One second, Vaelis was walking alone down a dim street, the glow of his phone lighting his face.
The next—he was standing barefoot on a grassy hill, beneath a sky he didn't recognize.
Daylight struck his skin, warm and blinding. He squinted and stumbled back, eyes wide. His phone was gone. His clothes were gone. The asphalt underfoot had turned to dry soil and scattered pebbles.
He looked down in disbelief. Nothing. No shoes. No shirt. No sound. Only the wind brushing through short, yellow-green grass and a few gnarled, distant trees clinging to the earth like forgotten bones.
His breathing turned ragged.
"What... what is this?" he whispered.
The hill was small but gave a wide view of the land around him. There were no roads. No towers. No electric wires. Just rolling terrain, dry and untamed, with a heavy sky hanging low like it hadn't changed in a thousand years.
He turned slowly, eyes scanning the horizon. Nothing moved. No voices. No traffic. No sign of a single living soul.
"This can't be real," he muttered, half-laughing. "No way."
He slapped himself—once, hard. His cheek burned. Again—harder.
Still real.
He pressed his palms to his temples. His heart pounded like a drum in a locked room. He felt dizzy, like the world had tipped sideways. He looked to the sky—too vast. The silence—too complete.
There was no dream this detailed.
He dropped to his knees, fingers sinking into the warm dirt.
He didn't know how long he knelt there.
Minutes?
Hours?
The sun didn't move fast, but it baked his skin, and still, he saw no people, no animals, no sign of anything human.
Only him.
And a terrible stillness.
Time passed.
How much, Vaelis couldn't say. The sun had barely shifted, but the sharpness of panic had dulled into a heavy, cold fog in his chest. He sat motionless on the hill for what felt like hours before his body finally forced him to act.
He needed to move.
He needed... something.
He looked around again—short grass stretched endlessly, dotted with dry soil patches and the occasional wind-stunted tree. There were no branches large enough to tear into clothes, no signs of animals to track, no stream to drink from.
And definitely no shirts hanging from tree branches waiting to be found.
He tried to rip up some grass to cover himself, but the brittle blades crumbled in his hands. He gritted his teeth. His nakedness wasn't just humiliating—it made him feel raw, exposed, as if even the breeze could peel layers from his soul.
Still, he stood.
And walked.
He didn't know where he was going, or why. There was no path, no goal. Just dry wind brushing over his skin and the occasional sting of pebbles against his bare feet. His skin grew hot under the sun, but the wind was cold against his damp back.
He hugged himself as he walked, trying to keep warm, trying to ignore the pit forming in his stomach.
"Where... am I?" he whispered to no one.
The thought had echoed in his head for hours. Over and over.
Was this still Earth? A desert? A remote village in some undeveloped part of the world? Was he drugged? Kidnapped? Was this an experiment?
Or... was he just going insane?
He couldn't tell anymore.
There were no signs. No planes in the sky. No jet trails. No fences or farmland. Just land and wind.
As he wandered aimlessly, thoughts spun like a whirlpool:
"Is there anyone else here?"
"Why am I alone?"
"Is this still today—or another time?"
"Did I die?"
His feet began to ache. The sun had started to dip, bleeding golden hues into the sky. The heat softened, but the shadows grew long. The wind cut deeper. His stomach twisted with hunger, and his throat felt dry like cotton.
He stumbled.
And then—he froze.
Far ahead, just beyond a low ridge, something stood still against the sky. Angular. Not natural.
He crept up the hill, heart pounding. He squinted into the horizon, breath catching.
Structures.
Houses.
Crude, strange—low to the ground, with thatched roofs and wooden frames, spaced unevenly across a dirt clearing. No fences. No lights.
His heart leapt—and stumbled.
They were houses, yes. But not modern. Not even rustic. They looked ancient, worn, like something out of a museum reconstruction.
His mind scrambled for an explanation.
"A countryside village?" he muttered. "Some backwater place? Maybe a historical site?"
He laughed once, dry and breathless. But no tourists. No signs. No banners. Just... huts.
Something about them felt wrong—not dangerous, just out of place, even in his current madness.
But at least it was something.
And he was tired of walking in circles.