The air was filthy, heavy with the stench of death it had carried for countless years. It clung to the lungs, settled on the tongue. Even so, beneath that rot, there was a faint scent of the ocean. Its waters shimmered black beneath a dim horizon, the faint light of the sea bleeding into a thin fog that crawled across the surface like something alive.
Crunch.
Damon's boot came down on brittle bone.
The beach was littered with skeletons. Some still wore fragments of armor etched with symbols he recognized. Others bore relics from eras long forgotten. Rusted blades, shattered staffs, cracked amulets. Corpses from different ages lay together in silent communion, unified in death.
This was the final inevitability of all life.
One day even he would be nothing more than white bone bleaching beneath a dead sky.
