Xeno was asleep, his back resting against the stone wall of our shelter. His breathing was slow and steady, like the world outside didn't exist.
I, on the other hand, couldn't sleep.
The silence felt too heavy. Too quiet. Every time the wind shifted, I thought I heard the clicking again. I looked at him, the boy who had saved my life more than once already.
He was still wearing the blindfold.
I stared at it, the dark fabric hiding whatever lay beneath. I wondered what his eyes looked like. Were they normal? Were they strange? Were they even… eyes at all?
A strange curiosity pulled at me. Slowly, as quietly as I could, I reached my hand toward the fabric.
My fingers almost touched it.
Almost.
Suddenly, his hand shot out and wrapped around my wrist.
I gasped.
His grip wasn't painful, but it was firm. Certain.
"What were you trying to do?" he asked, his voice low and steady, though he hadn't opened his eyes beneath the cloth.
"I– I'm sorry," I whispered and pulled my hand back. "I was just… curious as to why you wear those blindfolds."
He released me.
For a good moment, he said nothing. The only sound was the wind passing through cracks in the rock above us.
"It's just something I have to do," he finally replied.
"Why?" I pressed gently. "You can fight. You can walk without seeing. You know where everything is. You saved me without even looking."
He turned his face slightly in my direction. Even with the blindfold on, it felt like he was looking straight at me.
"Because the world isn't always meant to be seen the way it truly is," he said quietly.
His answer only confused me more.
"…Do I need to be scared of what you see?" I asked.
"No," he responded quickly. Perhaps a bit too quickly. "You don't need to be scared of me."
Those words settled something inside my chest.
Outside the shelter, a faint click echoed in the distance.
My heart jumped. I looked towards the opening between the rocks.
"They're close…" I whispered.
"I know," Xeno replied, sitting up slightly. He tilted his head as if listening, the way he always did. "But they aren't going to come in here."
"How do you know that?" I asked.
"They won't," he repeated.
The clicking outside grew a little louder, then… stopped.
The silence that followed was strange. Not peaceful. Uneasy. Like everything was watching and waiting.
I hugged my legs to my chest. "They usually don't just stop…" I murmured.
Xeno didn't answer. He just stayed very still.
Another strange thing caught my attention.
None of the Xenophores had come near the stone we were hiding under. It was like an invisible line had been drawn.
Slowly, I glanced at Xeno.
He didn't look nervous.
He looked… thoughtful.
"What are we going to do tomorrow?" I asked.
"We keep moving," he replied. "We find higher ground. Less stone. Less places for them to hide."
"And my parents?" I asked quietly.
"We'll find them," he said after a moment. "Or we'll find the truth of what happened to them."
I nodded, even though a lump formed in my throat.
I leaned my head back against the rock and finally let my eyes close, trusting him to stay awake this time.
Just before sleep took me, I thought I heard something outside again.
Not clicking.
It almost sounded like… whispering.
And for some reason, I could've sworn it was saying his name.
Morning came without a sun.
The sky was still the same endless shade of black when I opened my eyes, but the cold had faded just a little. Xeno was already standing, his shovel resting against his shoulder. He hadn't moved far from me during the night.
"You didn't sleep," I said.
"I did. Enough," he replied simply. "We should move before the ground warms."
"The ground warms?" I repeated.
"That's usually when they get restless."
I didn't ask who they were. I already knew.
We left the shelter and walked for what felt like hours. The land slowly began to change. Fewer broken boulders. Less scattered rubble. The earth looked… almost untouched.
Then I saw it.
Shapes in the distance.
Buildings.
"Xeno…." I stopped walking. "Is that a village?"
"Yes."
Hope flickered inside me for the first time in a long while. My steps picked up, excitement trying to break through the heaviness that had lived in me ever since the world went dark.
As we got closer, I saw people moving carefully through the narrow streets made of packed dirt and stone. The buildings were small and worn, but still standing. A few crops grew in small, guarded garden plots.
They were alive.
They had survived.
But something was… off.
No one laughed. No one raised their voice. No one even spoke above a whisper. Every face looked calm, blank — not peaceful, but controlled. Like they were afraid of their own hearts.
"Why is everyone so quiet?" I murmured.
"Because Xenophores are born of sin," Xeno said quietly as we walked. "Anger. Greed. Jealousy. Lies. Too much of any of it can bring one into existence."
I stared at the people, suddenly understanding.
They weren't just trying to be good.
They were trying to survive.
A woman sat behind a small wooden stand with a few pieces of dried fruit and bread laid out. When she saw us approach, her eyes widened in fear, her mouth parting in a silent gasp.
For a second I thought she was going to scream.
But she caught herself.
Her hands trembled as she pressed them together. She took a slow breath, forcing her expression smooth again. No anger. No hatred. No panic. Nothing that could call something from the stone.
"Yes?" she asked in a very controlled, gentle tone.
Xeno lowered his shovel slightly so he wouldn't seem threatening.
"We're only looking for food," he said calmly. "And water, if you have any to spare."
Her eyes flicked between us, lingering on the blindfold around his face.
"…You are travelers," she said, more a statement than a question.
"Yes, ma'am," I said softly.
For a moment, I saw something dark flash in her gaze — suspicion, maybe even resentment. Two more mouths to feed in a world that could barely hold the ones it had.
Then she visibly swallowed it down.
Careful. Careful.
She reached under the table and brought out two small wrapped bundles.
"For the child… and for you," she said, placing them down. "Do not thank me too loudly."
I nodded quickly. "Thank you," I whispered.
Xeno added a quiet, "We will not cause trouble for your people."
"You must also not cause feeling," she replied under her breath. "Feeling is dangerous here."
That sentence chilled me more than the cold ever had.
We stepped away, sitting near the edge of the village by a stone wall. I unwrapped the bundle and found bread and a few berries inside. It wasn't much, but it was the most real food I had seen in a long time.
As I ate, I watched the villagers.
A child dropped a basket and instead of crying, he froze, then slowly picked it up in silence.
Two men nearly bumped into each other and instead of arguing, they bowed and walked past with blank faces.
No one dared to be human.
"This is what the world has become," I whispered.
"Yes," Xeno answered. "A world afraid of itself."
I looked at him, the blindfold, the strange calm around him.
"…Do you think we can ever go back to how it was?" I asked.
He was quiet for a long moment.
"I don't think the world remembers how anymore," he said. "But you and I… we still can."
A strange warmth filled my chest at his words.
Suddenly, far on the edge of the village, I heard a man raise his voice — only for a second.
"Watch where you're going!"
Instantly, everyone froze.
Even the wind seemed to stop.
A soft, terrible sound came from beneath the earth.
…click…
Every head turned toward the ground.
My heart pounded as the soil near the man began to tremble.
And Xeno, for the very first time since I met him…
tensed.
"Get inside," the woman whispered urgently to everyone, her voice still trembling with control. "Do not feel. Do not speak. Do not move."
The ground started to crack.
And something within it was trying to be born.
Absolutely—here is the continuation of Chapter Two (Village Scene) in first-person POV, with Xeno stopping the Xenophore in a mysterious way and the introduction of a village elder who knows fragments about powerful books and the Xenophores. No graphic content, only tension and atmosphere.
The ground trembled harder beneath the man's feet.
He stood perfectly still now, terror trapped inside his stiff body, his mouth pressed shut as if even breathing too loudly would doom him. A thin fracture crept across the earth between his boots.
…click… click…
Every villager had frozen. Even the air felt tight, like it was being held in.
And then Xeno stepped forward.
"Stay here," he murmured to me, so softly that only I could hear it.
Before I could protest, he walked past the stone wall and into the open space of the street.
My heart dropped.
"Xeno—!" I started, but I stopped myself, remembering the woman's words.
Do not cause feeling. Feeling is dangerous.
Everyone watched him in pure silence as he approached the cracked ground. The man with the anger in his voice shut his eyes, as if already saying goodbye to the world.
Xeno didn't speak.
He didn't even raise his shovel.
He simply pressed the flat of his hand against the trembling ground.
At first, nothing happened.
Then… the clicking changed. It grew faint. Confused. Almost unsure.
The fracture in the earth slowed. The trembling weakened.
Xeno lowered his head slightly, as if listening to something no one else could hear. The fabric of his blindfold fluttered with a sudden, unseen wind.
"Not this place," he whispered, so quietly I almost didn't hear it. "Not today."
The ground stilled.
The crack sealed itself with a soft crumble of dirt. The clicking faded into nothing.
Silence returned.
But this time… it was the safe kind.
No one spoke. No one moved. They only stared at Xeno — the blindfolded boy who had spoken to the earth itself.
Slowly, he pulled his hand away and stepped back.
The man who had almost summoned the creature collapsed to his knees, shaking but alive.
A gentle murmur ,controlled, careful,moved through the village. Not anger. Not excitement. Just wordless disbelief.
"How…" the woman from the food stand whispered.
I ran to Xeno's side. "What did you do?" I asked him softly.
"Nothing that mattered," he replied, but his voice sounded different this time. Tighter. Like whatever he had done had cost him something.
A figure stepped forward from between the still villagers.
An old man, walking with a curved wooden staff, his back bent by years and by knowledge. His eyes, however, were sharp and alert.
"The earth listened to you," he said.
Xeno said nothing.
"But the earth only listens to a few," the elder continued, studying him carefully. Then his gaze shifted to me. "And it always comes with a price."
I swallowed.
"What price?" I asked.
"That," he replied, "depends on which side of truth you stand on."
He turned and began walking slowly toward one of the larger buildings made of dark stone and wood.
"Come," he said. "Both of you. There is something you must be told… and much that must remain untold."
We followed him inside.
The building was cool and dim. Shelves carved into the stone walls held rolled scrolls, worn books, and strange objects I didn't recognize. Every surface felt old… ancient… like this place had existed even before the world fell apart.
"These are the last fragments of memory," the elder said, gesturing around. "History that has not yet turned to dust."
He carefully pulled out a thick, cracked book. Its cover was plain, but it felt heavy with importance, even from where I stood.
"There exist books in this world," he said, "that do not belong to it. Books that whisper. Books that lure the wounded, the desperate, the curious…"
"Books that tell the truth?" I asked softly.
He gave a humorless smile. "Yes. And books that twist it."
Xeno shifted beside me ever so slightly.
"These books were not created by humans alone," the elder went on. "They were written from the leftover essence of sin and of virtue. Some can mend the world. Some can finish its destruction."
A chill ran through me.
"And the Xenophores?" I asked.
The elder's gaze darkened.
"They are born when a sin grows too heavy for a soul to carry. Anger left to rot. Jealousy left to fester. Greed unrestrained. Lies repeated for too long. That weight does not vanish. It is… expelled. And it takes form."
He looked toward the stone floor beneath us.
"There are many kinds," he continued. "Those of Rage, quick and violent. Those of Envy, quiet, watching. Those of Despair, slow and heavy. Others… we do not name anymore."
"What is their purpose?" I whispered.
He was silent for a moment.
"I do not know if they are punishment," he said. "Or if they are the world's way of cleansing itself."
His eyes lifted to Xeno again.
"But I do know… there are legends of a being who walks between them. Neither fully human… nor fully born of sin. A balance that should not exist… yet does."
My breath caught.
Xeno did not speak.
"And those beings," the elder finished, "are said to be the only ones capable of finding the true books. The final answers. The beginning… and the end."
The room fell quiet.
I slowly turned to Xeno.
He stood completely still, blindfold in place, unreadable once again.
And yet somehow… I felt like the world had just shifted around him.