The air was thick with the scent of scorched earth, carrying a metallic tang that clung to my tongue and reminded me uncomfortably of blood. Each breath felt like inhaling the remnants of a dying fire, acrid and lingering. The sky stretched endlessly above, painted in lurid hues of lavender and a sickly yellow that had no place in any natural world I'd traversed. In that sky, thin, twisting clouds meandered across the horizon, sometimes vanishing in the blink of an eye as though they, too, were uncertain whether they belonged here.