Ash and the others stepped through the rift.
The transition was seamless, yet the moment they emerged, the air itself felt different — thicker, heavier, as if reality had been stretched thin and then released.
The first thing that hit them was the silence. Not the absence of sound, but a profound, living quiet that seemed to press gently against the ears.
They stood on a vast, rolling plain of soft, knee-high grass that shimmered with a faint, pearlescent sheen.
The blades were not green, but a shifting palette of muted silver, pale lavender, and warm gold, each strand rippling slowly even though there was no wind.
In the distance, gentle hills rose and fell, their slopes dotted with clusters of trees whose trunks were smooth and bone-white, branches spiraling upward in impossible, elegant patterns.
The sky above was not blue, nor purple, nor any single color.
