The light welcomed him like a breath.

  No brutal fall, no vertigo. Just… a slide.

  A shift in density.

  His feet hit the ground with a dull thud. A small puff of dust rose.

  He stayed still for a moment, eyes narrowed, breath held.

  Silence fell over him like a heavy sheet.

  All around, walls of red stone.

  Cold. Smooth. Tight.

  The canyon wasn’t wide—barely a few meters between the two cliffs.

  Above, a thin strip of pale sky cut across the gap like an incision.

  A lone tree grew sideways against the rock, twisted but stubborn.

  Kael inhaled.

  “Well… already better than the ship.

  No one screaming, no water, no upside-down waterfall. That’s progress.”

  He patted his uniform, checked the Needle-Blade. Still there. Still strapped to his belt.

  He took a step. The rock crunched under his boot.

  The ground was uneven, a mix of compact sand and sharp slate.

  No sound. No insect. No bird. Nothing.

  “This is supposed to be a training ground?

  Looks more like the place where rocks bury the curious.”

  He moved forward again. Slowly.

  The gorge seemed to close in around him.

  But it wasn’t oppressive. Not yet. Just… watched.

  He stopped at the base of the first tree.

  Its trunk rose straight into the light, without a single low branch.

  Black bark, smooth as polished glass.

  A faint rustle sounded above.

  Something shifted in the shade.

  Kael jerked his head upward.

  Nothing.

  Just the wind, maybe.

  Or not.

  He walked on between the cliffs, eyes raised toward the jagged edges thinning against the sky.

  No clear path. No marker.

  He listened. Still that silence. A compact silence.

  Not natural.

  He took a few more steps, then stopped abruptly.

  Something had changed.

  No sound. No movement. But the air was different.

  Heavier.

  As if someone—or something—was holding its breath with him.

  He turned slowly on his heel, scanning the walls.

  Nothing. No shape, no shadow.

  “Okay, Kael. Relax. You’re not dead yet, you’ve got your weapon, and you’ve survived worse.

  Just… not in a damned stone funnel.”

  He bent down, picked up a small pebble, and tossed it farther down the narrow passage.

  A sharp clack. Then the echo.

  And then… something else.

  A scrape.

  Light. Uneven.

  Like a claw brushing stone.

  Kael froze.

  Then stepped back.

  “Shit. There is something. And it doesn’t want to show itself.”

  He let a breath slip between his teeth and stepped back again until his back pressed against a slab of rock.

  If he had to fight, he preferred having whatever it was right in front of him.

  But nothing emerged.

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  So he pushed forward through the gorge, the Needle-Blade gripped tightly in his hand.

  The elegant weapon—thin, perfectly balanced—gave him a hint of comfort, a familiar weight in a place that wasn’t.

  He advanced in measured steps, ears sharpened.

  A bead of sweat slid from his temple down to his jaw.

  He was starting to sweat—not from effort.

  From anticipation. From the unknown. From whatever was stalking him but not yet revealing itself.

  His mind drifted, unwillingly, to the night before.

  To that conversation with the Dean, in that office thick with paper and unspoken truths.

  The Overdrawn.

  He remembered the exact words.

  No clear explanations. No rigid classifications.

  And the Dean’s gaze—intense, almost apologetic.

  A sound.

  Claws.

  A harsher scrape this time, followed by a barely audible growl.

  No doubt about it: it was getting closer.

  Kael froze.

  Then, in a sudden flash of lucidity, he spotted a recess in the left wall—narrow, half-hidden behind a spill of grey stones.

  He didn’t hesitate.

  He slipped inside, breath shallow, back pressed against the cool rock.

  Sweat beaded across his forehead.

  He forced himself to slow his breathing.

  From where he stood, he had a partial angle on the main passage.

  But nothing moved through it.

  Only that sound—now muffled.

  As if the thing knew he was hiding.

  Kael clenched his teeth.

  The waiting would be worse than the attack.

  Silence weighed down on everything.

  Pressed against the rock, Kael listened to every vibration, every whisper of wind between the cliffs.

  Then a smell reached him.

  Subtle at first, like an old scent dragged back from memory.

  Then stronger, denser.

  A mix of iron… and rot.

  He closed his eyes for half a second.

  “Smells like blood,” he whispered.

  Slowly—very slowly—he leaned forward to peer outside.

  And he saw it.

  The creature stood easily two meters tall—maybe more if it chose to straighten.

  It moved on all fours, but its forelimbs were longer than its hind ones, as though it could rise upright at any moment.

  And if it did, it would be enormous.

  Its skin was shriveled, oozing, a filthy red that deepened toward dark violet.

  No fur. No hide. Only that organic, wrinkled, damp matter that seemed to pulse slowly with its breath.

  Its skull was smooth, stripped of any natural protection.

  Two long ears hung at the sides—uneven, one torn a third of the way down.

  Its eyes were bloodshot, a cloudy, sickly white filled with… absence.

  No nose.

  Just two dark pits.

  And its mouth—

  A slit stretching all the way to the ears.

  Packed with uneven fangs, twisted, grotesquely oversized.

  Even from this distance, Kael could smell its stench.

  A reek of carrion, bile, and stagnant saliva.

  The creature stopped.

  It lifted its head slowly, as though tasting the air.

  Kael didn’t move.

  Not a muscle.

  Then the creature made a sound.

  A guttural, corpse-born rasp—low, distorted, like a noise never meant to be perceived by human ears.

  More vibration than vocalization.

  Something filthy, deep, unnatural.

  Then it began to walk.

  Slowly. Toward him.

  Each step was heavy, yet precise.

  It moved with a kind of morbid grace, as if the ground offered no resistance.

  Kael felt his legs buckle beneath him.

  He was trembling.

  Not with ordinary fear—

  With raw, primal terror.

  He pressed both hands over his mouth to stop any sound, any breath from escaping.

  His shoulders tightened; his back tried to sink into the stone itself.

  I didn’t sign up for this…

  The thought burst in his mind—sharp, panicked.

  His gaze never left the creature.

  It came closer.

  At this distance he could see its fangs shift,

  the saliva dripping onto the ground,

  the muscles twitching under dead skin.

  Then suddenly—a sharp noise, farther away.

  A stone rolling. A quick rustle.

  The sound came from the other side of the gorge.

  The creature froze.

  Its head snapped violently toward the source of the noise.

  And without hesitation, it bolted in that direction.

  A swift, animal stride—almost fluid.

  It vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

  Kael remained motionless.

  He hadn’t moved a single centimeter.

  But his heart hammered against his ribs like a war drum.

  He stayed frozen for several long seconds after the last echo of its steps faded.

  Only then did he slowly, carefully emerge from his hiding place.

  The air felt heavier now, saturated with the stink of rotting blood.

  It clung to his nostrils, to his tongue, all the way down his throat.

  He saw no trace of the creature. No hint of its return.

  Only that sticky, lingering smell suspended in the air.

  He gathered his senses—barely. Enough to whisper:

  “So… that’s an Overdrawn?”

  His voice was more breath than words.

  He wasn’t truly asking.

  He had just encountered something that didn’t fit any category.

  Not a beast.

  Not an enemy.

  A nightmare wearing a carcass.

  He turned away and walked in the opposite direction from where the creature had gone.

  Each step was measured.

  Not too heavy. Not too fast.

  He moved in silence, making sure not to strike anything.

  “It’s got sharp hearing… Very sharp.”

  He kept the Needle-Blade in hand, tip lowered, his senses strung tight like a harp string.

  “Okay. It’s official. I’m screwed. Completely.”