Chapter Text
Purple lightning fractures the sky. A whip crack of thunder follows, and the earth trembles. Thick, sticky air fills Jordan's lungs. Charred and hot, like the fumes of burning honey; but there is no sweetness here.
No warmth.
No relief.
The landscape stretches before him, sparse and grey and achingly endless. Dead trees shed their brittle limbs as howling winds tear by, stirring up salted earth and weathered bones. The smell of ash and decay is so strong he can taste it. Longs to spit the bitterness from his sandpaper tongue, but that would require water, moisture of any kind. No such blessing has he found.
The wind picks up speed, barrelling into him from all sides. Is it even just one wind? Or are there several in this place, charging into one another, wrestling for dominance? He pulls his hood tighter, the soft fabric all the shelter he can find in this toxic prison.
There's no way out.
No path to freedom, no door for him to find. His only hope lives on the other side, the world beyond this putrid darkness. Salvation awaits, if he can but endure.
But there is danger here.
He is not alone.
The barest hint of life reveals itself in faded tracks that Jordan dare not follow. Any being sentenced to life in this desolate place would surely offer only pain and misery. Solitude promises his surest chance at survival, but first he must find a place to hide.
There are pillars of stones on the horizon. Giant shapes rising into the starless sky, converging around one another like ogres turned to stone. He does not know what waits within their shadows. Muscles tense with rising dread as he nears, but no alternatives appear. The light is ever fading, and with it the cold grows stronger. Even with his remaining reserves of solar energy, he can feel its frozen sting.
Death will claim him if he finds no place to rest.
He shivers away the thought, refuses to accept such a cruel and twisted fate. Hope still kindles his heart. Images of his father, his brother, his mother. They will not abandon him to waste and torment. They will come for him. They will come for him.
They will come.
He can barely make out the outline of the stones by the time he meets them. Darkness envelopes him. Faint sounds dart about, directionless. He steadies his breath. Crawls into a hollowed out space beneath two stones. Silence greets him as he retreats from the howling wind.
Like a hibernating animal, he curls into a ball. It is too frightening to cry. Regrets wilt before ever unfolding. It takes all he has to hold on to his sanity. How long can he survive like this? No food, no water. No sunlight. Will he become a wraith like them? Another prisoner cursed to haunt this baron land?
No.
His family will come.
They will come.
Alone in the dark, he waits.