Micah froze for a moment. Time seemed to have stopped, as if the very air around him had grown thick, impenetrable. The sound of the wind vanished, the rustling of leaves ceased, and even the hurried pounding of his heart felt muffled inside his chest.

  But when his mind staggered, his body acted.

  In a primitive impulse, he spun on his heels and bolted between the twisted trees. Black trunks and bent branches stretched out like claws to grab him, shadows coiling around him, and every step felt like a challenge to the very laws of physics. The ground was soft, treacherous, covered in damp leaves and exposed roots like ruptured arteries of the forest.

  His sedentary lifestyle, accumulated over years of urban life, exacted its cruel toll. His lungs burned, his vision flickered at the edges. Every breath was like pulling broken glass into his chest. He had no stamina. No training. Not even hope of escaping that place by running—but he ran anyway, because fear was the only force older than reason itself.

  Micah felt sweat stream down his back in rivers, mixing with dust and the scratches piling up on his arms and legs. He forced himself not to look back, not to give doubt any room—just run, run like a rat in a burning house.

  His intuition, that horrible weight deep in his gut, screamed louder.

  When his eyes began to make out a narrow clearing ahead, hope betrayed his focus. His already faltering feet failed to see the natural trap before him: a thick branch, covered in moss, curved like the tongue of some invisible beast.

  The world spun.

  His foot slipped, gravity yanked his body down violently, and in an instant he felt the ground vanish beneath him. The sensation of the fall was brief but brutal—a dry crack echoed as his shoulder slammed into a tree root, and pain exploded in blinding spasms.

  He fell to the side, rolling once, twice, until he stopped face down, his mouth full of dirt and leaves.

  The world remained silent.

  But now it was not the silence from before. It was a silence that whispered of very near danger, like breathing in the dark.

  Micah tried to get up, but his arms trembled like soaked twigs. Every fiber of his body seemed to beg him to give up—to simply lie there and wait for the end. But he knew that was a luxury he would not be granted.

  He didn’t even have time to react.

  Rough, powerful hands flipped him over in one motion and grabbed him by the collar, lifting him off the ground as if he were a rag doll. Micah barely managed to see the shape in front of him before feeling the impact.

  The blow came fast—an iron gauntlet, cold and merciless, smashing squarely into the side of his face. The pain wasn’t only physical; it was as if his head exploded into white light and a deafening ringing.

  Micah had been in a few street fights before, yes, and thought he knew the pain of a punch. But that… that was different. It was like being hit by a moving wall. His whole body wobbled in the air before being thrown back to the ground with a dull thud, and for a moment he couldn’t even tell whether he still had teeth in his mouth. Everything spun. The metallic taste of blood flooded his tongue. And even so, instinctively, his arms tried to protect him, as if his stubborn body still insisted on surviving. He tried to get up again, his head ringing like never before, his vision so blurred that the silhouette of his approaching aggressor was indistinguishable from a nearby tree.

  — You shitty redhead. You really thought you could run away?! With that scrawny little body?! Ha! — the soldier mocked, his expression full of hatred, yet clearly taking pleasure in beating him.

  — Wait! Please— and it was exactly that pleasure he was seeking; he kicked the redhead in the stomach before he could even finish the sentence.

  Micah dropped to his knees, clutching his belly as he struggled to breathe. His reaction time was awful—he took a kick to the head before even processing the pain from the previous strike. He fell to the side, in a pathetic attempt to protect himself, curling into a fetal position, knees drawn to his stomach, head tucked between his arms. He received kick after kick—legs, stomach, arms—it didn’t matter to the man as long as he caused pain. A psychotic smile stretched across the soldier’s face. Micah didn’t stand the slightest chance against someone trained and so much stronger than him.

  — This is what you deserve! Looters, filthy murderers! You’re nothing but wild animals! This is… what… you… deserve!

  He tried to speak, but every impact violently knocked the air from his lungs. The kicks were like thunder exploding against his flesh, reverberating through his body as raw, naked waves of pain. The pain didn’t come only from the impact, but from the accumulated weight: each blow carved a fresh bruise, as if his body were being forcibly molded, broken and reshaped under the cruel rhythm of leather boots.

  A kick to the shin burned like hot iron, while another to the stomach seemed to squeeze his soul out, leaving an unbearable nausea mixed with vertigo. If he had eaten dinner the night before, he would have vomited right there.

  When a kick struck his poorly protected head, the world around him blinked out in a flash and momentary darkness; his jaw cracked and his skull vibrated like a cracked bell.

  “So this is how I’m going to die…?” he thought amidst the blows.

  He was certain of his end, under someone else’s soles—how appropriate for him.

  Despite his thoughts, the kicks stopped abruptly.

  He heard a voice, distant, fighting to stay conscious amid the infernal pain:

  “Have you lost your mind?! Grünermais gave clear orders not to kill any slaves, have you forgotten what—” and Micah passed out.

  …

  I was walking down a corridor; the air inside was dense, heavy. Breathing seemed to require effort, as if something invisible were gripping my lungs. The texture of the walls—peeling, revealing plaster, yet strangely familiar—caught my eye at every step. That ceiling… the fiber-cement tiles were low, giving me claustrophobia, even though this was a place that had once been so comfortable. I knew this place as well as my own home.

  I caught myself staring at small, meaningless details, trying to avoid what lay at the end of that corridor I’d walked so many times. The silence pierced my eardrums; the closer I got to that damned door, the more it seemed to recede, my anxiety consuming me from the inside out as I wondered:

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  Why did I come back to this place?

  …

  Micah woke up screaming, his shirt soaked with sweat and his heart feeling like it was about to explode. The other slaves were startled by his sudden outburst and complained before going back to sleep.

  “This hellish dream again… Wait, where am I?” he murmured to himself.

  It was late at night, and Micah seemed to be in some kind of repurposed barn, lying atop a pile of straw like everyone else there. There was a boy lying face down a few meters away, tending to his wounds were improvised bandages—made of torn strips of clothing. He immediately recognized the boy with deformed hands, but beyond him he couldn’t identify anyone else due to the darkness.

  When he tried to get up, he was immediately overtaken by an intense burning throughout his body, falling back into the straw. He had forgotten his injuries, but the bruises certainly hadn’t forgotten him. Unable to stand, Micah woke the child:

  — Psst, hey, kid. Psst. — Micah whispered.

  — Hm…? What is it? — he replied while yawning; he looked to be around eleven or twelve years old.

  — Where are we?

  — In a barn… look, I’m sleepy… can you let me sleep? — he whispered back, rubbing his drowsy eyes.

  — No, I mean the place, the city. Where are we?

  — In Luther, the outskirts I think. I don’t know the exact city. Can I sleep now?

  — Luther? Where is that?

  — South of the Crooked Forest, in the northeast of the Open Plain. Everyone knows where Luther is. — He frowned. — Do you live under a rock or something?

  — SHUT UP ALREADY, WE WANT TO SLEEP, DAMN IT! — a man shouted from the other side of the barn, startling them both.

  Confused, drowsy, and unable to tense a single muscle without pain, Micah decided to go back to sleep. Wherever he was, or the reason for being there, certainly wouldn’t be things he’d figure out now.

  …

  Micah was rudely awakened by the sound of the door creaking open, sunlight blinding him for a moment. Before he could even regain his vision, he was brutally grabbed by the arms and had his hands bound with rusty iron shackles. Immediately afterward, he was hauled up by force, causing infernal pain throughout his body due to the reddened wounds that covered nearly all of him.

  He let out a brief scream from the sudden torture, his battered muscles pulsing in continuous protest.

  — AH! What’s happening?! Let me go! — He wasn’t even given a moment to speak before being punched in the face, this time by bare hands.

  As soon as his vision returned, Micah saw his attacker. Unlike the soldiers, this man wore no armor—only a black tunic and a straw hat worn out by the sun. At his belt, a machete stained with dirt. In his hand, a coiled whip, ready to be used again.

  No soldiers could be seen around, not even the blond man in the silver tunic.

  — You still don’t get it, kaleorine? You’re a slave now, your life is over! Struggling won’t get you anywhere. — declared the farmer coldly, though with far less hatred than the previous soldier.

  — What? What do you mean “kaleorine”?! Please, let me go—whatever this is, I’m not one of them! I have nothing to do with this— His desperate plea was cut off by a threatening whisper from the farmer, who stared straight into his eyes.

  — If you make one more sound, I’ll finish the job your previous owner started. You understand? — Micah was immediately silenced.

  The redheads were split into two groups: those who would stay at the barn, and those who would be sent to the city, Edel-Füllhorn. The boy he had met in the caravan would stay on the farm, while he would go to Füllhorn, where he would likely be sold as slave labor.

  Micah was about to be taken away when he looked at the boy again. He didn’t know why he was doing this. Maybe it was anger. Maybe just frustration at the absurdity of the situation. Maybe he just wanted to take out his own weakness on something.

  He turned to the older slaver and said, in an acidic, almost mocking tone:

  — That kid’s already dead. See the bandages? It reeks of infection. If he dies and the body rots here, that could spread diseases… I don’t know, maybe even reach the food supplies. But what do I know? I’m just some scrawny slave, you must know better.

  The old man paused for a moment, eyes half-lidded, considering Micah’s words. Then he grumbled something and shot a look at one of the overseers.

  — Throw him in a separate shack. If he lives, he lives. If he dies, use him as fertilizer. — He looked back at Micah, his tone turning harsh. — And you—never speak to me in that tone again, boy, or you’ll pay more dearly than you imagine.

  Micah didn’t reply, only averted his gaze. There was no heroism there. No nobility. He didn’t even know how this would help the boy in such a deplorable situation; he had just acted without thinking. Maybe it was an attempt to ease the weight in his chest upon realizing he couldn’t do anything truly meaningful, incapacitated by his weakness. Just another irrelevant and irrational action.

  But when he was pulled back into the line, the boy looked at him.

  He didn’t thank him. He didn’t smile.

  But he looked—and acknowledged Micah’s existence.

  As soon as the group left the barn and his eyes adjusted to the daylight, Micah was struck by a brutal silence. Before him stretched a vast golden plain, where tall, dry grass swayed gently at the touch of the wind—like an unmoving breath, frozen in time.

  Then he raised his gaze.

  And his world broke.

  His blood ran cold so instantly it felt as if it had been replaced by ground glass. Every hair on his body bristled like barbs. He blinked—once, twice, three times. Rubbed his eyes with his fists. Counted the fingers on his hand. Tried to breathe.

  But what hovered up there… should not exist.

  The sky, stretched like an unbreakable blue ceramic mantle, was interrupted by a colossal ring, so enormous that one could barely see where its ends met, suspended over the world—like the shattered halo of a dead angel, or the corpse of a celestial crown fallen into disgrace.

  Formed of fragments of varying sizes of stone and spectral light, the ring rotated with a slowness that seemed to mock time itself.

  It wasn’t just beautiful.

  It was grotesquely sacred.

  Like a floating altar to a god no one dared name anymore.

  And then Micah felt it.

  He didn’t just see—it felt.

  Like an invisible, icy hand squeezing his stomach.

  Like the smell of a grandmother’s room after she died in her sleep.

  Like the hum of fluorescent lights dominating the corridors of an empty hospital.

  It was a sensation impossible to name, yet so familiar that his heart nearly stopped.

  And for an instant…

  For just an instant…

  He looked back at me.

  No—he saw me.

  A tremor ran through the air, as if the very firmament bristled at the event.

  How…?

  HOW DARE you raise those miserable globes toward me?!

  A sliver of flesh, fragile bones, a weakling among the weak… staring at ME, the master of this world?!

  I could crush every one of your memories and rewrite them to my will.

  Calling you an amoeba would insult the organisms of this world, but… even so… you have this AUDACITY?!

  Micah staggered back, his heartbeat out of rhythm like broken drums. His fingers curled, unsure whether they sought protection… or confession.

  No, you piece of dogshit… I will not allow you to look away.

  Since you dare to look at me, you will see everything.

  He felt the world give way. Misstepping, he stumbled… and the landscape unraveled like paint washed away by rain.

  The ground vanished.

  The sky vanished.

  The world became water.

  The stench of mud rose nauseatingly.

  The metallic taste of blood spread like rust across his tongue.

  Arms—not his, but of a fragile doll—thrashed against the current.

  His throat closed around a scream with no air.

  But it wasn’t the stream.

  It was worse.

  He no longer saw water… only pollution and waste remained, forming a black, thick, fetid sludge that dragged him down with the force of a hundred men. Inside it, something moved—as if thousands of slugs crawled through every inch of his digestive tract. His veins burned indescribably, as if boiling urine replaced every ounce of his blood.

  Do you see how fragile you are?

  Do you see how useless you are?

  You can’t even swim in your own despair.

  His heart raced until it nearly tore through his ribs, but it was useless, only agonizing his body further.

  He tried to scream, tried to vomit, but it was useless, only mollusks spilled from his esophagus.

  He tried to rise, but it was useless, his own muscles betrayed him.

  Until, with a dry sob, he emerged from the trance.

  He breathed as if air were a stolen gift, his body trembling like a green branch.

  He looked up… and there was only the colossal ring, slowly turning, distant.

  No eye. No voice.

  Micah couldn’t recall what had just happened. It wasn’t normal forgetting. No. It was as if something had excised the event from his mind, the same way someone tears a page from a book.

  The words are missing, but the tear… remains.

  Seeing that he wouldn’t find out where that shock and lack of air had come from, he decided to analyze his surroundings again, clinging to the faint hope of finding a way back home, trying to ignore the irrefutable proof of his ruin far above his head.

  The sky was clear, the same infinite blue as before. The land stretched flat, with low hills, except to the north, where the twisted silhouette of the forest he had left behind etched itself on the horizon. Even at a distance, those trees looked wrong, trunks bent as if the forest itself had been forcibly shaped.

  The rest was golden plain and a river winding to the northwest, gleaming like a trembling mirror. A sturdy bridge connected its banks, farms spread as far as the eye could see. In the distance, the walls of a city rose.

  But Micah felt it—the place was not his world. The light, the smell, the sound… everything was almost familiar, like a dreamed and distorted memory.

  He didn’t want to believe it, wished very much to be insane, but deep down…

  He knew.

  Oh, how he knew.

  He knew like a fish knows it doesn’t belong in the air, even without ever breathing it.

  He knew like a deer knows it’s being hunted, even before hearing the snap of a branch.

  Look at him—so far from the anthill, so lost under open sky.

  And so, so easy to crush.