Bri stopped them for a couple more people, though she didn’t make as much pointless conversation as she had in the centre of town. The roads turned from mainly straight lines of pavement to curved, to gravel and dirt. The bottoms of Bri’s jeans were beginning to collect the dust of the road. Malak’s shoes were still covered in the wet line of the dog’s nose.

The sense of the faded immortality finally suffused Malak’s senses. The taste of something they hadn’t had in so long, the feeling which had already dispersed to the point of torture. They walked over to the short fence, stepping on the barbed wire and easily clearing the top to land on the other side. Instead of continuing forward, they stopped long enough to turn and help Bri over. The field was currently unoccupied, Malak could see the horses which occasionally inhabited this area down further in another pasture.

None of that mattered. They made as straight a beeline toward the feeling and the person accompanying it.

The messenger sat next to a tree, their tattered clothes nearly blending them into the texture, if not at all hiding them in colour. The being’s eyes lay open, staring forward without blinking. Pupils without irises, expanding and contracting no matter the shade.

Malak recognized this messenger. “Orifiel?”