Ashes of the Sky

The sky wept ash.

Elliot stood at the edge of the scorched circle where the archway had vanished, his hands clenched at his sides. The green veins that had plagued the heavens were gone, replaced by a fragile, washed-out blue. Sunlight filtered through the haze for the first time in weeks, but it felt like a taunt. Mia was gone. The world was healing, but it had taken her to do it.

Lila crouched nearby, her fingers digging into the soil. "It's… warmer," she said quietly. "The ground. Like it's alive again."

Elliot didn't answer. He stared at the pendant in his palm—the one Mia had torn from her neck before stepping into the mist. It was cold now, its twisted metal dull and lifeless. *You knew,* he thought bitterly. *You knew it would cost you.*

---

They buried Mia's jacket in the valley, a hollow mimicry of a grave. Lila insisted on marking it with stones, arranging them in a spiral pattern that mirrored the spire's carvings. Elliot didn't stop her. Let the kid have her rituals. He had nothing left to give.

As they turned to leave, the ground shuddered. A low, guttural groan echoed beneath their feet, and the soil split open, tendrils of black smoke curling upward. Lila stumbled back, but Elliot froze, transfixed. The smoke coalesced into shapes—fractured glimpses of Mia's face, her mouth stretched in a silent scream.

"It's her," Lila whispered. "She's still here—"

"No." Elliot's voice was sharp. "That's not her. That's the *gate*."

The vision dissolved, leaving the air thick with the smell of burnt ozone. The soil where the smoke had risen was now cracked and brittle, veined with black ichor that pulsed like a heartbeat.

---

The forest beyond the valley was worse.

Trees stood skeletal and twisted, their bark sloughing off to reveal cores of glistening black resin. The air buzzed with flies, their bodies iridescent and too large, wings beating in discordant rhythms. Lila gagged at the stench—rotten fruit and copper.

"It's spreading," she said, pressing a scarf to her nose. "The corruption."

Elliot nodded grimly. The spire's whispers had started that morning, slithering into his thoughts like smoke. *One sacrifice is not enough,* they hissed. *The roots run deeper.* He hadn't told Lila. She'd already lost too much.

They found the first body at midday.

A man, half-buried in the blackened soil, his skin fused to the earth like melted wax. His eyes were open, milky and unseeing, his mouth stretched in the same silent scream as Mia's specter. Lila vomited. Elliot forced himself to kneel, examining the corpse. The man's chest was split open, ribs splayed like petals, and inside, nestled among the rot, was a cluster of crystalline growths. They pulsed faintly, mirroring the rhythm of the spire's hum.

"They're growing inside him," Elliot muttered. "Using him as… fertilizer."

Lila wiped her mouth, her face pale. "For what?"

Before he could answer, the ground erupted.

---

The creature was all teeth and thorns, a tangle of roots and sinew that lunged from the soil. Elliot shoved Lila aside as it struck, its jaws snapping where her head had been. He swung his pack at it, the contents scattering—canned food, a water flask, Mia's pendant.

The creature recoiled at the pendant's touch, hissing as the metal seared its flesh. Elliot seized the moment, grabbing Lila's arm and dragging her into a run. They didn't stop until the forest thinned into a rocky plateau, the creature's shrieks fading behind them.

Lila collapsed against a boulder, trembling. "What *was* that?"

"Part of the cycle," Elliot said, staring at the pendant. It glowed faintly again, reacting to the corruption. "The gate didn't just reset the world. It… *pruned* it. And we're the weeds."

---

That night, the whispers came louder.

*You must finish it,* the spire's chorus insisted. *The roots remain. The balance is incomplete.*

Elliot sat by the fire, watching Lila sleep. Her bandaged arm was streaked with black veins now, the corruption seeping into her from their encounter. She'd hidden it from him, but he'd seen her scratching at the skin, her eyes feverish.

The pendant burned in his grip. *One sacrifice is not enough.*

He knew what it wanted.