The mountain was now just a blurred memory behind them. The forest too had melted into the mists of the past. Before them stretched the plain—an ocean of stones they'd been trekking across for hours.
A near-desert landscape of chilling austerity. The skeletal ground cracked under their steps, a dry sound amplifying the oppressive silence. Not a single silhouette on the horizon, not the slightest sign of life to prove they weren't the last living beings on this thankless earth.
That day, the sun—their relentless enemy of days past—had veiled itself. The sky weighed on the world like a lid of leaden gray, uniform and threatening. Yet since dawn, not a drop had fallen. An unexpected truce, almost unnerving. As if the world itself held its breath, or finally granted them a meager favor.
