The man had continued his journey through the desert. As tough as the conditions had been, he had managed to survive, which made him realize there was something unnatural about him.

After all, how would a normal human survive such conditions?

He was not a talented fighter, and he hadn't even managed to escape the creature, only saved through sheer luck.

Yet, as he walked he felt his strength took longer to deplete, and despite his poor clothing he was handling the cold relatively well.

The wind howled across the barren dunes, carrying the biting sting of sand. Still, the man trudged forward, his uneven footsteps marking the shifting ground. His lips were cracked and his throat a dry yet the thirst gnawing at him was distant .

He had meat at least, the man thought as his face formed a slight self deprecating smirk. His body told him he should be suffering, yet his mind remained clear, his steps unwavering.

Something was definitely wrong with him.

Days had passed the man thought, or perhaps only hours. Time had lost its meaning in the endless sea of dust.

The clouds covered the light of the fractured sun as it crawled across the sky, its light filtering through an ever-present haze, casting elongated shadows that looked unnatural.

However, when night fell, the cold did not bite as it should have. He felt it, but it was distant, as if his body was adjusting on its own. That thought unsettled him.

Had he always been this way? He tried to remember his life before waking up in that dreadful place. Before everything.

Nothing came.

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A headache throbbed at the base of his skull. It was if his mind resisted the act of remembering. He knew he had a name, but even that felt distant, slipping through his grasp like grains of sand.

He cursed under his breath and kept moving.

The landscape started to shift little by little . The dunes gave way to stretches of cracked earth, skeletal remains of dry trees standing as sentinels against the lifeless sky.

He moved through them with caution, his senses sharpening. There was something unnatural about this desolated place. He felt as if someone was watching him.

At first, he thought it was just paranoia and the lingering effects of exhaustion playing tricks on his tired mind. But then he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

Shadows that didn't belong.

They slithered along the edges of his vision, darting between the dead trees and rocky outcroppings. Their shapes were indistinct, wrong, they looked like figures lost in time.

He also heard them, they were sobbing quietly. He did not dare to look directly, though. Instinct told him that doing so wouldnt be wise.

He ignored them and pressed on.

The terrain changed further, the cracked earth giving way to something more solid; stone, turned smooth by centuries of wind.

He stumbled upon what remained of a road, broken and barely visible beneath the layers of dust. The sight of something man made, of something artificial, sent a shiver through him. It was proof that others had been here before.

Perhaps they still were.

His heartbeat quickened.

He followed the road, hoping it would lead him somewhere out of this forsaken wasteland.

The road carved through sharp cliffs, their edges resembling teeth, which formed a natural corridor that funneled him forward. He felt so small beneath the towering views, the weight of the land pressing in on him. Still, he did not stop. He could not afford to.

Then, at last, he saw it.

A silhouette stood against the fractured sky, looming in the distance. The man could see towers, walls. The remnants of a city buried in the desert's grasp.

Hope flooded through him, but it was short-lived. The architecture was old. The angles too sharp, the proportions off. It was human, or at least it had been, but time had twisted it, molding it into something different.

Structures that bent at odd angles, as if caught between moments of collapse and restoration. Windows gaped like empty eyes, some covered by remnants of curtains or clothes that fluttered in the wind like withered skin.

Despite its eerie appearance, it looked like a shelter, like civilization. What was left of it, at least.

He stepped forward, towards the city , towards the truth of who he was.