The air in Xlezas was not composed of oxygen; it was a metallic suspension, a poison that scratched the throat like particles of crushed glass.
Zirinos dragged himself across the muddy ground, feeling the weight of his own existence as if every bone in his body had been replaced by lead. His hands, calloused by the frozen earth of Lunos, trembled.
He could still feel the residue of Mira's cold beneath his fingernails—the last vestige of a life that he, in his former sadism, would never have wept for. Now, it was all that remained.
The house rose like a rotten tooth in the middle of the forest, a structure of decaying wood and twisted metal. He pushed the door, which groaned on its hinges with a sound that seemed like a lament, and collapsed.
The earthen floor was his only bed. Zirinos did not want to sleep; he wanted to fade away, but the exhaustion of his soul was a force greater than his will. He closed his eyes, but there was no darkness; there were only the memories of Decatry. The smell of rot. The weight of the bodies. The absolute silence that followed the end of an entire world.
The sound came before the threat: the crunch of a dry step over a scrap of metal. Before Zirinos could open his eyes or reach for what remained of his dignity, he felt the icy, jagged touch of a blade against his neck.
"If you move, I'll cut your throat to the bone," whispered a female voice, young, but heavy with the harshness of someone living on the edge of the law.
Zirinos did not move.
His heart rate did not increase.
He slowly opened his eyes, facing the shadow that hovered over him. The girl had a face stained with ash and eyes that, despite the darkness, gleamed with a murderous pragmatism. She held a scimitar that looked as though it had been forged from the capital's garbage.
"Kill me," said Zirinos. His voice was a crackle of gravel, devoid of any fear. "It would be the most gentle thing to happen in this place".
The girl hesitated, confused by the apathy of that voice. In the corner of the room, a movement caught Zirinos's attention. An elderly man emerged from the shadows, holding a lantern that emitted a sickly, amber light. The old man did not look at the scimitar, nor at the intruder. He looked directly into Zirinos's eyes.
The old man blinked, and his eyes dilated unnaturally, emitting a glassy glow, as if his irises were made of liquid glass.
The Perceiving Eye opened, revealing to him not what Zirinos was, but the myriads of disasters he dragged along with him. The old man saw the trail of blood from Endomyar, the weight of the souls buried in Lunos, and the web of choices that led him there.
"Do not cut him, child," the old man's voice was a dry whisper, but it emanated an authority that made the girl take a step back, even though the scimitar did not lower. "His skin is the only thing keeping reality together. If you bleed him here, you open a wound that this world will have no dressing to close. He is not a man who invaded our house. He is a catastrophe that has just found its way".
Zirinos slowly sat up, the blade of the scimitar still brushing his skin. He looked at the old man, recognizing in him something that did not belong to that world.
"Who are you?" asked Zirinos.
The old man smiled, and the glow in his eyes began to fade, leaving him tired, an exile on a planet that was not his own.
"Someone who saw the future and decided he didn't want to be the first to die in it," the old man replied. "Put away the scimitar, girl. This man did not come to kill us. He came to find a place where he can finally fall. And, for now, my house will be his altar".