A backcloth that covers from shoulder to toes. In a shapeless shadow, she fully shown.
Beside her, the critter hissed, a low, rattling sound aimed toward the figure trembling in the dark. It was small but serpentine, shaped like earthly born dragon from a fairytale. scales catching the faint light, wings folded tight against its spine. Most unnerving were its eyes: vertical-slitted and unblinking, the eyes of a Spinosaurus, ancient and predatory, gleaming with feral attention.
"Atama Denasto," Her voice was calm, measured, echoing slightly in the hollow ruin. "Your bounty is on red, we have to capture you alive, through surrender nor resistance, you must comply."
Atama's mind spun. Bounty? None of this made sense.
"Who are you?" he managed, his voice cracking.
The girl said nothing at first. Her reflective eyes simply watched him, calm as still water.
"Ho- how did you find me?" he pressed, desperation bleeding into his words. "And what do you mean I'm being targeted?"
The girl tilted her head slightly. Behind her, the creature's four eyes blinked in their terrible, uncoordinated rhythm.
"We are nobody to you," she said softly.
A pause. Then: "My name is Sydney."
She glanced down at the creature, then back at him. "I took the bounty because the price was high. Official authority from the guild. The contract was anonymous." A shrug, small and dismissive. "Doesn't matter to me. A bounty is a bounty."
Bounty. The word lodged in his chest like a splinter.
Sydney gestured vaguely toward his feet. "As for how I found you?" A pause. "Simple."
Atama followed her gaze.
There, wrapped around his ankle, faintly glowing in the dim light, was a thin golden string. It pulsed once, a slow, rhythmic beat, then settled into a steady luminescence, trailing away into the shadows behind him. A luminous tether, connecting him to something unseen.
His skin crawled.
"It was when you stepped foot on the ground," Sydney said, her voice carrying no judgment, only fact. "Where my companion planted the alarm."
The creature behind her shifted, its four glowing eyes fixing on Atama with renewed interest. One of its too-long fingers twitched.
Atama's gaze dropped to his feet. The same feet that had touched the soil in that clearing. At the same moment, the world had erupted in glowing veins beneath him.
An alarm. Not just a ward, a trap! And I walked right into it.
Atama stared into her eyes, searching for any hint of deception, any crack in her calm facade. His mind raced through impossible calculations. Could he run? Fight? The creature behind her shifted, those four glowing eyes fixed on him with patient hunger. The golden string still pulsed faintly at his ankle, an unbreakable tether.
He had no weapons. No allies. No understanding of this world or its rules.
Slowly, deliberately, Atama let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
"Ok," he said, his voice quieter than he intended. "I will comply."
The words tasted like surrender, but somewhere beneath the fear, a smaller voice whispered: Survive first. Understand later.
Sydney's expression didn't change, but something in her posture softened, or perhaps that was wishful thinking.
"Good choice," she said simply. She turned, gesturing with a slight tilt of her head toward the ruined wall behind her. "Now follow me. We will meet the others."
The creature uncurled slightly, its too-long limbs unfolding with a series of soft, wet pops. It padded after Sydney on knuckles and feet, moving with an unsettling, spider-like grace.
Atama stood frozen for only a moment. Then, with no better option, he followed them into the shadows, the golden string trailing behind him like a leash he couldn't see but could certainly feel.
Outside, the sun loomed large and near, as though it had leaned down to watch, but its warmth never came. Atama blinked against the brightness as Sydney led him forward, the creature padding silently behind them on its too-long limbs. The golden string at his ankle tugged faintly with each step, a constant reminder that he was not free.
Ahead, three silhouettes broke the open stretch. He recognized one instantly, the tall man from the ruin. The other two were strangers: one broad and thick around the middle, the other scrawny, almost frail-looking beside them.
All three turned at once. The fat one was already grinning before they'd even closed half the distance.
"Ha! So you actually caught him!" he hollered, waving them over. "Now come on, hurry up, I'm starving!"
Sydney let out a quiet, tired sigh.
Atama stared at the three of them, then back at her. "...Who are they?"
"My companions," she replied simply.
Atama studied him quietly. The tall man from the ruin. His face put him somewhere around thirty, not young, nor quite old, worn somewhere in between. Beneath the ordinary clothes, armor clung to parts of his frame, heaviest at the shoulders, as though that was where he expected trouble to come from.
"That's Luptor Esec."
Sydney's voice was flat, offering the name like a formality she was obligated to complete.
Atama's lips twitched. Despite everything, the golden string, the bounty, the four-eyed creature still lurking nearby, a small, involuntary smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.
Luptor Esec. What kind of name was that?
The tall man noticed.
In two strides, he closed the distance between them. Up close, he was even more imposing. broad-shouldered, those armored pauldrons rising like the hunched shoulders of a guarding beast. His face hovered inches from Atama's, close enough that Atama could see the small scar cutting through his left eyebrow, the pores on his weathered skin, the cold calculation in his dark eyes.
"What are you smiling at?" Luptor's voice was low, rough as gravel, carrying no overt threat, and that made it worse.
Atama's smirk died instantly. His heart hammered against his ribs, but he forced himself to meet the man's gaze. To not look away. To not show fear, even as it flooded every vein.
Behind them, the fat one laughed, a short, barking sound. "Ooh, looks like the pup's got teeth."
The scrawny man just watched, his twitching fingers still now, as if savoring the tension.
Luptor held Atama's gaze for one more heartbeat. Two. Then, without another word, he turned and walked back to his spot, arms crossing once more over his armored chest.
Sydney watched the exchange with her usual unreadable expression. "Come," she said, gesturing for Atama to follow. "We have a long walk."
The golden string pulsed at Atama's ankle, and he had no choice but to move.
The road stretched on in quiet. No one spoke. Atama walked among strangers, in a world that felt drained of everything living, and found that the silence was worse than the danger.
He sidled toward the scrawny one.
"Hey," he said, "so... where are we going?" A glance at the hollow, breathless landscape around them. "Everything here is completely lifeless and…" He trailed off, searching for words that wouldn't make him sound as terrified as he felt.
The scrawny man blinked at him, mouth opening slightly, then closing. No answer came.
Atama tried again, forcing a casualness he didn't feel. "And... what's your name?"
The man's twitching fingers stilled for a moment. His narrow face scrunched, as if the question required deep, painful thought.
"I..." he started, voice thin and reedy. "I'm... nobody asked that in a while."
Behind them, the fat one snorted. "Don't waste your breath on him, bro. He barely remembers his own name most days." Laughing toward the scrawny kid, and continued, "oh and by the way, my name is Tanbel, as this is his name, uhh…" He scratched his head. "I kinda forgot."
"Callidus Cava Corvus," Sydney said without looking up.
"Right, that." Tanbel pointed finger guns.
Atama blinked. "...All of that is one name?"
Sydney ignored the question. "What is this place called again, Cal?"
"Elguriaraf Woods," the scrawny one replied, his voice flat and unbothered. "If I recall correctly. Just keep walking, it's a couple of miles to the city, but we need to go to the camp for supplies."
Atama's heart skipped. A city. In this dead, inverted world, there was a city. He glanced down at the golden string still wrapped around his ankle, then at the mismatched group surrounding him: bounty hunters, companions, whatever they were.
"So tell me," Atama pressed on, unable to help himself, "what do you all do exactly? Like... what's your job?" His eyes swept over the group, then landed briefly on the tall man trailing behind them. "I mean, everyone here seems pretty young, except for that g…" He caught himself, but not quite in time. "...sorry. Didn't mean anything by it."
A shift in the air.
Then behind them, Luptor Esec's footsteps grew noticeably rougher against the ground. Not a word. Just boots hitting dirt with a new, deliberate weight.
Sydney broke the silence first.
"We're..." she started, then paused, as if searching for the right shelf to pull the explanation from. "How do I put this." Another pause. "Do you know anime? Like, a fantasy story where a bunch of characters walk into a guild and pick up a job, go on quests, that sort of thing?"
Atama stared at her.
A long, empty beat passed between them.
"...No," he said finally.
His confusion must have painted itself clearly across his face, because the fat one snorted loudly.
"Ha! Look at his face. Kid doesn't know what anime is." He slapped his knee, genuinely amused.
The scrawny one giggled, a thin, reedy sound.
Sydney blinked. "You don't know what anime is."
"Should I?"
She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. Then simply looked ahead at the road and said nothing, as though the conversation had personally exhausted her.
Callidus spoke without looking at him, his voice carrying the same flat, unhurried tone as before.
"I'm curious," he said. "Bounties don't just appear. Someone had to... put it there for a reason?" A brief pause. "Is there anything you've done recently, the past couple of weeks, maybe? Surely you must be right?"
The group continued walking, the brittle soil crunching beneath their feet. Atama could feel their eyes on him, Sydney's reflective gaze, Callidus's curious scrutiny, the fat one's flat assessment. Even the creature's four glowing orbs hadn't looked away.
He felt exposed. Judged. Like a specimen pinned to a board.
Under the weight of their silence, the words tumbled out before he could stop them.
"I really don't know," he paused to cover up a little of the story. "All I did was fight off some mysterious golden ball that tried to kill me." He paused. "...Does that count as something?"
He glanced at them, searching for any sign of understanding, of recognition. The golden ball. The sphere that had fallen from the sky like a comet, that had pulsed with that strange, circuit-like pattern, that had thrown him through the air and chased him to the river's edge.
Surely that meant something. Surely that explained... something.
But the faces around him remained unreadable.
Callidus tilted his head, birdlike. "A golden ball?"
"Fell from the sky," Atama confirmed. "Glowed. Attacked me. I hit it with a rock and ran."
A beat of silence.
Tanbel shock. "You hit a magic rock?"
"It was attacking me!"
The creature made that soft, wet sound again, almost like a chuckle. Its four eyes blinked in that terrible, asynchronous rhythm, and for a moment, Atama could have sworn it looked almost... amused.
Sydney said nothing. But something in her expression had shifted, a flicker of interest beneath the calm.
Behind them, Luptor Esec's heavy footsteps continued their steady rhythm, unwavering and watchful.
The golden string at Atama's ankle pulsed faintly with each step, a constant reminder that he was still caught, still bound, still being led somewhere he couldn't yet see.
But for the first time since they'd found him, the silence didn't feel quite so threatening.
Luptor Esec's voice cut through the conversation, low and unhurried.
"We're here," he said. "We've arrived at the camp."
It was the first time he had spoken since they set off. Nobody pointed that out.