A strange land

Ahead, the landscape was fractured.

The ground did not crack—it bled. Not red, but with colours that defied reason. On one side, the terrain remained the same, lifeless grey. But next to it, fused to it, bleeding into it was a different terrain entirely. Sand. Endless, shifting dunes, painted in a copper orange hue, rising and collapsing as if breathing. The sand was not blowing in the wind. There was no wind. It moved of its own will, as if spiralling with whispers he could not hear.

The line between the grey and the orange was not clean. It melted. Like oil in water, the terrains swirled at the border. Jagged black rocks from the grey land protruded half-formed into the copper sands, some mid-collapse, others flickering as if unsure whether they should exist.

But the strangest part was not the land. It was the air.

It was... warped. The space shimmered like heat waves, but cooler, more liquid. Devraj narrowed his eyes. The shapes in that space did not match the land behind them. A tree that was not there. A staircase ascending into nothing. Fragments of architecture—stone pillars, broken arches appearing and vanishing as if caught in a dying dream.

A low hum rang in the air. Not sound, exactly. It was pressure. Like reality itself was blinking here, struggling to stay coherent.

Devraj stepped closer. He instinctively slowed his breath, as if to avoid disturbing the fragile scene.

He watched as a ripple moved through the boundary, and with it, a floating mass of terrain—a chunk of a paved courtyard, complete with moss-streaked cobblestones and a half-sunken fountain slid across the dunes like a mirage, then slowly dissipated into particles of light.

The scenes unfolding in front of his eyes confirmed that this could not be Earth. Then is it truly hell?

Not sure, he whispered, "What is this place?" more to himself than anything.

And the land answered—not in words, but in effect.

A sharp jolt raced up his spine. For a second, he felt something trying to reach inside him. Not physically. Not psychologically either. Like the terrain itself was sampling him, sniffing his presence, assessing what kind of intention had just entered its domain.

Devraj staggered back, gasping.

His hands were trembling. But not from fear—from awe. This wasn’t just a land. It was something alive. Or worse, becoming.

The distortion began to calm. The dunes slowly sank. The black rocks ceased flickering. The reality re-stitched itself, imperfectly. As if embarrassed to have been caught in transition.

This land, he would later learn, was not one land. It was all of them, all at once. A womb. A grave. A battlefield of realities.

For now, Devraj simply took a step back and looked up at the hill again—still far, still silent.

He clenched his fists.

Whatever this place was, it was not meant for humans.

But he had never felt more determined to conquer it.

---

The land had no scent. No sound. Only the shifting air, dry and indifferent, brushed past Devraj’s bare skin. Ahead of him stood the hill—silent, steep, and unwelcoming. A broken monolith of jagged rock and dead Earth, not towering but tall enough to command attention in a world of sameness.

He approached it slowly, pacing his breath. With no markers of time, he did not know how long it took—how many moments passed between steps. The ground crunched beneath his feet, not quite sand, not quite stone—something in between. The incline grew sharper. His body ached with each step, knees protesting. His strange skin was now scraped and bruised. His glowing symbols pulsed dimly as if aware of the strain.

The climb became a crawl. Fingers dug into coarse ridges; sweat dripped from his brow, only to be eaten dry by the lifeless air. At one point, he slipped—his hand catching a crevice just in time. For a brief second, he dangled, the nothingness behind him stretching out into infinity. He gritted his teeth, pulled himself up, and continued. Determined. Alone.

When he finally reached the summit, Devraj collapsed on one knee, chest heaving. The view stole the breath he had left.

Before him stretched an immense dune. A desert—rolling waves of golden-grey sand, silent and cold under a dull, static sky. But beyond it, piercing the horizon rose a structure unlike anything he had seen.

A bridge. Or something like it.

Colossal in form, bone-pale and jagged at its edges, like it was half-formed, unfinished by the world that birthed it. It hung in the air—not quite supported, not quite floating. Arcs of twisted stone and drifting tendrils reached out like frozen screams. There was movement around it—shadows that danced without a source, fluttering like blackened flags in slow motion.

Devraj felt drawn to it. The rest of the land offered no change, no direction, only repetition. But the bridge—there was something sacred about it. Final. Monumental.

His thoughts were cut short when he began his descent.

At first, it was cautious. Small steps, back turned to the slope, hands out to balance. But the Earth had other plans. A loose patch gave way beneath him. His foot slipped. Weight shifted. Gravity, sudden and ruthless, took hold.

He tumbled.

His body hit rock, then soil, then rock again. Dust burst around him as he rolled, bouncing off harsh terrain like a ragdoll in a cyclone. A sharp edge slashed his left shoulder; another bruised his hip. He cried out in pain. The world spun. Sand filled his mouth.

When he finally stopped, he lay face-up, sprawled at the foot of the hill. The sky above remained the same. Silent. Watching.

He groaned, lifted his head.

Blood oozed from his arm, mixing with the strange particles of the land. His left ankle throbbed—twisted but not broken. He gritted his teeth again, placing weight on them slowly. Painful, but bearable. He limped, breathing hard, but still standing.

He didn’t curse the world. He didn’t cry out in frustration. He only muttered to himself, almost amused, "Not dead yet."

He turned to the dune. It looked even more massive from down here—its curves like the ribs of a sleeping titan. With each step, the sand shifted slightly, resisting him, threatening to drag him under. But he pushed forward.

Because now there was direction. A distant shape. A purpose.

He walked into the desert, unknowingly stepping into the regrets of all worlds.