Chapter 16: Broken Dreams

Kael stepped out of the library into a world he no longer recognized. Greenhaven was a corpse of a town, its heart ripped out and left to rot under a sky stained yellow with smoke. The air tasted of ash and old blood, each breath heavier than the last. Every building was either scorched or shattered, hollow shells that seemed to sag under the weight of despair. The wind blew in soft, irregular gusts, carrying the faint coppery tang of death.

He hesitated at the edge of the library steps, staring out at what used to be his world. They’re all gone, he thought, the words empty, mechanical. He kept saying it to himself, as if repetition would make the truth less impossible. Greenhaven’s streets had once been alive with sounds—laughing children, bickering merchants, the rhythmic clatter of horses’ hooves. Now there was nothing but the occasional groan of a broken beam collapsing under its own weight, and the distant, unearthly howl of one of them.

Kael gripped the codex against his chest, his fingers trembling despite his efforts to still them. The weight of the book was grounding, a solid anchor in a world that had lost its moorings. He forced himself to take a step, then another, his boots crunching over broken glass and scattered debris. Each step felt heavier than the last, as though the ghosts of Greenhaven clung to him, pulling him back into their grave.

He navigated the ruined streets cautiously, slipping through alleyways and avoiding open spaces. His mother’s voice whispered in his head, a faint echo of the woman who had taught him how to hunt, how to track, how to survive. Watch the shadows, Kael. Danger doesn’t always come from the front.

Prey. That’s what he was now. A boy hunted by creatures whose shapes he still couldn’t fully comprehend. His stomach churned at the memory of the first one he’d seen—a hulking beast of muscle and bone, its maw dripping with the gore of someone Kael had once called a neighbor. It had looked at him, through him, its empty eyes promising a fate far worse than death.

He shook the thought away and kept moving. The forest was close, its dark edge looming at the end of the main road. No birdsong, no rustling underbrush—just an oppressive stillness broken only by the crunch of Kael’s boots on fallen leaves. He moved carefully, scanning the shadows for movement. The monsters didn’t always howl. Sometimes they crept silently, waiting for their prey to stumble into their path. His father had drilled it into him: Silence is survival.

When he reached the hunter’s spot—his camp, Kael hesitated at the entrance, his hand instinctively resting on the hilt of his knife. He forced himself to step inside, his heart pounding as he scanned the corners for anything amiss.

The eggs were still there, nestled in the makeshift bed he had prepared for them. The sight of them brought a strange, bittersweet relief. He crouched beside them, brushing his fingers over the moss that cradled their fragile shells. They were warm to the touch, a faint pulse of life in a world that felt so devoid of it.

Kael sank to the ground and pulled a strip of dried venison from his pack. He tore into it without tasting it, chewing mechanically as his thoughts drifted back to Greenhaven. The faces of the dead loomed in his mind, unbidden and unrelenting. He saw them as they had been in life—smiling, laughing, arguing over petty grievances. And then he saw them as he’d last seen them: broken, bloodied, and silent.

His hands trembled as he finished his meager meal. He wiped them on his trousers, smearing grease and dirt across the fabric. The codex sat in his pack, its presence a constant weight. He pulled it out and ran his fingers over its worn leather cover. Inside were answers, or so he hoped. But answers to what? To why Greenhaven had fallen? To how he was supposed to survive? Or something else entirely?

As the sun dipped below the horizon, Kael ventured out into the forest to set snares and forage for anything edible. The underbrush rustled softly as he moved, the sound unnervingly loud in the stillness. He found rabbit tracks near a clearing and followed them until he spotted the animal. It was scrawny, its ribs visible through its fur, but it was meat. He notched an crossbow bolt and took the shot, the string singing in the silence. The rabbit dropped with a soft thud, and Kael felt a flicker of satisfaction—a reminder that he still had skills to rely on, no matter how broken the world had become.

When he returned to camp, the rabbit was skinned and roasting over a small fire before he let himself sit down. His fingers were stained with blood, and the smell of the cooking meat made his stomach churn more than it made him hungry. He ate in silence, chewing slowly as his mind wandered.

What would I be doing right now if the world hadn’t ended? The question was a cruel one, but it refused to leave him alone. The Harvest Moon Festival would be days away. The entire town would’ve been alive with preparations. Aria would be weaving flowers into her hair, her face lit with excitement. Gareth would be pestering her with jokes, desperate to win her attention. And Kael? Kael would’ve been in the shadows, watching it all with a mix of resentment and longing.

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His jaw tightened at the thought. He had spent so much of his life resenting the people of Greenhaven for their flaws—their selfishness, their pettiness, their ignorance.

Kael wiped at his eyes, though no tears fell. He still couldn’t summon anything more than apathy for the people he had lost. The guilt gnawed at him, but it wasn’t enough to bridge the chasm of resentment.

He still hated them for their hypocrisy. He hated how they whispered behind his back, blaming him and his father for his mother’s and sister’s deaths. As if they had chosen to let them die. As if Kael’s father, with his ruined leg, could have done anything to help. As if Kael, barely old enough to hold a knife, could have made a difference. And where had those same people been when his mother and sister fought to protect them? Hiding in their homes, cowering behind locked doors while his family bled.Yet the hatred was muted now; it no longer controlled him as it once had, their brutal deaths having dulled Kael’s spite.

But now, in the crushing silence of their absence, he realized something even uglier. I let them die in my heart long before they died in the flesh. His mother’s voice came unbidden, soft but firm, a rebuke he hadn’t expected. He had clung to his bitterness, to his father’s stoic silence, instead of his mother’s teachings. Her belief in forgiveness, in the value of flawed humanity, had faded from him over time—until over three thousand souls had vanished forever.

He opened the codex, letting the firelight spill across the pages. The shifting, twisting symbols almost seemed alive, teasing him with their cryptic patterns. He traced them with his fingers, willing his mind to focus. This knowledge had to mean something.

The knowledge contained within was ancient and powerful, but as he turned page after page, it felt hollow in his hands. What good was knowledge when the world was gone?

The fire crackled softly as Kael studied, his thoughts circling like a predator unsure where to strike. What were other kids my age doing right now? Preparing for the Harvest Moon Festival, no doubt. Chasing after their dreams of glory and ambitions. Just like Kael had been doing a day ago.

A day ago.

The realization hit him like a physical blow. That day—the day the beasts came—felt like a lifetime ago, as though it separated two entirely different people. The boy who had lived in Greenhaven, who had spent his time training and quietly nursing his bitterness, was gone. The boy who had only wanted to leave Greenhaven was dead.

In his place was someone harder, emptier. Someone who couldn’t afford the luxury of hatred or regret. His mother’s teachings came back to him, faint and broken, like a song he had once known by heart but had long since forgotten. Compassion doesn’t make you weak, Kael. It makes you strong enough to endure.

He had let those lessons fade away. He had let his bitterness poison him, and now it was too late. Over three thousand souls had said their final farewells, and he had let them pass without forgiveness. But no longer. He couldn’t afford to be that boy anymore. He would survive. He would find a way to escape this hell, to honor the memory of those who had died by refusing to join them.

The codex offered no easy answers to the question of escape. Kael’s brow furrowed as he traced a diagram of some kind of ritual—a way to seal a small space against monsters. Useful, perhaps, but not the solution he needed. His mind churned as he considered his options.

How do I survive this?

The beast tide had moved inward, toward the kingdom’s cities. That much was clear. The monsters that had overrun Greenhaven would be swarming toward the larger towns, cutting off the roads and making any direct route to safety impossible. Kael thought of the forest—vast and tangled, stretching for miles in every direction. He could try to navigate it, but that would mean heading toward the Burnt Sea.

His stomach twisted at the thought. The Burnt Sea was no better than the beasts. It was a scorched wasteland, where the kingdom’s forces and the orcish armies clashed. The air there was thick with ash and death, its waters poisoned by blood and magic. But maybe—_maybe_—the fighting had stopped. The beast tide would have forced both sides to retreat or die, and Kael hadn’t heard the distant thunder of battle for hours. If the battlefield was empty, he could use the Burnt Sea to skirt the mountain range that separated Greenhaven from the plains. Beyond the mountains were the kingdom’s heartlands—the farms and cities that might still stand.

It was a desperate plan. But desperation was all Kael had left.

Kael’s head spun with the possibilities and dangers. Each path felt like a gamble with stakes too high to fully comprehend. He didn’t have enough information, not yet. But that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was moving forward, escaping this graveyard of a town.

He forced himself to keep studying the codex. But exhaustion clung to him like a leaden cloak, his mind slowing as the weight of the day caught up with him. His thoughts began to fragment, the words on the page blurring as sleep dragged him down.

Kael’s head slumped forward, the codex sliding from his hands to rest on the ground. His breathing slowed, and the fire burned low, casting long shadows.

In the silence, a faint sound broke the stillness. A sharp crack, like the snapping of dry wood, echoed through the camp. One of the dragon eggs shuddered in its mossy cradle, a thin fissure spreading across its surface.

Kael didn’t stir. The world outside could wait. The beasts, the codex, the weight of his failures—all of it faded into the haze of sleep. And in the darkness of his hiding spot, life began to stir, fragile and ancient, ready to change everything.