Rhys had been walking for god knows how long. His pace had slowed to a stagger, each step heavier than the last. The ground beneath him was solid, yet eerily silent, like the earth itself swallowed every step he made. All he could hear was the shrieking wind, biting through the air.
The cold cut through his bloodied jacket; the one he'd taken from the paramedic's mutated corpse.
'How can it be this cold? This place had two suns. Make it make sense!'
The violet-crimson twin suns hung in the sky, like a pair of eyes, relentless in their gaze. As they began to dip below the horizon, the sky was painted in hues of red and purple —beautiful, but so out of place with the rest of Rhys' surroundings.
And with the fading light came a sharp drop in temperature. Night was approaching fast. Rhys knew he needed to find shelter, or he'd freeze before he could figure out what to do next.
He paused to catch his breath, leaning against a jagged outcropping of stone. His lungs burned with each inhale, the air simultaneously too thick and too thin. It felt wrong in a way he couldn't articulate, like breathing something that wasn't meant for human lungs.
He took a look around, trying to understand the desolate wasteland he found himself in. Further away, towards the horizon, massive towers shot out from the ground. So massive, in fact, that Rhys could not even see the top of them, they just disappeared through the misty clouds.
There were dozens of them scattered all around the hellscape.
And that wasn't the only detail he noticed. Most of them leaned precariously to one side, as if some colossal entity had tried to topple them in a fit of cosmic rage, but had only partially succeeded. His vision only allowed him to barely make out the surface of a few of the closer ones. They were in a dilapidated state, almost like they were crumbling down to pieces.
And from what little he could make out, he guessed that all of them were in a similar state.
All, except one.
Sticking out from the rest like a king surrounded by his court, the majestic obelisk had an oppressive aura that Rhys could feel in his core, as far away as he was. Staring at it, he couldn't help but gulp.
'I'm just gonna ignore that.'
He didn't even know how to describe the feeling he got from just looking at the tower. But it didn't matter, since Rhys decided to walk the opposite direction.
"What other option is there?" he whispered, his voice hoarse from thirst.
The bruised sky above him offered no answers. Speaking felt like an intrusion in this silent landscape.
As crazy as it sounded, Rhys began to suspect that maybe, just maybe, he was not dreaming. His last clear memory was of the bedroom door, and the door that was accompanied by the Whispers, 'For The One Who Returns', before waking up surrounded by obsidian the spikes.
Now, regarding what was happening to him, he already had a theory, but he refused to acknowledge it.
As if in response to his thoughts, a sudden burning sensation flared across his chest and forearm, making him hiss through clenched teeth. He pushed up his sleeve, expecting to find a wound, perhaps a scratch from the briars. Instead, he found strange markings etched into his skin — intricate glyphs that pulsed with a faint luminescence.
They hadn't been there before. Rhys traced them with his finger, feeling the slightly raised texture, like a brand that had just begun to heal. They appeared to form a pattern, but not one he recognized. There was something else about them, as if they extended deeper than just his skin.
Immediately, he recognized them.
'Revenant markings? Why do I…wait a minute.'
That all but confirmed his theory. Much to his dismay.
'I'm in an Abyssal Zone, aren't I?'
The spatial anomalies that started appearing back in the real world alongside Marauder Syndrome, which had already begun manifesting in him. And yes, Rhys was well aware of the monumentally bad luck he had. After all, he was struck by both supernatural anomalies.
Only now, he has a chance to escape back with powers…if he manages to survive.
From the public documents provided by the Revenant Society, the return rate of Revenants was way less than one percent. If he remembers it correctly, it said that for every hundred thousand people caught in a Zone, only one of them would return as a Revenant. And that was only for Echo Level 3.
'Let me just pray that this is a Level 3. Otherwise…'
He did not even want to consider the alternative. But unfortunately for Rhys, he had just become the first human in history to face… 'Zero'.
***
Rhys had made it out of the obsidian briars, but the world beyond offered no solace. A mountainous valley stretched before him, its jagged peaks vanishing into thick, curling fog. The air was heavier here, yet thin at the same time.
His arm — his only arm now, he reminded himself bitterly — ached with phantom pain where his other limb should have been.
A distant howl echoed across the valley, carried by the wind. It didn't sound like any animal Rhys had ever heard. It was too melodic, almost like singing, but with an undercurrent of something primal and hungry. He held his breath, counting the seconds until the sound faded. Thirty-eight seconds. Whatever made that noise had impressive lung capacity.
The burning sensation returned briefly as the sound faded, making Rhys glance at the glyphs on his arm. For a moment, he thought they pulsed in time with the distant howl, but then the sensation subsided.
The only way forward was through a narrow fissure carved into the mountainside, its walls steep and shadowed. Rhys approached it cautiously, running his fingers along the stone. It was smooth, impossibly so, as if carved by something unnatural. Not wind or water erosion, this was deliberate. Tool marks, subtle but present, ran along the walls in swirling patterns.
The path narrowed as he entered the fissure, forcing him to turn sideways at points to squeeze through. The rock walls pressed close, cool against his skin. The brief respite from the wind was welcome, but the silence here was even more oppressive. Each breath, each shuffle of his boots against stone, seemed thunderously loud.
As he progressed deeper, Rhys noticed strange crystalline formations growing from the walls. They pulsed with a faint internal light, blues and greens that reminded him of the neon signs that dotted Haloway's lower levels. He reached out to touch one, then thought better of it. Who knows what would happen to him? For all he knew, they were part of some sentient creature that would devour him as soon as it sensed his touch.
Soon, the fissure opened up into a canyon. A few hours into his journey through the fissure, Rhys found a body.
It looked like it had once been human, but the Marauder Syndrome had progressed far beyond anything he'd seen before. The corpse was elongated, with too many joints in its limbs. Its skin was a pallid gray-green, paper-thin in places, revealing a complex internal structure that wasn't quite bone. Its head was crushed, the damage so extensive that Rhys couldn't determine what it might have looked like intact.
A chilling cold ran down his spine.
What disturbed him more than the body itself were the marks around it. It was clear that a battle had erupted here. He needed to keep moving. If there was something in these passages that could kill whatever this creature had become, he didn't want to meet it.
The passage continued to widen as he continued, eventually opening into a small cavern. The ceiling rose high above, lost in darkness, but the walls were lined with more of the bioluminescent crystals, providing just enough light to see. In the centre of the cavern was a pool of liquid too dark to be water, its surface perfectly still, reflecting the crystal light like a mirror.
Rhys approached cautiously. His parched throat reminded him that he hadn't had anything to drink since before being swallowed by the Abyssal Zone. But something about the liquid made him hesitate. It was too still, too perfect. He knelt beside it and dipped just the tip of his pinky finger in.
Cold — colder than ice — shot up his arm, making him gasp and fall backward. The liquid clung to his skin for a moment before sliding off, leaving no residue but a lingering numbness.
'Not water. Definitely not water.'
He stood up, his muscles aching in protest. It was time to rest. Luckily, Rhys wasn't in the open anymore.
The cavern had three additional passages leading from it. Rhys studied each, trying to determine which might lead to safety. The left passage sloped sharply downward, disappearing into darkness. The middle continued relatively level but was partially blocked by a cave-in. The right sloped upward, and he could feel a faint breeze coming from it — fresh air, possibly a way out.
But that was a journey for tomorrow.
He put some distance between himself and the pool of icy liquid, making sure he was close to the passage just in case he needed a quick escape route. But he couldn't be too close; what if something unfurled from the shadows with murderous intent? It would make a quick meal out of the slumbering human before he could react.
Using the medical pouch as a pillow, he lay uncomfortably on the ground fell into the dark embrace of sleep.
***
The next morning, Rhys wasted no time and entered the right passage.
As he climbed, the air grew noticeably cooler. The wind returned, whistling through the narrow space. The passage twisted and turned, sometimes forcing him to climb over rockfalls or squeeze through tight spaces. His muscles screamed in protest. The occasional phantom pain also did not help, but he endured.
At some point, he had begun dragging himself like a caterpillar on the ground, using his only arm to pull the full weight of his body.
Hours seemed to pass, though without a working sense of time, Rhys couldn't be sure.
He was beginning to consider stopping and turning back when he noticed something ahead — light.
Eventually, the passage led him to what looked like the other side of the mountainous valley. Breathing heavily, Rhys dropped his head and sighed in frustration.
'Why is it just more of the same? How the hell am I supposed to return!?'
He breathed in and out, repeating the process thrice before deciding to resume his trek.
"You made it this far, idiot. Don't stop now."
He walked for what felt like hours, the silence pressing in. That was until a sharp 'crack' shattered the stillness.
Rhys halted.
The sound came again. A dull, rhythmic pounding, like something — or someone —hammering against stone.
He followed the noise carefully, slipping between the craggy rocks, until he saw it.
A small figure, hunched over, striking at something unseen. Their clothes hung in tattered strips, and their movements were sharp, twitchy—like an animal backed into a corner.
Rhys' muscles tensed.
'A human?'