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I…I…I should be… dead? I… don’t understand what’s going on anymore.

T-To start from the beginning, we continued traveling as we always had, through the bleakness of the Graylands. We stopped to rest, as was our routine, but this time was different. Tension hung in the air like a thick fog. The entire time, I kept my eyes on Tom. I was certain that if anyone were to snap and have a sudden violent outburst, it would be him. Every suspicious glance he cast my way made my skin prickle with anticipation. I was so sure that it would be him—Tom, with his festering grudge and eroding mind.

But, to my shock, it wasn’t Tom who lost control. It was Sam.

It happened without warning. One moment, we were setting up camp like usual, everyone weary but maintaining some semblance of order. Next, Sam’s voice ripped through the silence, screaming about monsters. His face was twisted in sheer terror, his eyes wide and unseeing, as though some unspeakable horror had gripped him from the shadows.

Before anyone could even react, Sam raised his weapon and began firing wildly into the caravan. Bullets flew, ripping through tents. The caravan was thrown into chaos as everyone scrambled for cover, shouting and diving to the ground, trying to make sense of what was happening. The look on Sam’s face... it was as though he was seeing something that the rest of us couldn't—a monster, a nightmare, something born of this cursed land.

He screamed again, louder this time, his voice cracking with hysteria as he spun around, searching for the imaginary foe. "They're everywhere! Monsters! Can't you see them?! They're here!" he would scream.

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His gunshots were wild and erratic, but they found their marks in human flesh. The first to fall was one of the caravan members, a young man, crumpling to the ground in a heap. Blood sprayed across the gray earth.

To Tom's credit, he acted swiftly. Before anyone else could process the chaos, he lunged at Sam, tackling him to the ground. Amidst the screaming and confusion, Tom wrestled with him, trying to pin him down, while others scrambled to help. Sam fought back with the wild strength of someone completely unhinged, thrashing, and yelling about monsters that only he could see.

In the struggle, a shot went off.

I had been hit… in my head. I…felt…it. I felt the bullet pierce my skull and into my brain with a quick, sharp, agonizing amount of pain, and then nothing. That was death… or a dream? No…But it felt so real.

When…I woke, I found myself lying on the cold, gray earth of the Graylands, utterly alone. There was no Sam, no Tom, no mercenaries, and no caravan in sight.

I felt disoriented, my thoughts muddled by the lingering pain from the gunshot. I instinctively reached for my head, somehow expecting to find a gunshot wound, but there was nothing. There was no blood, no bandages—nothing to suggest that I had been shot at all.

But strangely, everything I had on me before the incident was still there. My journal was tucked safely in my pack, along with my notes and supplies. The pen I’d used to record our journey was still clipped to my shirt. It was as though I had simply... woke up here.

I’m still not sure what’s happening anymore. I’m writing this down in an attempt to make sense of my thoughts, and to find some clarity in the chaos, but the more I write, the more confused I become. Everything feels disjointed as if the reality I knew has started to unravel. I’ve tried piecing together the events—how I woke up, how the others vanished without a trace—but nothing adds up.

Was it real? Was I truly shot, or was that some kind of hallucination, another cruel trick played by this place?

But, one thing is for sure: I’m now alone.