6) the second sun
Location: Unknown City – Frost Realm
Time: Between Suns
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Everett woke to cold sand clinging to his skin like powdered ash.
He sat up, groaning, his breath misting. His clothes were soaked in a chill that didn't feel like weather — it felt like memory. A kind of ancient cold, older than the sky.
Above him hung the red moon.
It didn't glow. It bled.
Huge, low, and luminous, it hovered like it had been hung there by something careless and divine. Its light stretched the city's jagged ruins into long, shifting shadows.
Everett squinted. The frost-bitten buildings looked melted, like they'd once belonged to a different civilization and had been forcefully rewritten.
Where the hell am I?
Then, with no warning — no arc across the sky, no descent — the red moon simply vanished.
Gone.
And from the opposite horizon, a new light crawled into the sky.
The First Sun rose.
It was not warm.
A cold, blood-colored disc crept upward, dragging black shadows like torn flags across the ground. It didn't banish the dark. It argued with it. Faintly.
Everett stood, uneasily brushing frost from his arms — and just as he opened his mouth to speak, the sky ripped open.
With a crash, something large and noodle-covered fell from above, landing in what used to be a soup stall.
"—AUGH!"
Grimbleshank Ironpocket, a dwarf the size of a particularly stressed pumpkin, leapt back and kicked a broken pot.
"You ruined my stall!" he howled. "Three ladles! Two skull bowls! One soul of broth, astral-grade! You owe me!"
The newcomer groaned, tangled in what looked like prayer beads and noodles.
"I have…" he muttered, raising one shaky hand, "…arrived."
Grimbleshank slapped his forehead. "I'm done. That's it. I'm quitting cosmology."
Everett blinked. "Who… are you?"
The man stood.
He wasn't old — maybe Everett's age. His robe shimmered faintly, stitched with constellations and what might've been grease stains. His hair defied gravity and reason.
He gazed at Everett, eyes gleaming like mirrors filled with clouds.
"My name… is Guruji Dev Gopalan.
Some say I was born beneath a weeping star. Others say I appeared when the silence between two prayers cracked open.
They call my class Oracle of Unfinished Prophecy — not because I do not see, but because what I see dares not finish itself.
I am twenty-two winters old, though time bends strangely around those who speak with the unknowable.
A disciple of the Divine, I serve in whispers and riddles — and when the veil thins, I am summoned not as a prophet… but as a part-time oracle. Unpaid. Uninvited. Yet unavoidable.
The truth? It hides its face from me.
But I always catch its shadow."
He said all this while extracting noodles from his sleeves with great dignity.
Everett stared.
Grimbleshank sighed. "Wonderful. Another poet."
He pointed to the steaming bowl Everett still held.
"That," he said. "That's the Blood Sun Feast."
Everett blinked. "This? What is it?"
"The Feast," Grimbleshank repeated, frowning. "Burnt algae, despair, spicy regret. Tastes like crying in a factory."
Everett gagged. Oh god. It does.
Then —
Light exploded.
Not sunrise. Not warmth. Not life.
The Second Sun arrived.
Not rising — appearing. A blinding white flare, sudden and sharp, hovering miles above the city like a scar.
The world stilled.
The air stopped moving.
No sound. No heat. Just cold so perfect it sang, carving the edges of buildings into crystal frost.
Everett's breath caught in his throat.
*Something's wrong.
Something… paused.*
From the frost-sand, the creatures rose.
A frost-worm the size of a carriage. Spider-lizards dragging gnarled trees like weapons. Bone-antlered foxes made of fog and forgotten nightmares.
They rose — and froze.
Mid-motion. Mid-breath.
Time stopped.
It was like watching the last second of a scream before the world muted itself.
Everett turned to Guruji. "What… were these always here? Why are they moving now?"
Guruji stood slowly, soup dripping from his robe.
"They were always there," he said softly. "Like God is with you. You shall not believe it — but that is your foolishness."
Everett looked around, heart thudding.
"Why does it feel like… everything is waiting?"
Grimbleshank was already stacking broken bowls into a pyramid. "Because it is," he said flatly.
"The Second Sun doesn't follow time. It follows events. Disasters. Decisions. Sometimes an hour apart. Sometimes a hundred years. When it shines, something already changed."
Everett narrowed his eyes. "Then how do you know a Blood Sun Feast is coming?"
Grimbleshank didn't even look up.
"Because every time someone new arrives — every time a trial begins — the Second Sun comes.
Like clockwork.
Except it doesn't tell time.
It tells consequences."
---
From the streets below, music began to rise.
On one side, robed figures in gold sashes emerged from ruined archways, singing in tongues, faces lifted toward the burning sky.
Sun-Worshippers. To them, this was holy. Cleansing.
On the other side, others fled. Cloaked in shadow, clutching cracked talismans, they scurried down alleyways and into underground sanctuaries.
Sun-Fearers. To them, the suns were devils. Madness-bringers. Death's messengers.
Everett stood between them.
Bathed in twin shadows.
He whispered, "Grimbleshank… what is this place?"
The dwarf leaned on his ladle, squinting into the pale sky. His voice was grim.
"This? This is the Frost Realm, boy."
Behind them, Guruji swayed, eyes half-closed. A whisper rose from him like steam:
"A mirror shall break…
A shadow will grow legs…
And someone must eat the Second Sun…"
He burped. "Pardon. Radish."
Everett stared at the frozen beasts.
"So we can eat these things?" he asked. "Really eat them?"
Grimbleshank nodded. "Only now. The Second Sun purifies the frost-rot curse. Makes 'em safe. Still tastes like sorrow and moldy furniture — but edible."
Everett frowned. "Then why are there Sun-Fearers? The sun rises every day. Monsters are out every day. But when the Second Sun shows up, they can actually eat without dying."
Guruji's voice dropped low.
"The feared are not the enemy.
No — the feared are the reflection behind the mirror,
The breath before your name is spoken.
They are the self, dressed in shadows,
Wearing old memories like cloaks.
They are the companions you once called friend,
Before time twisted their names.
They are the known — too familiar to be strangers,
Too close to flee.
And thus, the greatest terror is not from without…
But from the echo within."
Grimbleshank's expression tightened.
"He's right," he said.
"The Sun-Fearers don't fear monsters.
They fear people.
Because every time the Second Sun rises…
cities are massacred.
People kill for food. It's easier than chasing a frost-lizard through frozen hell."
Everett looked at the frozen beasts.
Then back at the city.
Then at the figures scurrying below.
And suddenly, the hunger in his belly felt less urgent than the cold inside his chest.
Because in this world…
it wasn't just the monsters you had to survive.
It was the people trying to survive them.
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