The blinding light had faded, and Haris, Köl and Sehęr were standing exactly where they had been before, at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the sea. The strong gust of wind disappeared as if it was never there to begin with. He clutched the talisman tightly in his hands. There was something different about the place. The air was colder, the sky overcast, and the familiar sounds of the crashing waves seemed muted, as if the world itself held its breath. Hariş took a step forward, his boots crunching the brittle grass that had turned gray and lifeless. There was no melting snow on the ground. But two minutes earlier there had been. He was sure of that, unless his mind was playing tricks on him somehow.

He turned around, and that was when his eyes saw them. On the ground ahead. His stomach twisted at what he saw. Graves. Rows of them. Crudely marked by wooden stakes that had weathered the passage of time. They walked closer towards them. The names were familiar. He knew these people. He greeted these people not long ago. But there they were, with their names etched onto their graves. He joined Köl who stood frozen in his tracks in front of one of them.

"That's my name," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. Köl knelt, brushing the dirt from the wooden marker. There was no mistaking it, his name, Köl Bar Gölhęm, carved in a shaky yet deliberate script stared back at him.

Hariş followed behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder. What did any of it mean? The place was familiar. This was their cliff. But at the same time, it wasn't. It was a graveyard. Tainted by time and death. But how? Not even an hour ago the land was bare if not for trees, grass and melting snow. And yet now...

"What... What does any of this mean?" Sehęr asked.

His other hand tightened around the talisman. It felt very cold to the touch. His chest tightened as he stared at the grave. He didn't want to say it, but there was only one thing explanation that even started to make sense. "I don't think we're where –or when –we thought we were anymore." He shook his head. This wasn't in Samaha Körhan's stories. There was all sorts of things about all sorts of beasts and magics that the mind could never imagine but journeying through time... even Samaha Körhan never dared tell one of those tales.

Köl stood up abruptly, his fists clenched at his sides. His voice shook as he spoke. "This is a mistake. It must be. I'm standing right here. I can't be dead. What is happening?"

Hariş looked around at the graves again. He didn't see his, or Sehęr's. But in the corner of his eye, he saw what he thought to be Safera's. There was a series of unmarked graves, and one big one he could only assume was a communal grave. "I don't know. Let's head back to the village. Maybe there are answers there."

Köl shook his head over and over again. He paced from left to right, his hands tightening around his blonde mane of hair. "No. No. No. No." He pointed to Hariş's hand which was clutching the talisman. "That thing brought us here. Make it take us back."

He stepped forward towards his friend. Was there a way to get through to him? Hariş had never seen Köl get like this. In the years he'd known him, Köl walked around larger than life, with a spring in his step and all the joy of the world at on his shoulders. This was different. "Köl—"

"You have to make it take us back. I'm standing here, but I'm down there. How is that possible? Essences! Why is any of this possible?" He fell to the ground, bringing his knees to his chest. This man, always the pinnacle of strength, was rocking himself back and forth, at the very edge of insanity.

"Köl!" Hariş sat in front of him, placing one hand on his knees, steadying him. "I don't know if I can. I don't even know how this happened. But I'm sure if we can get back to the village, there's bound to be an answer waiting for us."

"We need to go back, Hariş."

Sehęr rested a hand on Köl's shoulder too. Until now, she looked from a distance at what was going on. Hariş wondered about what she thought of what they were witnessing. The Essence of Death had claimed the whole village as its victim. And they were standing among their graves. Unease sparked inside him, but he pushed it aside. He could ruminate in it later, maybe when the clouds cleared. Until then, he had to do something. Anything.

"We need to go back." His voice was just above a whisper now.

Hariş nodded. "And we will. But first, we need answers, Köl. Come on. Abasęn?" He kept his hand on his friend's knees. "Come on."

He waited for one heartbeat or maybe ten, but eventually Köl stood back up, and dusted himself, though his eyes stayed fixated on his grave. Hariş could not begin to fathom how his friend felt in that moment. The knowledge that the Essence of Death always claimed the lives that belonged it was different to being confronted with the reality of it. He stood up after him.

The walk back to the village was eerily quiet. The path was laden with overgrown trees and roots, and grass that reached his knees. It all felt unnatural. As if something intrinsically wrong had taken place there. But they wouldn't know until they reached there. Until then, he stayed in his own head, listening to the silent world around him. Except for the crunch of footsteps over the dry, rocky ground, there was nothing to listen to. The birds which usually sang beautiful tunes were gone. The crickets were also gone. Replacing them was a loud nothingness.

What had happened? What led to so many deaths? When had it all taken place and why? Elsęr was a secluded place. Outside of trade season, they kept to themselves, with the occasional villager going south to Röhęr Jęhil. There was never a reason to head north, deeper into the cold, or to cross over to Fredhar. The Frostlands were uncharted territory for them and anyone who valued their life. The climate in Elsęr was temperate enough to award them livable conditions. Had the Fredhans traveled south and unleashed their wrath on the village? He had only ever met one or two every other trading season, but they seemed a calm and kind enough people, with their quirks and odd traditions. None that seemed to glorify enough violence to kill an entire village. No. Something else must have happened. He just couldn't put his finger on it just yet.

But he would. Hariş needed time to sit down and think about what everything meant. Somehow, they had been propelled into the future or another reality, perhaps. A thing he didn't even know was possible, but that somehow happened. If they couldn't find the answers they needed in the village, then going south, as intended before, would be the best thing for them to do. If Elsęr didn't have answers, Röhęr Jęhil or the King's City would. Someone had to know something that could help them.

He stopped in his tracks at the very edge of the village. The first house he saw, Feza Havłine's house, was nothing but a shell of what it used to be. It was a dilapidated conglomeration of bricks, that looked charred. As if someone set it ablaze and waited for it to burn down to the ground. The next house was the same. And as they went on, deeper into the village, the sights didn't change. It was all ruins. What had once been their homes was now little more than rubble covered in moss and vines. The stone well was broken, with crumbled walls. The marketplace littered with rotted stalls, overtaken by vegetation. None of them said anything. Instead, they stood around, looking. Hariş kicked at a fallen beam. It was once part of Samaha's shop. He shook his head in disbelief.

"It's like no one's been here in years." He wandered around the square, his footsteps faltering. These were the shops he visited, the homes of people who offered him and his mother food. His friends' homes. Where they all grew up together. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again. "It's barely been an hour since we met at the cliff. How could this happen?"

Sehęr crouched near a shattered window frame. She picked up a rusted trinket. Hariş followed her movements. She was in front of her family's shop. "This is wrong."

"This is one of the four hells, Sehęr," Köl said. He chuckled humorlessly. "We're stranded in some future, forsaken by the Essences. How do we fix it, Hariş?"

Hariş shook his head. He didn't have the answers. He never had the answers. There was so much he didn't know, and this was part of it. "I don't know how we fix it, Köl. How would I know how we fix it? I don't even know what it is!" His frustration cut through his words. His mother was dying somewhere years ago, and he was here, stranded. Brought through time by some fluke accident. And he didn't know how to go back. His outburst echoed through the empty village, followed by a heavy silence.

Sehęr looked at him. Her eyes filled with worry and a glint of fear. "What if there is no fixing whatever this is?"

Hariş met her gaze, his jaw tightening. He didn't have an answer to that either. So he just stood there, in the middle of the village, surrounded by the ghosts of a life he once knew and hated. A life he desperately wished to get back to.