Morning, if this world still had mornings, arrived stained with ink.
Every breath smelled faintly of wet paper. The fields they had grown in their brief peace—the ones sprouting from words of hope scratched in the soil—were turning grey at the edges. Each blade of grass bore a faint, repeating letter: S, curling like a serpent.
Lena ran her fingertips across one. It smeared onto her skin.
“Submit,” she whispered.
Dominic crouched beside her, his eyes hollow from nights without sleep. “It’s spreading faster than the fire ever did.”
Behind them, the oak moaned. Its bark split where new words tried to carve themselves in: OBEY, REVISE, BEGIN ANEW.
Mireya slammed her staff into the ground. Sparks hissed but refused to catch. “The hum is rewriting matter,” she said. “Not dreams anymore. F
