We moved away from the creature's body.
Sopia was still trembling, her steps unsteady, as if her knees hadn't yet agreed to keep her alive.
I gently grabbed her wrist. Not to comfort—more to make sure she wouldn't collapse on this land that could kill a person with its heat alone.
The air shifted.
The scorching heat that had been slapping at my lungs suddenly vanished.
Replaced by a cold so sharp it felt like an icy blade dragging across skin.
A chill impossible to exist in this nearly melting world.
Then, a light appeared.
Not magma red.
Not the orange cracks of the sky.
This light was white.
Clear, pure, cold — like a lost moon stranded in the wrong world.
And the light moved.
Tiny dots emerged from the rocky formations, swirling like dust with a life of its own. From afar, they looked like fireflies lost in hell.
But as they approached, they took shape.
Small creatures—translucent, glowing from within, no bigger than a hand, their delicate wings fluttering rapidly like the faint chime of trembling glass.
Fairies.
I don't know why the word came to mind.
Maybe a legacy from Mother's stories.
Maybe just a spontaneous association by a mind busy surviving.
But their soft faces, pale blue eyes — the word felt right.
One of the larger ones floated closer.
Its expression was innocent, but its eyes sharp — a mixture of curiosity and readiness to strike.
"You…" its voice was light, cold, echoing like crystal gently struck. "…you are not from this world."
"We're human," I replied.
The glow around them flickered.
Some retreated.
Others whispered in a language that felt like a rapid sequence of notes never repeated.
"Humans?" The largest fairy tilted its head. "No such race exists in the Five Worlds. Where do you come from?"
"Earth," Sopia answered.
Her voice cracked, not hiding it. "We didn't mean to come here. There was a portal. We didn't intend—"
"No world by that name exists."
A smaller fairy, glowing red, moved closer, narrowing its eyes.
"You lie."
"We know nothing of your worlds," I said. "We just stepped through a portal that opened on its own."
Silence fell.
Their light flickered — rhythmic, steady.
They were communicating. Fast. Quiet. Coordinated.
"Dark portal…" whispered the largest fairy.
Its aura shifted. Its breath hardened.
"Only one entity can force open these gates between worlds. You... servants of Darkness?"
"No!" Sopia shouted, her voice shattering like breaking glass. "We're nobody! We just—"
SWOOSH.
A white beam sliced the air just inches above our heads.
The heat wasn't fire's.
It was more like heat moving from inside the body, burning from the core.
I pulled Sopia to the ground.
Another beam streaked by, hitting the rock behind us.
The stone burst silently, hissing like charcoal dropped into water.
"Run!" I yelled.
No time to negotiate.
—–• ☽ ✦ ☾ •–—
We ran.
The jagged rock formations flickered at the edge of our vision—dark, steep, dangerously close.
The fairies chased, their light cutting the air like thin blades.
Attack after attack struck—light slicing air, energy waves diving to trap, tiny explosions flickering on the ground like sparks of stars.
They didn't want to kill.
The strikes were too precise.
They just wanted to stop us.
To capture.
"Ziyan!" Sopia turned sharply. "Over here!"
Thick white steam rose from a crack in the ground—a boiling mist from the world's depths.
A dangerous place. The perfect place.
We plunged into the mist—
and the world fell away.
—–• ☽ ✦ ☾ •–—
Sound vanished.
Not muffled.
Not slowly fading.
But gone entirely—as if the world had pressed the mute button.
My heartbeat disappeared.
Our footsteps vanished.
Our breaths sounded like someone else's, distant.
The mist bit at skin like a chill designed to crack bones.
Sopia gripped my hand.
A grip that might have broken fingers... but now was frozen.
"I… can't see anything."
The ground beneath changed.
Sometimes solid.
Sometimes soft like cold mud.
Sometimes gone completely—letting bodies fall without motion.
The mist shifted colors.
White.
Gray.
Then hues not found in any world—as if I was seeing air take shape.
And suddenly—
we were no longer standing.
Our bodies floated.
No up. No down.
No gravity. No direction.
We dangled in a white space that felt like emptiness judging whether we deserved to exist.
Sopia screamed.
But her voice cracked, distorted, like a broken radio submerged under water.
The space moved.
Not spinning.
Not sliding.
Breathing.
Every time it expanded—part of me... was pulled.
Not my body.
Not my mind.
Deeper.
As if the space was searching for the core of my existence.
Then a line appeared.
A faint line in the distance, almost invisible.
The line thickened, stretched, and broke into shape.
Four legs.
A large torso.
A feathered silhouette that couldn't decide if it was solid or transparent.
Those eyes opened.
Liquid silver eyes.
Cold. Calm. Ancient.
Like staring into a bottomless sea through thin glass.
That gaze pierced my body.
Penetrated things I'd never realized.
Searched the emptiness dwelling in my deepest parts.
The voice came directly into my head—no pause, no distance.
"Welcome to Muspelheim—the merciless world of fire."
The creature fully appeared.
A giant stallion. Its body like living organic armor, textures rippling gently like breath.
But something was wrong.
This world adjusted itself around its form, not the other way around. It was as if it didn't belong in this space.
But the space belonged to it.
"I am the Keeper of HeroStory."
The voice didn't just sound.
It was felt.
In bones.
In blood.
In places my emptiness dared not touch.
Sopia gripped my arm so hard her nails dug in.
I felt no pain.
Only a sharpness—a message passing through.
One thought emerged in my mind, simple and clear:
For the first time since arriving in this world...
I wanted to know what happened next.
TO BE CONTINUED...