The damp chill of the stone beneath my fingers. The texture of dust and tiny fragments. The feeling of moisture on my uniform.

  My head hurts... — That was the first thought to hit me. In comparison, the cut on my collarbone felt like a mere grain of sand. I didn't know if it was the future pain piling onto the present.

  "Did I fall?" A hand was raised. My fingers pressed against my forehead as if they could crush the throbbing pressure inside. It was a futile gesture.

  The last thing I remember is trying to stop the creature. Why did I do that? None of my actions would be enough; right after that, something hit us. Did I get out in time but what happened to Katia and Elian?

  I raised the upper half of my body, my gaze turning to the ground. The hand supporting me on the cold stone seemed to tremble.

  This isn't the time for that. — The silence contrasted with my deep breath.

  "So, where am I?" — The walls around seemed to give more volume to the words.

  My vision began adjusting to the darkness. A dense penumbra, tinged by a faint, ghostly glow that seemed to emanate from the walls themselves. Slowly, the outlines of the world solidified.

  "A tunnel?" I questioned myself, instinctively raising my gaze upward. A fissure could be seen, four or five meters above. "I'll assume I fell from there. In that case, there must be a way back."

  The logic was fragile, but it was a start. With more effort than usual, I stood up. A quick check was made.

  No broken bones, the wound on the collarbone grazed the bone but isn't bleeding. There shouldn't be a problem moving.

  The cut was just another pain in the collection. The real anchor holding me to the ground was inside my skull, a throbbing weight that made every thought an effort. Ignoring it was the only thing to be done.

  My eyes fixed on the nearest wall, searching for irregularities, for some place where I could brace myself to reach the fissure. I found a protrusion, a stone that seemed looser than the others. I approached, placed my foot on it, and pushed off, stretching my arm.

  Before I could try anything the scene before me turned white, a familiar white; I knew where that color was coming from. My hair stirred slightly, as if someone were blowing on it.

  Wind?

  I turned slowly, my attention now completely focused on the tunnel ahead, in the direction opposite the fissure.

  "An air current at this depth?" The current was weak and intermittent. A sensation different from the heavy air in the previous chamber. "It doesn’t seem to be coming from very far away."

  It's unlikely the path is deeper into this tunnel, but I don't know how I got here. Maybe it's worth taking a look; if there's nothing, I can just go back.

  I stretched my shoulders, trying to release the tension, then materialized the dagger right after.

  It’s broken, but it’s better than nothing.

  I started walking. The tunnel was a stone chokehold, narrow enough that my shoulders almost brushed the walls on both sides. The blue light of the fungi was scarce here, painting only disconnected patches in the darkness.

  Is Katia okay? She wasn't attacked; so much happened that I didn't have time to pay attention to her. That white light was possibly magic; Varis, maybe? If that's right, then I don't need to worry about Katia's safety.

  But what if it isn’t Varis? If that’s the case, I’m in a bad situation. I don’t know how much time has passed since I ended up here. If they wait for me, it could be a terrible decision.

  I turned my focus back to the tunnel. After a few minutes of slow walking, every turn of the tunnel seemed identical to the last.

  Really not the path, I thought, my hand slipping on the wall's moisture. "It just leads deeper. I should go back, try to climb somehow, or..."

  A noise, which I stopped before it happened. A twig, just beneath my foot. On its body, reddish leaves spread like ants.

  My gaze rose, scanning the floor ahead. There were more fine roots, like ghostly veins, sprouting from fissures in the stone. Moss covered parts of the wall. The wind, once a suggestion, was now a constant breeze, carrying with it the smell of damp earth.

  I kept walking until the tunnel ended. There was a fissure leading into another chamber. I was certain that wasn't the way back, yet, unconsciously, I chose not to turn back.

  Taking another step forward, the tip of my boot found the edge of the tunnel's end. An irregular opening in the wall gave access to a larger chamber.

  "Artificial?" — That was the first thing that came to mind. All I could see from the tunnel was a huge, smooth block of stone.

  I leapt from the crack in the wall to the ground. The space expanded vertiginously, wrenching a short sigh from me.

  A corridor of absurd proportions, so wide three carriages could pass side by side, and so high the ceiling was lost in the penumbra. The light came from its distant end, a diffuse, grayish brightness, like daylight filtered through a thick layer of mist.

  But it was the walls that stole my breath. Built from enormous blocks, each larger than a person, perfectly geometric. The joints were so precise, they looked more like a drawing on stone than a construction. Time, however, had not been kind. In some parts, the stone was chipped, corroded by millennia of moisture, deep cracks snaking across the immaculate surfaces.

  Something else instantly caught my attention — "Statues?"

  The moment my feet touched the corridor floor, I noticed dozens of statues, each with distinct shapes and proportions.

  I took a step forward, approaching one of them. There was an inscription:

  "Tuicha kuéra ha i-mbo’ehára rehegua hag?ua. Zamaz Inis-pe ojejapo mba’e tuicha-eterei, ndaikatúi o?emoheraku?mba. Saint oikuaa ha oguerohory i-rembiapo kuéra, ha ome’? aguyje tuicha kuéra ruvicha Metuk"

  I stood still, my eyes fixed on the strange curves and accents. The conclusion was inevitable and clear:

  "I didn't understand anything..." — Not a single word. Not even a single syllable seemed to connect to anything I'd ever seen.

  My gaze rose, following the mass of stone above the inscription. The pain in my head throbbed in protest at the effort. The statue was of a humanoid being, but the proportions were off. It was too large for a human, dozens of meters tall, carved from a type of stone darker than the wall, almost black. It held something against its chest—a rounded object, but the details were worn away by time.

  My focus then detached from that silent guardian and traveled down the corridor. The row continued; wherever I looked, there was a pedestal. Each pedestal housed a different form: a creature with a serpent's body, one that looked like a trunk, another with wings... The list seemed endless.

  What is the purpose of this hall? It doesn’t seem like a room people normally pass through. If I’m not mistaken, Katia mentioned some inscriptions earlier—could she have been referring to this?

  My hair was hit again by the same wind as before. Stronger now. Coming from what seemed to be the corridor's end, from where that diffuse, grayish light insisted on existing, defying all logic of depth and darkness.

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  My legs moved of their own volition, ignoring the very foundation I was accustomed to acting upon. I passed dozens of stone statues as I followed the origin of that unknown wind.

  Another involuntary movement, a touch at the base of a statue to anchor my thought: I should go back. The idea gained no strength, countered by the weak wind that became increasingly distinct as I approached.

  The light source ahead took shape. A narrow vertical line, and around it, a door.

  Made of the same polished, dark stone as the statues, it filled the entire height and width of the corridor, from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling lost in the penumbra. A meticulously detailed construction. Intricate geometric patterns, so fine they seemed etched with a needle.

  For the corridor's scale, it was just an insignificant flaw, a crack in a giant's skin. For me, it was a wide passageway.

  My vision, once accustomed to the tunnel's darkness and the corridor's bluish penumbra, went through a millisecond of blinding. Meanwhile, the wind hit me with its full, now unimpeded force, wrenching a sigh from me and dragging my hair against the horizon.

  As soon as my eyes adjusted, the confirmation of the future I had seen materialized as a crushing fact.

  An abyss before me, and at its depths, a city.

  Seen from above, like a living map, it stretched as far as my eyes could see, at least half the size of the Capital. Its roofs weren't slate or tile, but something that glowed softly with the same grayish light coming from above. Reddish petals—thousands of them—flew everywhere, carried by the air currents rising from the abyss, tinting the air a pinkish, unreal hue.

  The city was distant. So distant that people, if there were any, would be mere specks. A fall from here would be endless.

  And filling this colossal abyss, giving substance and context to this impossible vision, was a single structure at the city's center.

  A tree.

  The proportions were more impossible than anything that had happened so far. Two colossal trunks emerged from the city's grayish soil. They intertwined in a perfect, powerful spiral, ascending together until they merged into a single base supporting the canopy.

  A city? Underground? Wait, am I really underground? Where exactly am I? Where is this light coming from? — I took a step back. The logic I was accustomed to was finally returning.

  On the floor of the stone platform, at the edge of the abyss, something small glowed. Growing stubbornly in a crack in the rock. Unlike the predominant reddish-pink of the landscape, that small flower shimmered violet.

  I crouched and extended my hand. Dust and dried blood hovered over the flower for an instant before I touched the nearest petal delicately.

  The small stem offered surprising resistance before yielding. As I watched the wind beat against the petals, a small pain originated in my finger. Instinctively, the muscles in my hand contracted. The flower fell, spinning once in the air before tumbling into the abyss.

  Nothing here makes sense. How can a place like this exist beneath the underground? What is that tree at the center of the city? And how is all of this being supported by nothing…? Nothing… Wait, what exactly are those clouds in the abyss? Is it floating?

  A drop of blood? I ran the flower between my hands.

  At the center of my finger, a perfect drop of bright red blood welled up, brutally contrasting with the grime and the pallor of my skin. It was a tiny wound, like the prick of an invisible thorn.

  "Strange, Where did this co…"

  "Rehechápa oikóta jevy hag?ua hag?ua ko arapok?indy paha-pe? — Ahecha, he?. Ndaipóri chemandu’a hag?ua ko ary o?epyr?maha. He’ikuéra o?taha pete? tenda pyahu tembi’u hag?ua. — Tove ogueru jevy pe avatyra’?’? yvytu ret?gua, upéva tuicha-iterei he’?. — Saint, jajapova’er? mba’e, ndaikatúi jaheja hag?ua yvyra oku’epav?ve mana-ve. — Tup? che! Ehecháke nde rehe. — Atyryry. — Ahecha. Eju ápe… e?embyai piko? — Nahániri, a?a’?nte che ao. — Ipor?ite. Ao niko o?emopot?kuaa, che ra’y... Please, help me."

  Something was invading my mind. Unlike the linear perception granted by my foresight, the sound now blurred between future and present, making what I already didn’t understand even more incomprehensible.

  Strange voices, speaking that impossible language from the inscriptions, inside my skull, overlapping, whispered and shouted at the same time. A pressure within my head took shape alongside the voices. My back hit the surface of the door behind me.

  Both ears were pressed shut by my hands, a futile gesture against the invader. My eyes closed, but the images continued. Flashes of light walking among dozens of people, a chamber, and some random room.

  "Roguerovy’a, emone? ko ?e’?me’?."

  "Please... Accept the vow."

  As abruptly as it began, it ceased. The pain and voices dissipated, giving way to a heavy silence, broken only by the irregular, hoarse sound of my own breathing. When I opened my eyes, everything was still there: the city, the tree, the petals. The grandeur, however, no longer caused wonder.

  Reason, sharpened by the shock, overrode the instinct of curiosity and the echo of the plea for help, resulting in a single line of thought, clear and urgent:

  What am I doing? I have to go back right now; I don't know Katia's situation or that of the rest of the group; they might be looking for me right now.

  I left the vista, my heel hit the ground, and I started to run.

  The corridor of statues, which had seemed endless on the approach, now transformed into a tunnel of haste and contained panic. The statues became dark blurs in the periphery of my vision, stone giants witnessing my hurried retreat. The blue light of the fungi streaked elongated lines in the air. The only sounds were the frantic echo of my boots against the stone and the hiss of my breath, which burned in my bruised ribs with every inhalation.

  I climbed through the fissure I had descended; the space contorted, but I forced my way through.

  If that climb isn't the exit, what should I do? Given the city's scale, I should be kilometers from the surface... No, when the cave-in happened, the ceiling above us was intact. If that's the case here... No, it's no use thinking about that; I'll think of countermeasures after trying that climb.

  In little time, I found the familiar floor of the place where I had awakened. I leaped for the opening in the ceiling, using the wall as a springboard.

  Not long after, I emerged in a corridor. Two paths. One plunged into deeper darkness, without the company of the blue lichen. The other, to the left, seemed to follow a slight upward incline and had a slightly stronger glow, promising perhaps an exit, or at least a change.

  First, the path upward. If I don't find anything in five minutes, I'll try another path. One, two, three, four...

  The path seemed endless; the weight inside my chest seemed to grow heavier each moment.

  How long was I in that place? It's impossible to have any sense of time without sunlight. Two hundred forty, forty-one...

  I saw what seemed to be a possible turn ahead, a more pronounced curve in the stone tunnel. I quickened my pace, hoping to see an exit.

  As soon as I turned the corner, the air around me changed. It was as if space itself had become viscous, as if I were trying to run through water.

  What was that? — My eardrums picked up something beyond the strangeness of the air. "A voice?"

  The tunnel ended abruptly, opening into a familiar, wide space: The square chamber. Where we had fought. The rubble from the battle was still there, but organized, as if someone had combed through the place.

  It was a quick and fluid turn, so smooth it seemed to have faced no resistance at all. Her bright red eyes found me instantly. In a leap that seemed almost impossible, she covered the distance of meters in milliseconds.

  Varis stopped less than an arm's length away. Her breathing was unsteady, and grime had impregnated every part of her uniform.

  "Sorry," the word came out in a hoarse breath. "And... thank you. For being alive."

  She made a tiny pause, as if recomposing herself, and when she spoke again, her voice had regained a thread of its usual posture, but still softer.

  "Yes..." — The reply came without confidence.

  "Do you think you're well enough for a trip?" she questioned, her gaze assessing my injuries with practical concern. "I need to get you to the surface."

  "I can manage," I replied, trying to sound firmer than I felt. "Katia and the rest of the group... are they okay?"

  "They are. Everyone is on the surface, under the care of other instructors." — The confirmation brought an intense relief that nearly made my knees buckle. Varis noticed and made a quick gesture. "Let's go. Hold on."

  We walked to the center of the square, where the devastation was most evident. There, Varis stopped.

  "Forgive me," she said, without ceremony. And before I could process it, her right arm wrapped firmly around my waist, but without brute force.

  She can fly. — The thought was followed by the fact.

  As we ascended through the perfect tunnel created by the attack, a series of doubts began to form.

  How exactly did I get here? Those voices inside my head... I managed to understand some words.

  "Varis, how did you find us? That light and that creature..."

  Varis, holding me with disturbing ease, laughed lightly. The sound was dry, almost weary.

  "Phoenicis," she said, in a sarcastic tone. "At this very moment, you have bigger problems than that."

  She didn't elaborate. She merely continued our ascent toward the surface, leaving the question—and the weight of her words—hanging in the air alongside us.

  The daylight began filtering in more strongly, the dust in the air making it seem solid. Before we completely reached the surface, the future showed me something:

  Under the sun, sitting on a fallen stone block, was a lavender silhouette. Hunched over, knees pulled to her chest, arms wrapped around her legs like a shield. Her head was low, long lavender hair falling like a curtain, completely hiding her face.

  As soon as we crossed the line demarcating the underground from the surface, the future was realized. A relief coursed through my muscles, making all the weariness seem lighter for a moment.

  "Katia..."