[Anomaly Detected — Outer Being…]
[The Gate is Opening]
[—ERROR—ERROR—ERROR—]
The darkness reached for them.
The darkness swallowed them.
---
He woke in silence.
The ground beneath him was hard and cold, covered in something that crunched when he shifted his weight. Ash, maybe. Or bone dust. The air smelled of iron and old blood, thick enough to taste. When he opened his eyes, the sky above him was the color of a bruise, purple bleeding into black bleeding into red, its clouds dragging low and slow like something was pulling them from underneath.
Kaelen sat up. He'd been lying on his side, alone, or so he thought until the crunch of ash gave way to a weight settling onto his chest.
Ember eyes, extremely familiar, matted fur, dark with something that smelled of ash rather than blood. A low, rasping purr that made him almost tear up.
'Spike?'
