Last Look At The Sun

Corere burst through the door of his small home, breath uneven, heart pounding so violently it felt as if it shook his bones. There was no time left to think, only to act.

He moved quickly, rifling through drawers and shelves as his shaking hands reached for everything he thought might help him survive what lay ahead.

He grabbed his old hunting knife, the one his mother had given him when he was younger. A loaf of dried bread, a metal water flask, a unlit torch with strips of pitch wrapped around the top.

Finally, he knelt beside the small wooden table by the entrance and picked up the locket he always tried not to think about. Inside was a picture of his mother back when she was healthy, and beside her was the faint outline of his father. It was old, worn, and precious. He clutched it tightly before slipping it into his bag.

His fingers trembled so badly that he nearly dropped the leather straps as he secured the bag shut but fear could not stop him now. Not when the price of inaction was losing everything.

He quietly pushed open the door to his mother’s room. The air was thick with the smell of herbs that had long since failed to do anything helpful. She lay still on the bed, face pale and glistening with sweat, a wet cloth rested on her forehead, and piles of crushed leaves and powders sat in bowls beside her. Remedies that had done nothing but delay what was coming.

Corere approached slowly, feeling his chest tighten. He sat beside her and took her hand gently in both of his.

“I am going away for a little while,”

he whispered, his voice barely holding together.

“But I am coming back. I promise...and when I do, I will have something that will fix this. I will fix everything.”

He leaned forward, wrapping his arms around her neck in a careful embrace. His voice cracked as he murmured

“Please be safe, please hold on...I need you to hold on.”

For a moment, there was no response...

Then, slowly, weakly, her arms lifted and wrapped around him in return. No words, just a fragile squeeze, so light he barely felt it. It was enough to send a wave of determination surging through him but enough to remind him why he had to do this.

He stood, wiped his eyes, and forced a steady breath. He makes his way to the front door and squeezes the cold door handle tightly. His eyes closing tightly as he pushes the door open slowly.

Corere stepped out of the house and froze. The village was silent, but every villager was awake. Every single one of them stood outside their doorways, watching him. Their faces were tight and unreadable. Some whispered among themselves, others simply stared, eyes filled with a strange mixture of dread and pity.

It was clear they knew where he was going...and why.

He swallowed hard, trying to keep his resolve from crumbling under their prying gazes. His steps were slow but steady as he walked through the village. The murmurs followed him like ghosts until he finally reached the dirt path leading toward the mountain pass.

The walk was long, nearly two hours of nothing but trees, wind, and the weight of his own thoughts pressing down on him. What had happened to his mother. What he had seen. What he had to do. And the terrifying possibility that he might not return.

When he finally reached the base of the mountain pass, he saw a figure standing at the entrance. Lux leaned against the rock wall, arms crossed, staring into the shadows ahead. When he noticed Corere approaching, his eyes widened for a moment in surprise.

“You actually came,”

Lux said quietly.

Corere nodded. He tried to speak, but his throat was too tight, so he simply adjusted his bag and gestured that he was ready.

Lux motioned for him to follow, and the two began their climb into the narrow pass. From the first few steps, Corere felt the shift in the air. It was colder, heavier. Sound echoed strangely off the towering walls. Even their footsteps felt intrusive, like they were disturbing something ancient that slumbered between the stone.

Corere swallowed and finally worked up the nerve to ask, “How...do you even know about this place?”

Lux slowed. His expression tightened, but he didn’t look back.

“I... suppose you need an idea of what you’re getting yourself into”

Lux began softly, taking a deep breath

‘’it all began when I was young, funnily enough I was around your age when it happened. My grandmother took care of me along with my grandfather. My mother died to birth complications and my father...he was always away’’

His voice trembled slightly, and he looks up at the setting sun that glares into the mountain pass crevice

“My grandmother was tough...she was the only women in custodia to ever live to fifty. People thought it was a blessing and so did I for a while...until the curse settled in”

Lux paused, drawing a shaking breath.

“At first it took her sight...then her sense of touch...her skin started to turn black around her body, it was rotting her skin. Then...it decided to finish her off with paralysis...letting the necrosis eat away at her slowly”

Corere stared at him in stunned silence. Lux continued walking, but the tension in his shoulders had returned full force.

“I couldn’t bare seeing her like that...I-I needed a way to save her, and my grandfather told me about the supposed counter curse in the canyon up ahead. So, I set off, grabbed what I thought was necessary and set out towards this very mountain pass”

Lux said, stopping dead in his tracks with a skid in his boots. His hands trembling from an unknown cause

“I stood at the entrance of that canyon...anything past the tenth step was completely dark but I still moved forward...I-I... I never suspected what I’d see down there. I walked down, lighting a torch as if it would’ve helped until I finally reached the bottom. I couldn’t see a damn thing...that was until...’’

Corere stared silently, unease creeping into his bones at Lux’s trembling speech

Lux suddenly spun around, grabbing Corere’s shoulders with both hands and pulling him close. His eyes were wide, filled with raw fear.

“Listen to me, Corere…” he whispered harshly. “And listen well. Do NOT let your light die. No matter what happens, No matter what you think you hear… o-or no matter what you see, you keep that flame lit. You die with it when it goes out.”

Corere felt his breath catch. He managed a small nod, trembling.

“Say it”

Lux demanded.

“Say you won’t let it die.”

Corere managed to muster another feeble nod, his throat going dry as he swallowed.

“I… I won’t. I won’t let it die,” Corere stammered.

Lux stared at him for several seconds before finally letting his shoulders go. He turned back around and wiped his face, exhaling shakily.

“Beyond this point…” he muttered, “there’s nothing but the canyon.”

And they continued forward in silence.

The canyon was still distant when the mountain pass began to change.

The air shifted first. It grew colder with each step, the kind of cold that didn’t creep across the skin but sank into it, settling in the bones like a warning. Corere tightened his grip on his unlit torch as he followed closely behind Lux. Neither of them spoke. There was nothing to fill the silence except the crunch of gravel beneath their boots and the slow, distant groan of wind weaving through the jagged cracks of the mountains.

The pass itself narrowed gradually, the stone walls rising higher on both sides until the sky became nothing more than a thin strip of pale gray above them. Moss clung to the rocks, slick and dark as if it had been feeding on the shadows themselves. Occasional drips of water fell from unseen ledges, each drop echoing with an almost unnatural sharpness.

It didn’t feel like they were walking toward something alive.

It felt like they were walking into something that had been dead for a long, long time.

Lux’s posture grew stiffer the farther they went. Corere noticed it in the way his shoulders tightened, in the way his hand hovered near his own torch even though it wasn’t lit yet. There was tension beneath his calm expression, a fear he was trying and failing to hide. Corere didn’t ask about it. He didn’t need to. The deeper they travelled, the more the atmosphere explained itself.

The light dimmed strangely too. The sky wasn’t overcast, yet the shadows beneath the rising stone walls thickened and clung to their ankles as if the darkness itself was waiting for something.

The wind stopped

Not faded.... not softened

Stopped

The silence hit them suddenly and without warning, so heavy that Corere instinctively held his breath. No wind, no bird and no shifting pebbles to kick. Not even the faint whistle of air between the canyon’s teeth.

Lux didn’t comment on it, he only slowed his pace.

The path twisted sharply, and when they rounded the final curve, Corere understood why Lux had been so haunted.

The canyon entrance stood before them like an open maw in the mountain. The stone stairs carved into the earth were old...ancient even...with cracks running down each step like scars. They descended into a darkness so deep it didn’t look natural. After only twenty paces, the stairs disappeared entirely into a gluttonous shadow.

Corere stopped walking. His knees felt weak.

Lux stood beside him, staring into the abyss with a face that wasn’t blank so much as carefully held together.

“This is it,” he murmured.

There was fear in his voice, raw and unpolished.

Corere swallowed hard and despite the dread crawling up his spine, something steadier pushed against it. A quiet determination, a voice inside him whispering that there was no turning back...not now, not ever. Not while his mother was waiting for him to return.

He straightened...took a deep breath then another.

The canyon waited for him; the darkness seemed to beckon them both closer. Its call acting like a black hole, attempting to consume everything around it.

Lux shook away the trance like state and began to dig through his satchel, pushing aside tools, scraps of cloth, and a half-burned journal page before pulling out something small and stone-gray. He held it out in his palm and there it was, a rune stone. Its surface was smooth except for the carved rune at its center, glowing faintly with thin cracks of red and orange spreading like tiny embers beneath the surface.

“This,” Lux said, closing Corere’s hand gently around the stone, “is a spark rune. It’s infused with a command to release a spark and ignite whatever it touches.”

Corere studied the stone. The glow pulsed like a weak heartbeat.

“This will be your lifeline,”

Lux continued.

“Your only way to light your torch… and keep it lit.”

Corere felt the weight of those words settle hard in his chest.

“There’s nothing down there that can reignite it,”

Lux said quietly.

“Nothing. So never lose this rune stone. Understand?”

Corere nodded, gripping it tight enough that the sharp edges pressed into his skin. He forced himself to remember every detail of Lux’s warning, to burn it into his thoughts the same way the rune burned beneath the stone’s surface. Losing it meant darkness and darkness...meant death.

Corere moved to step forward, but Lux suddenly grabbed his arm. His grip was tight… almost fearful.

“Corere,”

Lux said, voice low.

“I-I never finished my story”

Corere turned, confused, but the look in Lux’s eyes froze him. It wasn’t just worry but it was something deeper, something that had been eating at him.

“when I reach the bottom...I-I ran...there was something down there”

Lux swallowed hard, his head lowering and his grip on corere’s arm turns almost painful

“It wasn’t human...okay?”

Corere felt his pulse spike, what could’ve scared custodia’s warrior this badly?

“And that smile… that goddamn smile’’

He shook his head slowly.

“I can’t put words to it...b-but I know that thing is dangerous.”

A cold, heavy silence followed.

Then Lux stepped back and raised his head to give Corere one last nod.

“Stay steady, don’t let it sense fear and don’t lose the rune stone. Your torch is everything down there.”

Corere tightened his grip on the spark rune, took a slow breath, and finally began his descent into the darkness