The hours didn't just pass. They ticked by with an agonizing slowness, a physical weight pressing on Tanya's shoulders.
The sun climbed into the indifferent sky, casting shifting shadows across Natsu's farm. Those shadows seemed to mock the jagged unease blooming in her heart.
Anyael had vanished into the treeline hours ago. She had left with a simple wooden bucket and a promise of a quick return. But now, as midday loomed and heat shimmered off the rice paddies, there was no sign of her sister.
Tanya paced the ragged edge of the fields. Her golden-amber eyes darted toward the river path with a rhythmic desperation. A knot of worry, cold and hard, twisted tighter in her chest.
Anyael wasn't the type to wander. She was a creature who thrived on companionship—a woman who always returned with a story, a plucked flower, or a laugh that could brighten the dimmest room. Tanya knew her better than her own reflection.
The silence screamed of hidden horror. Grim possibilities flooded her mind: abduction, a lethal fall, or the predatory beasts that prowled the outskirts of this world.
Her breath quickened.
In the distance, Natsu worked. He moved through the rice paddies with a hypnotic efficiency, his whistle a cheerful melody carried on the breeze. He appeared utterly oblivious to her suffering.
Tanya steeled herself. She approached him, her steps hurried and uneven.
"Natsu," she called out, her voice cracking. "Anyael's been gone for over an hour just to fetch water. That's not like her. I'm worried... I need to check on her by the river."
He paused, straightening slowly as if time itself had slowed to a crawl. He didn't speak. Instead, his gentle black eyes met hers in an eerie silence that sent a chill racing down her spine.
It felt as though he wasn't just looking at her, but peering into depths of reality she couldn't fathom.
Then, a smile broke across his face. It was warm, yet it felt oddly detached, like a mask settled over a face that had forgotten how to be human.
"Okay," he replied casually. "Take care out there."
The words hung in the humid air. Tanya felt a fleeting sense of alarm—a ripple of unease suggesting Natsu knew far more than he was saying.
But she couldn't afford to dwell on it. She nodded sharply and hurried off, her heart pounding a frantic rhythm of gratitude and sickening alarm.
The path to the river blurred. Branches whipped at her arms like stinging lashes, but she didn't feel the pain. Her mind was a kaleidoscope of horrors: Anyael lost, hurt, or taken.
She burst into the clearing, her lungs burning. She froze.
The bucket lay abandoned in the tall grass. Its handle was still damp, but Anyael was gone. The river babbled indifferently over the stones, the sunlight glinting off its surface like mocking laughter.
Tanya's imagination spiraled. She envisioned her sister swept away by the depths or captured by the cold-eyed hunters from Azmuth.
"Anyael!" she screamed, her voice tearing through the stillness. "Anyael! Where are you?!"
She called out again and again, each cry a dying plea. Tears blurred her vision as a crushing helplessness wrapped around her like thorny vines.
Driven by instinct, she pushed upstream toward the spot where Natsu had first discovered them. Her eyes scanned the muddy bank.
There. Fresh footprints mingled with the heavy, cloven imprints of beast hooves. The tracks were sharp and recent.
A group had passed through, and they hadn't gained much distance. She could catch them.
But then, Natsu's face flashed in her mind. His unassuming kindness. The haven he had offered. If she went back for him, she would be dragging him into a dark reality, repaying his mercy with a death sentence.
She couldn't do that to him.
Torn between loyalty and the agonizing guilt of her own weakness, she pressed on alone. She followed the tracks into the deep shadows of the forest.
Back at the farm, the atmosphere shifted as soon as Tanya disappeared. Natsu finished his tasks with a methodical calm. He wiped the sweat from his brow, his expression blank.
He leaned heavily on his hoe, murmuring to the empty air. "So it begins, huh?"
A heavy sigh escaped him, laden with ancient acceptance. He stared at the sky for a long moment as if seeking counsel from a heaven he had once brought to its knees.
"I just hope I'm making the right decision with this one," he whispered.
The farmer disappeared.
His black eyes suddenly ignited with a neon-purple glow, pulsing like forbidden stars.
"Hold down the fort for me, guys," he commanded softly, his voice now laced with predatory amusement. "I won't be long."
What erupted next defied every law of mortal comprehension.
His shadow elongated unnaturally, sprawling across the earth like a living abyss. From the depths of that darkness surged thousands of figures.
Each was cloaked in writhing shadows, their forms illuminated only by twin orbs of glowing purple eyes. Armored humanoids stood like spectral knights. Grotesque monstrosities lumbered with asymmetrical limbs. Twisted beasts roiled in lethal readiness.
The air thickened with a doom so absolute the insects went silent.
Natsu smirked, a cold gleam in his eyes. "Now then," he said, his tone casual. "Where should I start?"
Miles away, Tanya pushed deeper into the suffocating woods. The tracks were her only guide as the hours blurred.
The sun dipped lower. The shadows lengthened like accusing fingers pointing toward her failure. There was still no sign of the abductors—no voices, no movement through the brush.
Desperation clawed at her. Her legs burned and her breath came in gasps, but she refused to stop.
"Hold on, sis," she whispered through gritted teeth. "I'm coming."
As the late afternoon bled into a sickly sunset haze, Anyael stirred. A muffled groan escaped her, her world a blur of pain and disorientation.
She was gagged. Coarse rope bit into her wrists and ankles. She was slung like cargo across the broad back of a massive Gravehorn—a hulking, ox-like monstrosity that towered over the path.
Each heavy jolt sent waves of agony through her battered body. Tears welled in her eyes as the casual chatter of the group floated around her. Men laughed as if her life were mere entertainment.
A rugged, familiar voice cut through the din. "You and your sister should've done what you were told," the man said with mocking sorrow. "And none of this would've happened."
Anyael's blood ran cold. She twisted to glare at him. He was a middle-aged adventurer with a face etched by years of survival.
This was the man who had guided them. The man they had trusted as a mentor.
"The advisors want your heads," he muttered, his voice flat. "We're just taking orders. Nothing personal, kid."
The words stung like salt. Anyael thrashed, muffled curses exploding against the gag.
Her captors didn't grow angry; they erupted in sinister laughter. Then, a leering soldier piped up. "Hey, Cap—can we get some fun with her first? Before we dispose of her?"
The other men chimed in eagerly. The Captain chuckled darkly, stroking his scarred chin. "I'll think about it."
Anyael's world shattered. The dread was a suffocating weight. In the silence of her mind, she screamed for a salvation she no longer believed was coming.
Someone... please.