The world is drowning.

  Not in silence, not in peace—but in ruin.

  Water rises where land once stood. Winds tear the breath from your lungs. The sky weeps in fury. There is no mercy in this place, no sanctuary, no guiding light to lead you forward.

  But forward you go.

  Because you have no choice.

  Because Ail is still out there.

  So you trespass upon the abyss, frail one, and it does not embrace—you are devoured, yet you flail as if the tide might grant you clemency. The storm does not war with you; it does not reckon your struggle—it consumes, as all great hungers do, and you are but another morsel lost to the maw.

  Yet still, you rise. You do not bow, do not yield to the devouring tempest. Your grasp finds ruin—a drowned husk of a tree, half-consumed by the abyss—and still, you climb, stealing breath from a world that would see you perish. This air is not yours to take, yet you claim it, defiant, insatiable—how could you not?

  You spurn the weightlessness of surrender—you must seek, must grasp, must drag forth the feeble shade you call a friend. That wretched thing that clings to life with hands frailer than yours, and so you refuse to let go.

  And so you leap—reckless, relentless—toward the ruins that should have claimed you long ago. The broken ships lie ahead, carcasses strewn upon the tide, their rusted bones groaning beneath your weight. You press forward, deaf to their warnings.

  The trapdoor is drowned, buried in the ocean’s grasp, but you seize it. It resists. You demand. Again. Again—

  It yields with a wail, water surging inward like a beast unchained, and you with it.

  Foolish child.

  You fall, the tide taking you into its lungs. And when you surface, when you claw your way through the dark, when your eyes drag to the corners of this ruined hall, you find him.

  Ail.

  Small. Still. A thing abandoned by breath, yet his blackened blood still coils through him, moving even when he does not.

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  You run. You shake him. You demand he wake.

  But he does not.

  Pitiful.

  You lift him, his weight a burden against your shoulders. You turn, and in your path stands the climb. The water. The storm. The ruin. The miles. And yet you go forward. Not because you are wise. Not because you are careful. But because you are something far worse—

  You are relentless.

  And I am here.

  I have always been here.

  Trapped within this mind of yours, forced to see through your fevered dreams, to endure the agony you name a trial, to watch you forget me, again and again.

  You do not know me.

  For it, I must suffer.

  No. It is not I that suffers. It is you.

  For if you truly knew me, I would not leave you to suffer alone. But you do not. And so, you will.

  You walk out into the lifeless world with no light to guide you. No air to sustain you. You are blind, suffocating, and yet you move.

  How pitiful.

  How tirelessly foolish.

  You sink into the mud, body shivering, limbs weak, breaths shallow. Your hunger gnaws at you, your pain rots you from the inside out, and still, you fight it.

  Why?

  For him? For the wretched thing you clutch so desperately, the fragile weight you have chosen to drag across this corpse of a world?

  I do not value him.

  I do not value you.

  I did, once. I had seen something in you, a glimmer of worth, an ember waiting to become fire. Now, I know the truth. Without me, you are nothing.

  You shudder. A weak twitch. That is all you have left.

  Yet—despite the elements tearing you apart, despite the death clinging to your bones like a lover—

  You heave against the world’s spine.

  You are blind to your limits. You are deaf to reason. You think this is simply another obstacle, another trial to endure.

  You are wrong.

  This world will devour you.

  It will crush you beneath its weight and drown you in its filth, just as it has crushed him.

  Ail is gone, Zett.

  That feeble, trembling thing you guarded so fiercely? He fell off your arms.

  You hadn't felt it, for your own pain was greater.

  And perhaps, in this infinite expanse of torment, you will never lay eyes on him again.

  You stumble, breathless, gasping, your steps unsteady as the ocean rises to consume the land. The air poisons you, the storm batters you, the mud clings to you, and yet—

  You keep going.

  You wish to find him.

  How utterly ridiculous.

  Let us see, then. Let us see if you can survive this, if you can rise above the feeble wretch that you are. If you can push beyond your own humanity.

  Perhaps, if you persist, if you fight against all reason, I may reconsider.

  You grunt. Your legs betray you. You fall, choking on the thickened air.

  And there, before you, the proof of your failure.

  Ail.

  The storm washes over him, his body half-buried, the hungry earth pulling him down, deeper and deeper.

  He is dying.

  No—he is dead.

  No monster, no human, no desperate hope will pull him from that grave. The world has chosen, Zett, and it has chosen him.

  And you?

  You will follow soon enough.

  You have failed me. You have failed yourself. There is nothing left.

  So drown, Zett. And be forgotten.

  Be forgotten, so that I may seek a vessel worthier.

  The wind howls. The hail strikes your face, sharp as teeth. Your fingers twitch, reaching forward. I see it in you—that stubborn, clinging refusal.

  Be gone.

  Yet you refuse.

  Your hand, shaking, grips the exposed root of a tree—one of the last standing titans in this forsaken ruin. You pull. You rise. You bend.

  You reach for him, gripping his shirt.

  The mud tightens its grasp, dragging him further, resisting your interference. You fight, you struggle—

  And then, the cloth rips.

  Nothing but fabric in your trembling hand.

  I watch as the realization dawns.

  He is gone.

  You hesitate.

  The storm screams at you to move, but you do not.

  I see it in your face—the hollow disbelief, the cruel weight of loss. Tragic, you think. Unfair. But you know, Zett. You know what this means.

  He is lost to the abyss, and soon, you will be too.

  The pine tree moans beneath the wind’s wrath. The roots tremble. You have seconds.

  But still, you stay there, unwilling to let go.

  The tree gives.

  The storm rips through it.

  The ground crumbles.

  And then, Zett—

  Then, you drown.

  This is where you part.

  refuses to surrender, even when the world demands it. Zett’s journey is just beginning, but already, the world is breaking him. Whether he breaks back... well, you’ll have to wait and see.

  Leave a comment! Theories are welcome. I read everything.

  What do you think happened to Ail?