sketching the corpse along with the open chamber they were standing in. Walking around the chamber as his mother was studying the body. Under different circumstances, this place would have been breathtaking. He scanned the environment, looking back up every so often during his sketch. His hands moved instinctively, capturing the sharp angles of the rocks, the way the light barely grazed their smooth surface, casting haunting shadows. His drawings felt like the only stable thing in his crumbling and foreboding world. As he looked back up, something caught the corners of his eye. A figure standing behind the rocks of the chamber, like a thin man in a black cloak. He lowered his journal and looked again.
Nothing there.
Just a collection of rocks that looked vaguely human. He shook his head and laughed.
Zain and the others approached from behind, all taking notice of the body. The previous silence had now turned to ominous chatter. He stepped in quickly to inspect the body for himself. Nothing he found could’ve killed the man. He quickly stepped in, breaking up the growing commotion as people argued and shouted to return to the ships.
He rose to ease the tension. “Everyone, keep calm. Panicking will only get us killed.”
“Keep calm? What are we still doing here? They’re all dead! We have to get out of here!” the crowd erupted in shouts. Zain relented, he considered his options, he searched around the area.
And could find no one.
He reasoned no one could’ve been foolish enough to want to make shelter in a place like this. He could feel the ever unrelenting pressure of their judgment and panic.
The eruption cut the chatter in two deep within the mountain. They could hear rocks moving, cracking from beneath them. Something ancient was rising from the depths of this place. Whatever composure the people had left was now gone. They all fled in panic, running back to where they had come from.
The ground began cracking, and then suddenly breaking apart. The people rushed desperately but bottlenecked at the entrance of the chamber. Maia looked around and saw to her horror that her son was further away than she had thought. Sky was so preoccupied with sketching he lost sight of how far he had walked away.
It took a loud plea from her to snap him back to the present. He turned back and started running towards her. The ground broke apart with every step, resorting to jumping across the broken ground. He looked back to see the floor had collapsed, one by one falling into the deep chasms below.
The ground crumbled beneath Sky's feet, widening the gap between him and Maia with every step. With his momentum and speed, he made a leap toward her, his arm outstretched as far as he could reach. He was just able to latch onto her arms, but his grip was weak. Maia gripped his hands as tightly as she could, her knuckles white with effort. But his fingers slipped through hers, leaving only empty air as he plunged into the abyss. Maia felt like the world had become silent. Her chest tightened, as if the world itself had collapsed along with him.
Flailing his arms about in panic, feeling like he would never stop falling deeper into the encroaching darkness. His breath caught, and his heart raced faster than it ever had before. The last thing he saw was the growing void beneath him, swallowing every bit of light until there was nothing - just endless darkness. He closed his eyes, the sounds of his mother’s screams being the last thing he heard.