A jolting rattle shook Anna. Her eyes fluttered open. Warm, golden light filled her vision. Swaying—the world shifted beneath her. A rhythmic creak of strained metal, the rush of wind against her ears. She blinked, the scene sharpening.


    Rough wood pressed against her legs—the bench of the old cable car. Its open frame climbed the sheer face of the Orun Plateau. Below, village huts and paths receded, shapes blurring, dusted gold by the low sun. Air rushed past, crisp, carrying a faint, sweet resinous scent from the plateau''s edge, mixing with the dry warmth of sun-baked rock. Wind sighed through the car''s gaps, a louder whistle now. A faint rhythmic creak of village turbines rose, a mechanical pulse growing stronger.


    A small, oil-stained satchel rested heavy in her lap, its worn leather strap digging into her shoulder. The micro-spanners. She leaned forward, peering upward.


    Beside the workshop—a jumble of salvaged metal and wind-scoured wood—the Cloudchaser''s hull caught the light. Polished steel plates threw back the sun''s warmth. The canvas canopy stretched taut, smooth. Brass fittings glinted like scattered points of light in the amber sun. Anna slid off the bench as the car stopped, hurrying closer, boots kicking soft puffs of golden dust. The satchel bumped against her hip. She reached the workshop door. "Dad! I''m here!" Her voice came out thin, breathless in the open air. "I brought the micro-spanners!"


    The heavy workshop door groaned inward. A deep sound vibrated through the wood. Amber light spilled onto packed earth. Air rushed out—a thick wave carrying the sharp tang of engine oil, a faint acrid hint of scorched metal, the sweet scent of sealant. Edmund Freedman stood framed in the glowing doorway. His broad shoulders lowered slightly. A slow curve lifted the corners of his mouth, lines crinkling near his blue eyes. He stepped forward, bending low. His calloused hand—smelling of grease and steel—brushed through her wind-tangled blonde hair, resting briefly, heavy and warm, on her head.


    "There''s my little engineer," he rumbled, the sound a steady vibration in the air. The fluttering sensation low in her chest eased. "Came just in time. Got something new to show you." He gestured her inside. Gadgets gleamed under swaying lanterns. A soft, rhythmic pulse thrummed up through the floorboards from a half-finished generator.


    He led her deeper into the warmth, the clutter. Golden light pooled around dust motes dancing in the air. Oil and sealant scents hung heavy. Salvaged gears spilled from open crates, iridescent metal catching the lantern light. Benches held curling blueprints, worn tools—wrenches rubbed smooth, squares with faded marks. He stopped before Cloudchaser''s flank, resting a hand high on the gleaming, cool hull. Sunlight streamed through a high, grimy window, striking sparks off a newly installed rotor blade. Its polished brass edges gleamed sharp, smooth, etched with fine patterns that pulsed faintly under the amber glow.


    "See this, Anna?" Edmund murmured, his voice a low rumble near her ear, breath warm against her hair. He guided her small hand toward the blade, his touch enveloping hers, warm, steady. "This rotor... slick. Gives her the lift she needs. Lets her move quiet on the wind." He tapped a joint near the base; metal rang faintly. "Feel that? The balance? Smooth spin. Everything depends on it holding true."


    Anna''s grayish-blue eyes widened, pupils catching the rotor''s faint light. A low hum resonated through her fingertips, vibrating up her arm. It felt... kinetic. Alive. "Can I... can I touch it proper, Dad?" she whispered, the sound trembling slightly, thin against the workshop''s steady pulse. "Just lightly?"


    He hesitated. A flicker crossed his weathered features, gone in the golden light. His mouth curved again, softening the lines near his eyes. He looked at her grimy hands, then nodded. "Alright, ace," he conceded, his voice low, soft as the wind outside. "Like petting a sky-kitten. Just a brush. Lightly now. She''s sensitive."


    A rapid beat hammered against her ribs. She pulled her hand back from his, then reached out again. Her fingers, smudged black, trembled slightly. They brushed the cool, smooth metal, gliding over the surface. A sharp tingle shot up her arm. The hum intensified under her touch. Her fingers tightened—a small pressure, testing the resistance—held a fraction too long.


    CRACK. The sound ripped through the workshop, sharp, final, bouncing off steel walls. The gleaming rotor blade snapped near its base. Polished brass tore into jagged edges. Sparks flared—a hot spray hit Anna''s cheeks with a fleeting sting. Cloudchaser lurched sideways with a heavy groan. The frame buckled. Metal screeched against metal. Thick, acrid smoke poured from the fractured joint, filling the air with the bitter reek of burnt insulation.


    The sharp crack echoed again?—louder?— splitting the quiet. Tools clattered from a nearby bench. A tremor ran through the floorboards. Anna flinched, gasping. The sparks died. A deep chill filled the space, swallowing the golden light. The workshop air felt brittle, cold.


    Edmund''s broad shoulders stiffened. He straightened, the slouch gone. Warmth vanished from his face. Shadows pooled deep in his cheeks as the light dimmed. His eyes, moments ago bright, grew dark, reflecting nothing. He didn''t move, but the space he occupied felt larger.


    The air grew heavy. Sharp ozone mixed with smoke curling from Cloudchaser''s wound. Oil and sealant smells twisted thick, tight around Anna''s chest.


    "Anna," he began. The sound scraped, like rusted metal. "What. Have. You. Done?" Each word was clipped, landing heavy in the quiet.


    A cold knot tightened low in her stomach. Her heart hammered, a frantic pulse. "Dad, I—I didn''t mean to!" The words stumbled out, tasting like ash. Tears pricked her eyes, hot, blurring the workshop. Bench lines warped. Shadows stretched, jagged shapes writhing on the walls. The generator''s hum dropped, curdling into a low growl that vibrated through the floorboards, into her legs.


    He didn''t move closer. The air around him seemed to shimmer, distorting the walls behind him like heat haze. He felt taller. His patched jacket looked stretched, taut across broad, angular shoulders. The flickering lantern light carved harsh shadows on his face. Skin pulled pale, tight. "You broke it," he stated. The words landed flat, toneless. He gestured towards the smoking rotor, a quick, dismissive flick. "The heart of the ship."


    "I just wanted to see—" Anna choked out, wiping at tears streaming down her cheeks. The grime smeared. Smoke burned her eyes, stinging, making her chest tighten. "I only pulled a little—"


    "Careless." The word cracked like a whip. Anna recoiled. The workshop walls seemed to press inward with a low groan. The ceiling felt lower. Tools on the racks shifted, metal glinting—wrenches like teeth, pliers like claws. "You never listen." His voice resonated, a strange echo off the metal, amplifying the coldness radiating from him. "Always too quick to touch. Too impatient."


    His voice pressed in, drilling. The sound, the presence—it felt wrong, scraping against the memory of warmth, patience, gentle hands. This figure wore his clothes, but the face held only cold flatness. The thick smells of oil and sealant turned cloying, suffocating, heavy with the stench of burnt circuits.


    She stumbled back, boot hitting a fallen wrench. The clatter echoed, loud. His eyes followed the sound, then locked back onto her. Fixed. Cold. "You ruin things," he said. Each word landed slow, heavy, pushing the air from her lungs. A whiff of smoke, acrid, sharp, curled around her again. "You don''t think. You just... break them."


    The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.


    "No," she whispered, shaking her head hard, blonde hair whipping against wet cheeks. "No! I can fix it! I''ll learn—I promise!" The plea dissolved into the dimming gloom.


    He stepped forward. The floor tilted beneath him. Loose gears skittered away with sharp clicks. His shadow surged, swallowing the lantern''s struggling glow, plunging his face into darkness. Only his voice remained, cutting through the gloom, sharp, hard as splintering ice. It seemed to come from the shadows themselves. "Fix it?" A low sound, like grinding metal, followed. "You couldn''t fix a leaky valve without help. You''re not ready. You''re not enough." He paused. The silence stretched, heavy, thick. "You''ll never be enough to carry what I built."


    The final words hung in the freezing air, "never enough," a low vibration deep in her bones. As the sound faded, the floor cracked beneath her feet. A guttural roar tore upwards. A deep fissure ripped through the earth, yawning wide. Molten red and orange light bled out, veins of fire crawling towards her. Heat prickled her skin even as the air turned colder. A pressure wave hit—tools flew from benches, clattering, striking walls. Blueprints shredded. Walls groaned, wood splintering, metal screeching as they folded inward. Beyond the dissolving doorway, the golden plateau vanished. The sky boiled—bruised purple and blood-red clouds churning, stabbed by sickly green lightning. Thunder crashed, shaking her teeth, ripping the air around her.


    Anna cried out, scrambling backward on hands and knees. Palms scraped raw against splintering floorboards. The chasm gaped wider, pulsing with red light. Workshop walls buckled, groaning, collapsing inward like burning paper. She searched the ruin—Cloudchaser gone. A skeletal husk rose from smoke: blackened steel, tattered canvas, rotor blades snapped into jagged talons shrieking as they spun wild, slashing air. Flames burst from its shattered hull, painting the wreckage in flickering orange-red light.


    Heat pressed against her skin, blistering. An acrid undertone filled her nose, making her stomach clench. A jagged piece of metal, twisting in the flames, snagged her gaze—sharp, broken.


    Then, through the smoke and flickering firelight, a figure appeared where the workbench had been. Edmund. Not the broad-shouldered man from the doorway, but thin, hollow-cheeked. His patched jacket hung loose on a skeletal frame. Waxy pallor coated his skin. Breath came in shallow, rasping gasps that hitched in the smoky air. His eyes, sunken, fixed on her. They burned with a focused intensity. He leaned, one hand trembling as it clutched his chest. His gaze held her pinned.


    "You lost it!" His voice, weak, rasping, scraped the air, amplified somehow, raw. "My ship! My dream! Everything—cinders!" He coughed, a wet, racking sound. His body doubled over briefly, then straightened. His burning eyes snapped back to her, unblinking. "Was it worthless to you, Anna?"


    She clapped hands over her ears, squeezing her eyes shut, shaking her head fast, side to side. "No! That''s not true!" she screamed, the sound ragged against the roar and crackle. "You believed in me! You taught me!" Tears streamed hot down her face, mixing with grime.


    "Believed in you?" he rasped back, the sound wet, tearing. A thin, brittle noise, like ice cracking, shuddered through his frame. "Look! A fool''s faith!" He gestured weakly towards the fiery wreck, its skeletal metal reaching. "My faith. Spat on. My work. Ruined. Too weak. Too careless."


    The air grew heavy, pressing down. Breathing felt difficult. She stumbled backward again, boot catching on a warped floor plate. She fell hard onto the fracturing ground. Heat from the chasm scorched her back. The frail figure flickered in the inferno''s glow. His burning gaze held hers. The fiery wreck shrieked behind him, groaning metal twisting closer.


    Blackness surged at the edges of her vision. Flashes behind her eyes—a weak hand gripping hers, a rattling breath, whispered words. The figure''s frailty matched the flash.


    He raised a trembling hand, finger pointing, skeletal thin in the firelight. "Look at you," he rasped, the voice wet, sharp. "Still stumbling. Still breaking things." His gaze flickered past her shoulder, then sharply back. "Useless... You protect nothing, Anna. Nothing."


    Each word struck like a physical impact. Her breath hitched. Fire flared in her side. Her throat felt tight.


    "You are a failure," he continued, the words a sibilant whisper sliding past the noise, into her ears. His eyes bored into hers. "Pathetic. Wrapped in pride. Thinking... handle it. Thinking... ready." The burning gaze tightened, fixed. The fiery wreck behind him groaned again, leaning closer. The floor beneath her shuddered. The chasm yawned wider.


    Her chest felt tight. The dying face from memory swam before her, merging with this figure''s sharp stare.


    "All ashes," he whispered. The sound rustled, dry, slicing through the roar. "You''re a curse, Anna. A parasite. Destroying everything a better man build."


    Air punched from her lungs. "No, Dad!" The scream tore from her throat, raw, broken, aimed at the flickering figure.


    "NO!"


    As the final word ripped free, the frail figure dissolved. Not into smoke, but into motes of coppery light. The motes swirled upward, forming a blinding point of orange-white intensity high in the smoke-filled space above.


    The ground beneath Anna dropped away into black void. Stars rushed past below, streaks of frozen light. The workshop dissolved. The fiery wreck vanished. She hung suspended in cold, empty space. Above, the point of light pulsed—once, twice—then erupted outward.


    A silent flash filled everything. White light rushed towards her, soundless but carrying immense pressure. It squeezed the air from her lungs, pressed hard against her bones. Swirling colours—cosmic dust seen through the flash—expanded at impossible speed. Tendrils of light reached, clawed. The sharp smell of ozone, the metallic tang of intense heat filled her nose. The light swallowed her vision, white-hot, absolute. Pressure crushed inward.


    Utter silence. Blackness pressed against her eyelids. Then, a different pressure—beneath her back, against her cheek. Rough. Uneven. Not mud. The roaring pressure dissolved, leaving only a low whistle of wind against sturdy walls. A dull ache throbbed behind her eyes, heavy.


    Sensation returned, sharp: coarse blanket weave against skin, a yielding cot beneath. A rhythmic creak nearby. Her chest seized, breath scraping shallowly against jagged pressure inside. Sounds solidified: the crash of waves, relentless; closer, soft, even breathing. Voices murmured, hushed, distant through a ringing fog.


    —cracked, definitely," a low voice said, calm, measured. "Maybe not displaced... absolute rest. Concussion moderate... Keep her still, Miriam. Sedative..."


    Miriam''s voice, tight, thin. "The burns, Halden? Her hand?"


    "Superficial burns..." Halden''s voice replied. "Scrapes cleaned. Ribs and shock... limits..." A pause. "The child?"


    ..."Lia''s hand... healing," Miriam whispered. "Nasty cut, Halden thinks maybe a fissure fracture... needs watching." Her voice lowered further, blending with the wind''s sigh. "Stay close."


    Lia? Anna''s eyelids felt heavy, fused shut. She forced them open. Grit scraped. Thin, gray light filtered through cracked shutters. Rough wooden beams overhead, dark with age. The smell of woodsmoke, dried herbs, sharp antiseptic. A hearth''s embers glowed faintly across the room. Her pulse gave a weak flutter. The cottage. Miriam... Tolvar? They must have carried me. A flicker of memory—mud, shouting, falling—then sharp heat bloomed in her side. The cot pressed rough against her back. Embers pulsed red in the dimness.


    She tried a deeper breath. Fire exploded beneath her ribs, stealing air, ripping a choked gasp from her throat. She curled inward instinctively, a wave of cold sickness washing over her. The room tilted, swam. Her hand touched bandages, wrapped tight and clean beneath her torn, singed vest. Her other hand throbbed, knuckles rough under separate dressings. Slick wood... the impact... Lia''s face... the kite shattering... Cold settled heavy in her stomach.


    Blurred vision cleared more. Curled on the cot beside her, beneath the shared blanket, Lia slept. Her small face looked pale, exhaustion smoothing the usual lines of mischief. Dark lashes rested against grimy cheeks. Her injured hand, wrapped thick in white bandages and resting on a padded splint, lay atop the blanket near Anna''s shoulder. In her other hand, held loose even in sleep, was a small, carved wooden bird.


    Anna froze. Breath caught somewhere between the fire in her side and the tightness in her chest. Lia. Here. Pale watery light outside. How long? A day? More?


    She lay utterly still, barely breathing. Lia''s chest rose, fell. Steady. Quiet. Anna watched her. I did that. The thought landed flat, heavy. My hand, the wood... the crack... Lia''s cry.


    Lia''s small warmth beside her was solid heat against Anna''s chilled skin. Her quiet breathing pushed back slightly against the ringing in Anna''s ears, against the echoing voice from the nightmare.


    Slowly, wincing as her ribs protested, Anna shifted another arm. Pain jolted through her side, sharp, making her gasp again. Her fingers, trembling, hovered over Lia''s sleeping head. Gently, knuckles brushing scraped skin, she touched a stray dark curl back from the child''s forehead. Soft hair, real. Solid. Pinning her here, now, in the quiet room. The ache pulsed steady in her side. A hollow space remained deep in her chest. But there was this: cool dawn air, the child''s soft breathing, the sharp fire in her side, the raw scrape of loss.