Chapter 3: The Impending Storm

The first sign of the storm is not the scent of rain, nor the wind, but the sky itself.

Aldia feels it before she sees it. A pressure in the air, thick and unnatural, pressing against her skin like a held breath. The weight of Noxport has always been suffocating, its decay stretching far beyond its crumbling buildings, but this is different.

She moves through the broken streets, the world still raw from the previous incident. The city is unsettled.

And now, so is the sky.

It happens slowly at first; a flicker, a trick of the light. The rooftops at the edge of her vision bend too far, lean at angles they should not, then snap back as though she had only imagined it. She stops in her tracks, pulse quickening, and lifts her gaze upward.

The sky is wrong.

Clouds do not roll in. They bloom.

Thick tendrils of charcoal and ink unfurl across the heavens, spreading like spilled ink on water, consuming the stars, curling in twisting, unnatural shapes. Lightning flickers within the storm, not white, not blue, but gold, pulsing like veins beneath translucent skin.

A low purring sound emerges from beside her, but there is no amusement in it.

Nyxie is watching, too.

Being tensed, its eyes narrowing to slits as it whispers quietly, "Not normal."

Aldia's fingers brushed against the hilt of her dagger, though she knew steel would do little against whatever this was.

Lightning flickered within the storm, not white, not blue, but gold.

It pulsed, threading through the clouds like veins beneath translucent skin, alive and watching.

Aldia's breath came slow, measured.She muttered, "Not natural."

Nyxie hissed low in agreement.

The storm was following, and something was waiting for them in its shadows. For the years that Aldia has lived in this shattered world, she had yet to find peace. Something was always lurking in the shadows, something always threatening her existence.

Nyxie, perched on a broken crate, flicks its tail, if it even has one in this form. Its body is shifting tonight, the edges flickering like candlelight, uncertain whether to remain solid or dissolve into mist.

Nyxie is curious, and there is a flicker of fear that Aldia felt. "The sky has eyes tonight," said Nyxie.

Aldia does not answer.

Because she knows Nyxie is right.

She turned down a narrow alley, the rooftops arching overhead like the ribs of a great beast. The storm stretched above them, shifting in her periphery, but she kept moving.

The scent changed.

Not rain. Not earth. Something metallic.

Something too sharp to belong to the world she knew.

"Something is coming." Nyxie's non-existent fur bristled.

Then, the sound.

At first, it was distant. A slow, wet scraping, like something heavy being dragged over stone.

Then closer.

Aldia stops, hand tightening on her blade.

A whisper curles around her, barely audible over the pulsing storm above.

Not words. Not yet.

Just the hum of something waiting.

For the first time today, Aldia tried to ignore, but the fear of the impending storm and the shifting shadows still, tapped lightly at her nerves, creating an unease. She moves ahead.

The alley exhales, spitting Aldia out into the courtyard like a careless afterthought.

The space is wide and empty, suffocated by the ruins that loom around it, their facades crumbling, their windows hollowed into yawning, black mouths. The air is thick, damp with decay, but beneath the familiar rot, something sweeter lingers—the sickly scent of something spoiled long ago.

A broken fountain squats in the center, its stonework cracked, its basin filled with stagnant water that glows faintly, slick with an iridescent film. It should not shimmer, not under this sky, not under the suffocating weight of the storm curling above.

Aldia's steps slow.

And then she sees it.

A body.

Slumped over the fountain's cracked edge, the figure is still, almost.

A traveler, by the look of them; a heavy cloak draped over thin shoulders, leather boots caked with mud and filth, a satchel still strapped to their side as though they had not yet accepted death. Their head is bowed, obscuring their face, but Kaelen does not need to see their expression to know nor their gender.

They had not died peacefully.

She stays just outside the fountain's reach, watching.

Then, their fingers twitch.

Just slightly.

A reflex, the last flicker of life in a body that does not yet know it is empty.

The wind moans through the alley behind her. Low. Warning.

Nyxie, perched on the remnants of a shattered stone bench, narrows its silver eyes.

"You should leave them to rot." It gruntles as Aldia goes for the body.

She exhales, long and slow. "I don't take advice from creatures who steal trinkets for fun."

Nyxie flicks its tail—if it even has one. "I don't steal. I collect."

Aldia ignores it, stepping forward. The body does not move again.

She crouches, tilting her head.

The traveler's hand is clutching something.

Something crumpled and old.

Aldia reaches for it.

The body does not protest.