Damien stepped through the shimmering threshold of the portal, and for a heartbeat, it felt as though the universe shifted beneath his feet. But when his eyes adjusted, he found himself standing upon pale, cracked earth beneath a blood-red sky, an endless desert stretching outward in every direction.
His breath caught in astonishment.
Endless dunes and plateaus sprawled out before him, covered not in sand—but bones. Countless bones. Mountains of white, brittle remains of creatures who had fallen here in some forgotten age, bleached by a relentless sun that never seemed to move from its high perch.
