The red moon set.
And from the opposite end of the sky, the First Sun rose. A cold, blood-red disc, dragging long shadows across the frost-bitten city.
Guruji Gopalan had fallen from a hole in the sky.
Grimbleshank groaned and kicked a broken pot. "You wrecked my stall! You owe me three ladles, two skull bowls, and one astral broth soul."
Guruji, tangled in prayer beads and noodles, sat up. "I have... arrived."
Grimbleshank muttered, "I'm done. I'm quitting cosmology."
Everett took a step forward, staring. "Who even are you?"
" My name… is Guruji Dev Gopalan.
Some say I was born beneath a weeping star, others say I simply appeared when the silence between two prayers cracked open.
They call my class Oracle of Unfinished Prophecy — not because I do not see, but because what I see dares not finish itself.
I am twenty-two winters old, though time bends strangely around those who speak with the unknowable.
A disciple of the Divine, I serve in whispers and riddles — and when the veil thins, I am summoned not as a prophet... but as a part-time oracle, unpaid, uninvited, yet unavoidable.
The truth? It hides its face from me.
But I always catch its shadow."
Grimbleshank sighed. "Anyway. There's not much time till the next Blood Sun Feast."
Everett blinked. "Blood Sun Feast? What is that?"
Grimbleshank pointed to the steaming bowl Everett still held. "That. It's what you're eating."
The taste of the soup returned to Everett's tongue: burnt algae, industrial despair, spicy regret. He nearly dropped it.
Then the Second Sun appeared.
It didn't rise. It arrived.
A sudden, blinding flare above the city. The world stilled. No heat. Only light and cold so sharp it carved the edges of buildings in frost.
With it came the stillness.
From the sand, the creatures emerged: frost-worms with translucent teeth, spider-lizards dragging twisted trees behind them, fog-foxes with antlers made of bone.
They rose—and then froze.
Mid-motion. Mid-breath. The world paused, like an exhale caught in God's throat.
Everett's breath caught. "Where were these things before? Why are they rising now?"
Guruji stood, brushing soup off his robes. His voice was soft, yet certain.
> "They were always there… like God is with you. You shall not believe it—but that is your foolishness."
Everett turned, watching the impossible unfold.
He whispered, "Why does it feel like… everything is waiting?"
Grimbleshank, rebuilding a pyramid of broken bowls, replied, "Because it is. The Second Sun doesn't follow time. It follows events. Disasters. Decisions. Sometimes an hour apart. Sometimes a hundred years. When it shines, something already changed."
Everett replies " Then how do you know Blood sun feast is coming? "
Grimbleshank nodded and said " "Because every time someone new arrives — every time a trial begins — the Second Sun comes. Like clockwork. Except it doesn't tell time. It tells consequences"
Down the street, two groups emerged.
To one side: robed figures in gold sashes, faces lifted to the suns, singing. The Sun-Worshippers. To them, the Blood Sun Feast was a blessing. The Second Sun, purification. Divine timing.
To the other: hooded figures hurrying underground. Faces hidden. Ancient prayers whispered into cracked talismans. The Sun-Fearers. To them, the suns were devils. Curses. Bringers of madness and death.
Everett stood between them, bathed in twin shadows.
"Grimbleshank," he said quietly. "What is this place?"
The dwarf leaned on his ladle, staring into the pale sky. "This? This is the Frost Realm, boy."
Behind them, Guruji Gopalan swayed, his voice prophetic:
> "A mirror shall break… a shadow will grow legs… And someone must eat the Second Sun…"
Then he burped. "Pardon. Radish."
Everett turned again toward the frozen beasts.
He asked, "So we can eat these things? Like... really eat them?"
Grimbleshank nodded. "Only now. The Second Sun burns away the frost-rot curse. Makes 'em safe. Still tastes like sorrow and fungus, but hey—edible."
Everett frowned. "Then why are there Sun-Fearers? The sun rises every day. Beasts hunt them every day. But when the Second Sun rises, they can eat the beasts without worry."
Guruji turned, his voice low and cryptic:
> "The feared are not the enemy.
No — the feared are the reflection behind the mirror, the breath just before your name is spoken.
They are the self, dressed in shadows, wearing old memories like cloaks.
They are the companions you once called friend, before time twisted their names.
They are the known — too familiar to be strangers, too close to flee.
And thus, the greatest terror is not from without… but from the echo within."
Grimbleshank's jaw tightened. "He's right. The Sun-Fearers… don't fear the beasts. They fear people. Cities. Neighbors."
His voice dropped. "Because on the day of the Second Sun… cities are massacred. People kill each other for food. It's easier than hunting a frost-lizard through frozen hell."
Everett's heart sank.
In this world, it wasn't just monsters you had to fear.
It was the people trying to survive them.
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