The world howled beneath the Second Sun.
Its cold flare hung overhead like a judgment passed, and all at once, the beasts turned.
They attacked everything—not just people, not just prey. They attacked each other, the earth, even their own shadows. Flesh thundered against stone. Screams joined roars. Even the sun-fearers fled their bunkers as chaos erupted in the streets.
The sun-worshippers were worse.
They gathered in rabid formations, chanting praises, slaying beasts—and each other—gleefully. They dragged corpses into golden sacks lined with spiked embroidery, marking them as sacred offerings. Blood smeared over their robes like holy oil.
Grimbleshank Ironpocket muttered something rude and unsacred and handed Everett a dull, rusty knife.
"This'll do. Probably."
He himself pulled a golden key from under his beard. "Let's see if my pets still remember their master…"
With a twist, the key shimmered—and the ground shook.
From the cracked street burst a six-headed, nine-tailed undead hound, eyes glowing blue, each mouth snarling in a different pitch. Behind it emerged a tiny man, barely 2 centimeters tall, but with a presence like a warhorn. His fists cracked stone as he walked.
"This here's Minimus, my old commander. Used to be my slave. Don't worry—he's unionized now."
"And that ugly mutt? Just my favorite beast. Died loyal. Stayed loyal."
Guruji still seated started chanting and sanskrit letters formed a barrier around him.
An elephant came from a corner trampling all the structure beneath its feet.
It was a plague-elephant, towering and stitched from bones and frost-choked fur. It wore no skin, only pieces of armor made from old doors and spines. Its breath froze windows.It had seven legs and sixteen eyes all around its body.
" Minimus, you sure you're up for this?" Grimbleshank muttered.
The tiny man cracked his knuckles. "Only one way to find out."
The tiny man launched forward—faster than thought, fists blurring into bladed blows, dancing up the elephant's ribs. But size alone wasn't enough. The beast bucked and trumpeted, eyes blazing.
Guruji Gopalan, still seated on a broken pot, suddenly chanted ancient Hanumanic verses. Sanskrit letters erupted around him in fire, forming a blazing circle that bound the elephant in place.
> "Jai Bajrangbali," he whispered, barely audible over the noise.
The undead hound lunged—all six mouths biting six different legs, while its tails coiled around the seventh, dragging the beast off balance.
Everett didn't wait. He leapt forward, knife in hand, and stabbed the elephant directly in one of its many glaring eyes.
But the beast didn't stop.
It had sixteen eyes.
He stabbed again. Then again. Sixteen stabs, each followed by a shriek that could shatter glass.
Then… silence.
Until the elephant opened its trunk.
Inside was the seventeenth eye—black, wet, and blinking like it knew him.
Grimbleshank shrieked, "That's the final one! You have to kill it! QUICK!"
Even Guruji looked pale. "Do it swiftly… time wait for no one."
Everett hesitated only a moment—then ran, leapt into the beast's mouth, and drove the knife directly into the last eye.
There was a scream—not of the beast, but of something older—and then silence.
The elephant shuddered… and fell.
Everett crawled out, soaked in blood and pus, eyes wide.
He whispered, "Nothing worse than that…"
By sunset, the Second Sun folded away as quietly as a closing wound, leaving a silence that screamed louder than any roar.
The street was wreckage.
Eight or nine dead beasts sprawled across the plaza, some still twitching, their fluids soaking into the ground. Bones cracked underfoot. Smoke from sacred sacks lingered in the air, mixing with steam from still-warm organs.
The blood had filled the gutterways, forming red rivers down the slope of the market road.
Guruji had not moved.
Still seated, still wrapped in his now-stiff robes. The glowing scriptures had fallen, flaking away into ash. His skin beneath was unnaturally pale, almost deathly, yet he breathed—slowly.
Beside him, Everett slumped, hand bleeding where he gripped the rusted blade. His clothes were torn, blood-crusted. His feet were bare, wrapped in strips of beast-fur and prayer cloths.
"I think I'm starting to understand," he said, voice hoarse.
Grimbleshank sat nearby, smaller than before. His clothes sagged. His once round belly had collapsed inward. He rubbed at his legs like they were hollow.
"I was eight meters tall once," he said. "I've shrunk another centimeter, if I'm counting right."
Everett didn't answer. The air tasted like iron and old frost.
In the distance, bells rang faintly. Not for celebration—for counting the dead.
Guruji stirred, and whispered into the hush:
"The sun sets slowest when watched by the broken.
The night comes quickest for those still bleeding."
Grimbleshank spat. "That one again. Depressing bastard."
They sat together in the twilight, with the cold sun low, and the city behind them changed forever.
And the silence, somehow, felt like the loudest thing left.