The road twisted beneath my feet, crumbling into fine dust with each uncertain step. I was walking blind through a wasteland of broken steel and scorched bone, the sky above churning a thick, sickly grey. My breath came shallow, ragged with the weight of ash clogging my lungs. The ember I'd followed was gone, vanished into the folds of the earth like it had never existed. But its echo remained—a faint heat, deep in my chest, a low pulse I couldn't shake.
Every step felt heavier than the last. My boots dragged through slag, the cracked remnants of a city ground to ruin beneath machinery and war. Rusted skeletons of buildings leaned against each other like drunks in the final moments of collapse, and the horizon shimmered with the promise of something worse. Somewhere far ahead, a shape was taking form, blurred by distance and smoke.
I didn't trust it. I didn't trust anything in this place.
My mind was a splintered mirror, fragments of memory flickering like candlelight on water. I tried to piece them together as I walked, but each one slipped through my fingers. Faces I didn't know, names I couldn't recall, screams that echoed in a voice that might have been mine. I clenched my fists, felt the rough edges of scabbed palms. There was no going back, not now. The ground was pulling me forward, even as the air grew thick and sweet, the smell of rot blooming like a false flower.
Ahead, the shape solidified into a structure—a low mound of earth and twisted metal, scarred with deep gouges. A hill, or a grave. I hesitated at the base, staring up at its uneven crest. Something was wrong. The air hummed, a vibration beneath the skin, a sound that wasn't sound but something older. Something waiting.
I climbed.
Each step sent a shiver through the ground, like I was walking on the stretched skin of something vast and sleeping. My breath came shallow, mouth dry as ash, the weight in my chest tightening with each rise. Near the top, I stumbled, catching myself against a jutting spine of twisted rebar. My palm split open, blood slicking the metal, but I hardly felt it. The hum grew louder, more insistent.
When I reached the summit, I stopped.
The mound wasn't a mound at all. It was a body.
A titan of bone and rusted iron, half-buried in the slag, ribs arching skyward like the remains of some ancient leviathan. Its skull, a cracked and hollow thing, stared with empty sockets at the bruised sky. The hum was coming from it, from deep within, as though its bones still held the echo of something trying to break free.
I approached, each step echoing in the hollow spaces. The wind shifted, carrying the scent of scorched earth and old blood. My hand hovered over the massive jaw, fingertips brushing the brittle edge. There was something written there, carved deep into the bone with a jagged, trembling hand. I leaned closer, squinting through the ash:
Liar.
A chill ran down my spine, sharp as a blade pressed against my neck. The hum deepened, rising from a vibration into a shudder, a tremor beneath my boots. The world tilted, the ground sagging inward like the belly of a dying animal. I stumbled back, but it was too late.
The jaw cracked open.
A burst of foul air hit me, thick and cloying, and I reeled, coughing, eyes streaming. A shape surged from the hollow chest of the titan—a figure, thin and ragged, its limbs too long and stitched wrong, skin slick with something that wasn't blood. Its face was twisted in a grin that didn't touch its black, hollow eyes.
"You're late," it rasped, voice dry as old parchment. "The ground's been waiting for you."
I staggered back, heart hammering in my throat. The figure lunged forward, a blur of tattered limbs and clicking joints. I raised my arms, but it didn't attack. Instead, it circled me, sniffing the air like a hound scenting weakness. Its grin widened, splitting impossibly across its face.
"You've got it," it whispered. "That little crack. The rot. The stolen piece. You're wearing it like a skin."
I tried to speak, but my voice cracked, dry and useless. The figure leaned closer, its breath cold against my cheek.
"It's not yours," it hissed. "It never was. But it's in you now. Can't run from it, can't scrape it off. It'll eat you, slow. Piece by piece."
I shoved at it, but it was like pushing smoke. The figure flickered, shimmered, and was suddenly behind me, breath curling against the nape of my neck.
"Want to see where it leads?" it whispered. "Want to see what's waiting at the end of this road?"
Before I could move, the ground beneath me cracked, a sharp, splintering sound like glass breaking underfoot. I felt myself falling, tumbling into a hollow space that yawned wide beneath the titan's ribs. The figure's laughter followed me down, sharp and bitter as broken teeth.
Darkness closed around me, thick and suffocating. The hum rose to a deafening pitch, filling my head with static. My thoughts scattered like ash on the wind, and for a moment, I wasn't falling—I was floating. Caught between breaths, between heartbeats, weightless in a world without ground.
Then I hit something solid, pain lancing up my spine. I lay still, gasping, as the hum faded into silence.
When I opened my eyes, I was alone in the dark. But not for long.
A faint light flickered ahead, pale and cold. A voice—soft, lilting, almost kind—whispered from the shadows:
"Welcome to the lying ground."