Chapter 24: Arrival
It had been seven days since they entered the Shadow Realm—or so they'd been told.
Time was hard to measure in a place where the sun never moved, where the sky was a blank canvas and the sand shimmered endlessly in hues of dusk-gold. There was no nightfall, no shifting winds, not even the illusion of change. Just an eternal stillness.
Maids, identical in their appearance and movement, would come at consistent intervals—if you could even call them that. Time itself felt suspended here. With mechanical grace, they placed trays of steaming hot food in front of each passenger, bowed slightly, then vanished into the rear compartments of the train without uttering a single word. No instructions. No explanations.
Most passengers had sunk into lethargy. Some muttered to each other. Others simply sat in silence, staring at nothing. The surreal had dulled into a numbing monotony.
Zephyr spent the first day glued to the window like a child watching snowfall for the first time. For all he'd seen—his arrival in this world, his awakening, his arrest, torture, and execution—this sight still felt foreign. Strangely peaceful. Beautiful, in a lifeless sort of way.
But beauty without substance fades.
By the second day, wonder turned into questions.
What was this place?
Where were they going?