Lucian kept walking because stopping had never been an option.
The grey pressed in from all sides, thick and heavy like fog that had forgotten how to lift. It tried to slow him, to wrap around his legs and fill his lungs, but he moved through it the same way he had moved through every other obstacle since the day he woke up in this second chance. One foot in front of the other. No fanfare. No grand declarations. Just the quiet certainty that the people he loved were somewhere ahead, and he was going to reach them.
The dimension fought back in small, vicious ways. Shadows flickered at the edges of his vision, trying to show him things he had tried to forget. Lucy burning. The betrayal that ended his first life. The long, empty years after. He saw them, acknowledged them, and kept walking. The memories frayed and dissolved behind him like smoke.
