1 - 2. My Empty World.

Moments after water rushes past her, Nyx opens her eyes to a different scene laid out before her. The cave of stars, the prison of stars, it is gone. Tentatively, she steps out from the shadow of the mountain she finds herself in. Behind her is a small cave with a visible end, only a few steps deep, cozy enough to take shelter in. Instinctively, she tries to wring out some of the water from her hair, only to realize it’s dry.

Her eyebrows furrow as she cocks her head to the side, dragging her dark hair out in front of her. Dry. Her clothes, her hair, everything is dry. Lifting her foot up and gasping, she hops to and fro trying to maintain her balance. Nyx wriggles her toes inside her new shoes and smiles brightly, taking a few moments to look herself over. Her fingers only rest an extra half beat on the choker still on her neck before she tosses her worries aside for the moment and rushes away from the mountain.

Ten steps away, her expression dims as she sighs. Desert. As far as she could see in every direction, slow winds carried sand through the air. With her lips forming a thin, unamused line, she scans the horizon. The mountain itself is upon a much gentler sloping mound of stone. From where she is, Nyx spots only a small cluster of debris about ten minutes away. With all her excitement drained away, she sighs and shakes her head.

Nyx takes a slow breath, filling her lungs with the warm desert air, and nods to herself. Turning around, she walks the perimeter of the mountain, finding a path that seems reasonable quickly enough. With the heat falling on her in earnest, she wipes her bangs back and begins the trek up the mountain.

It isn’t long. The path is comfortable and she finds herself whistling, then blinking in surprise that she knows how to whistle. At one point, she sees a small stream of water trickle past a few rocks, then disappear back into the earth. Letting out a short exhale that barely passes for laughter, Nyx finally crests the top of the mountain.

Unbelievable. She clenches her fists and shoves them down in frustration, scowling. The desert wind whips her hair back as she grimaces and looks back and forth, hoping she’s mistaken. She’s not. Now that she can see the horizon, it’s clear just how empty this area is. In every direction, there’s sand, sand, and more sand, and when the and finally ends…

There’s a chasm. What looks like a sheer drop in every direction, about a day’s travel away. In front and directly behind her are hints of land beyond the chasm, but to her left and right the chasm continues indefinitely. In other words, she’s on an island.

Slumping to the ground, Nyx grinds her teeth and childishly hits the ground with her balled up fists. Stupid! Unfair! Hadn’t she just escaped that prison? And if she dies… or if she loses? Thinking back to the one rule of the game she knew, Nyx lets out an extremely dramatic sigh and closes her eyes.

Does losing mean dying? Or does dying mean losing? Or… Blowing a raspberry, she shakes her head. As much as she’d like to give up, the debris she had seen looked manmade. Proof of civilization, she thinks. Squinting, she stares forward and swears she can make out a speck of something that isn’t sand. On the same horizon, a moon was beginning to rise, shimmering light blue.

・

Nyx crosses her arms with a light huff, staring at the cave wall in front of her. Her supplies are non-existent and trekking across a desert in the middle of the day is nothing short of foolhardy. Dusk had finally settled in and she takes advantage, stepping back outside. The red light of -

She blinks, backpedaling and staring upward in surprise. The once light blue moon was now faintly red and in a completely different orbit. Quickly running down the hills, Nyx spots the blue moon behind the mountain and breathes a sigh of relief. So there were two moons, one red and one blue. At least two moons? She watches for a few minutes until she’s certain the blue moon is descending. Reorienting herself, Nyx pulls her tunic in a little tighter, sniffles, and begins for the opposite horizon.

An hour of walking confirms that the blue moon moves quickly across the sky, only visible for a few hours. The red moon, however, was barely moving at all. Even after an hour, it hadn’t traveled even a tenth of the way across the sky. As she marches forward, Nyx feels the air get heavier around her, almost as if it were stifling. She licks her lips, considers going back, then shakes her head and keeps marching.

・

There was still something strange about the air. At some point, Nyx had moved her chin to be tucked in and pulled her tunic up, hoping to spare herself from the dry air and sand. With the moon overhead, she keeps her eyes forward and keeps walking, step by step. Her feet don’t sink much into the sand, though she has to stop often and wait out gentle sandstorms that obscure her vision and erase her footsteps behind her. Licking her chapped lips underneath her tunic, Nyx squints.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The chasm at the end of the island grows larger as she walks. She lets out a happy little exhale and picks up the pace, running for about ten minutes. This close, the chasm feels larger than ever before, threatening to pull her in. Gulping, she gets as close as she’s comfortable with - a full thirty paces - and still can’t see the bottom. The endless depths cause her to backpedal a little, though when she takes a slow breath, Nyx tilts her head in surprise.

The air quality was much better here. She takes another slow breath, closing her eyes as the breeze carries out of the chasm towards her. It smells like salt and something else, not humid but not dry. Peering back across the chasm, she thinks she can spot faint greenery. Nyx scans the gap, biting her lower lip at how verdant the other side was and how dry this side was.

Frowning, she glances left and right before heading right in a quick jog. She had spotted some form of civilization from her mountain - it was her mountain, right? As if to beckon to her, a large bridge spans the chasm far to her right. Following the bridge with her eyes, she spots a few buildings and a small brick wall and immediately dashes towards it. People! Huffing, gasping, she runs as fast as her legs will take her and waves her hands frantically the moment she comes into sight of people.

It’s not much of a settlement at all, more like some sort of guard post, and right in front of her are two people that she can only assume are guards. That’s what guards look like, right? She’s being reckless. What if they’re hostile? What if they hurt her? It’s possible, but she’ll take her chances. She has to. Holding onto the hope that these were nice people, she gets closer and begins to jump and wave her hands.

They’re not moving.

Why aren’t they moving?

Her heart begins to sink as she runs faster, more desperately, tripping and falling onto the hard sand beneath her and - the hard sand? Nyx’s fingers scrape against the ground beneath her, but they don’t shift the sand at all. She gulps, heart thumping in her chest, and checks behind her - no footsteps. Her footsteps hadn’t vanished because of the sandstorms. Why hadn’t she noticed?

Nyx’s eyebrows furrow inward, tightening, and she takes a shuddering breath before dragging herself towards the guard post. Three buildings inside a wall. One was large; it has big doors in front and side rooms. Two look like homes. Her right hand clamps tight around her left bicep as she folds her arms and steps closer. She can’t see through a single window. She’s just thirty paces from the guards now. They aren’t moving. They’re still not moving.

She gets even closer, to the point she can see their features. A man, with slightly gruff features and a graying beard. On the other side, an older woman with a deep scar across one eye, red hair, and dark skin. They’re human, or whatever human is here, she thinks. Their lips are moving. Their lips are moving, they are responding to each other with little tilts of their heads, their spearpoints are slowly shifting and glinting in the sun, and they do not react to her. She can’t hear them.

Nyx’s fingers tremble as she pushes her hand straight through the woman’s shoulder. Her expression cramps as she tries again, waving her arms this way and that, but she passes straight through both of them. Her eyes close tightly as she crouches down on the floor, right in front of the gate, and clamps her right hand into a fist. With the butt of her palm, she roughly hits herself in the head, again and again and again and again -

She breathes in deep, shuddering, fingers clawing at her hair mercilessly. Nyx screams at herself to think, to focus, to make sense of this, but nothing makes sense. It doesn’t make sense. None of it. Her thoughts are spinning in circles, faster and faster, until she pushes herself back onto her feet and stares at the bridge past the guard post. She grinds her teeth and nods to herself, glancing at either of the guards who wouldn’t stop her, and steps forward. So what if she was a ghost, so what if she - she slams into something.

Gingerly touching her nose and wiping her eyes, Nyx takes a slow breath in, then out. She’s right at the gap in the wall with a guard to either side of her with nothing else in her way. Biting her lip again, she reaches out and presses her hand against something. Nyx clenches her fist and slams her hand against it, as if trying to bang against a door, but still nothing. Don’t give up, don’t give up, don’t -

She scurries to the sides of the wall and tries to climb, latching onto whatever she can. A loose stone here, a handhold there, Nyx ascends desperately, reaching her hand over the top of the stone wall to pull herself up - smack. Her hand hits another invisible barrier. The wall extends to the edge of the chasm and one fall is instant death.

So she sits against the wall, curls up, and waits. The guards had to enter some time. She’d sneak in with them. After a few hours, there’s a shift change and she rushes forward - smack. She hits the wall hard, falling backwards.

There was another outpost, on the other end of the desert. She remembers seeing it. If not here then on the other side, surely. The heavy feeling of the desert air pushes against her as she makes the trek back to the mountain and then further.

Once again, she finds herself at the edge of the chasm. The view is just as tempting, though the verdant trees are replaced by an endless waterfall that spans from one end of the horizon to the other. She quickly spots the bridge, then the guard post, then the guards. It’s humans again. Humanoids? They have horns, one has a swaying tail, and she doesn’t really care about any of that. Her heart sinks as she approaches and cracks as her hand once more hits a barrier. She tries the walls - smack. She tries waiting for the guard change - smack. She tries, desperately, beating the barrier down with her fist - smack, smack, smack.

・

Nyx returns to her mountain,

finds her cave,

curls up,

and cries.