It’s bitterly cold, here. Winter comes quickly and transforms everything into stark contrasts, snow and ice crawling along metal outcroppings and uncomfortable seats, creeping into ruined walls. Ice piles up on the balcony railing; it’s swept away by a gloved hand, inspected for impurity.
“It’s like stepping into a blast chiller, don’t you think?” His voice is measured, pleasant, barely audible above the roar of the storm. “I like it here. But if it’s not to your tastes, I can find you better accommodation.”
Somewhere behind you is the humming song of a heater, spilling light and warmth into a darkened room, the lights dim. The metal door is shut tight. Frost melts on the seams, like winter is trying to find its way in.
Darkness beckons from a ruined stone entry, a cracked frame decorated with haphazard carvings of thorns and blooming flowers. The pale light of dawn washes over the hills, making everything faded and colourless, bleached to the bone.
“The day won’t last forever,” he says, with no hint of fear. He holds a lantern in one hand; some hidden mechanism whirrs and creaks in his artificial fingers as he brings it up to inspect it with painstaking care. “It’s not too deep, this one, but you never know.”
The sun is harsh, but everything is quiet. You could hear a pin drop - and echo on forever - in this vast network of canyons and caves.
Chunks of rock litter the paths. Gouges hew their way through the canyon’s walls. Something has been here.
He taps his staff constantly, listening for something. What it is, it’s hard to discern.
It’s hard to believe he’s dressed in black on a day like this, with no cloud in the sky and the heat baking the ground to a crisp. But that’s apparently just what he always wears.
“Are we going forward, or back?” He seems impatient to start, but he’s looking to you for the order.
dededos
gummygunk
stormborns
annaxmalina
jbbartram-illu
vaporwave
ellievsbear
dailybridgerton
titsay
origamiaround
kaledo-art
