As night fell, the creatures rose. They became more active in the night-time, it seemed, or perhaps it was their arcane hearts resonating with the mystical minerals that hummed nocturnally beneath the ground. Nobody knew their exact idiosyncrasies, and as far as the obfuscation of Demonkind went, nobody ever would. What mattered to the survivors was keeping out their way was the main objective. Even that proved difficult at times.

There was something to be said about the tendency of life to persist. However, although this tenaciousness was usually considered an impressive quality – a sort of "get-out-of-jail-free card" when it came to desolation – most individuals failed to consider the other factor. Or rather, they considered it without realising.

Biodiversity.

You see, in the world of the Demon Realm, even as the First Cataclysm materialised, the presence of life was not in question. In fact, in the Boiling Isles, within the mighty skeleton of the long-dead Titan, life always thrived, in one way or another.

But that life was mostly the same. The same creatures roamed the grounds as patrolled the skies. The skies filled with them; swarms of voracious mandibles capped with blood.

"Luz…hey, listen to me for once, okay? Remember…always remember –"

Luz gasped and shot up from her bedroll. Daggers of pain shot through her head, and she raised an unconscious hand to remedy the issue. She let out an involuntary gasp, her lungs giving out in protest. Alas, it did not make her feel any better, and neither did slamming the sand down next to her.

Her eyes glanced to the wedding ring on her finger.

'Luz? You…alright?'

Luz blinked. Hunter was sitting in front of her, his scarred face illuminated by the campfire. He shifted on the spot, setting his back against the rocky wall of the valley. She glanced to his clothes. A slash across his old clothes revealed a portion of his skin that wasn't healing. She sighed. Hunter seemed to notice where her eyes wandered, because he shifted his clothes to hide it.

'I'm fine,' she uttered, her bloodshot eyes betraying her.

Hunter nodded, either believing her lie or understanding she didn't want to talk about it. He shifted over and turned away, his eyes trained on the valleys ahead, just barely visible from the deep crevasse where they had settled down for the night. Luz lay there in bed, staring up at the starless sky.

A bird in a hand was worth more than two in a bush. Annoyingly, Philip had written that in one of his journal entries. She hadn't forgotten it. That was why she kept holding on. Luz had always agreed; she kept saying that they had to hold onto what they had, rather than risk going for something that might not exist at all, and risk losing everything.

That was why they never went the top of the Knee again. The Gateway to Avalon once seemed like the way out, the only way to escape this hell. After all, the Gateway was one of the few locations in the Boiling Isles that possessed calcified magical energy – energy that couldn't be absorbed unless it was unleashed.

They tried. They had lost…

"Luz, stay back!"

"I'm not leaving you!"

"You have to! Hunter, get her out of here! I'm trusting you to keep her safe!"

"With my dying breath, Amity, I promise."

"Thank you. You're a good man, Hunter. Goodbye."

"NO! HUNTER! GET OFF! AMITY! AMITYYYY! NO!"

Luz clenched her eyes shut to avoid leaking out tears. It was a fruitless venture from the very start. The magic trapped inside those rocks remained untapped, but Luz couldn't bear to go back after last time.

Hunter thought otherwise.

'We can move out in the morning. Something about those razorfly things makes them blinder in the daytime.'

Luz groaned loudly and rolled over. 'Tell me about it in the morning. I need some shut-eye.'

She could feel Hunter's burning gaze piercing through the back of her head. Those brown eyes of his that always seemed to age further despite his body's frozen age clock.

'Hunter,' she spoke, sure to keep her voice below a whisper, 'I know you're staring at me.'

'Sorry,' came the response. Luz didn't turn around to look at him. 'It's just…I dunno. Just worried about you.'

'The whole world ended, Hunter. I should be the least of your concerns.'

'There's nobody else left to worry about.'

Agitated, Luz sat up to turn and look at him.

'What do you want me to say?' she snapped. '"Thanks Hunter, I knew I could count on you!" Or "Thanks for worrying about me, Hunter, your sympathy will definitely make me feel better!"?'

'Keep your voice down!' he whispered desperately. Luz glared at him as he sighed and started scratching his scars again. 'I'm…I'm trying here, Luz. Eclipse Lake is our best shot, I'm sure of it.' Luz groaned audibly. 'I know, I said that last time, but…'

'But what?!' she screamed at him. Hunter raised his hands haltingly. Luz blinked and took a few deep breaths, until she could manage to keep her voice quiet enough. 'But what, Hunter? What saving grace do you think is in Eclipse Lake that wasn't anywhere else?'

'It has calcified magic like the Gateway to Avalon. And it's damp, dark and mostly secluded…all things those Arcanomorph things hate.'

She ran her hands through her hair. 'What's the point, Hunter? Even years into this whole thing, you still can't see it.'

'See what?'

'It's over, Hunter. They've already won. We can't stop them. They're just gonna keep coming, over and over, until we're dead. Just like Amity. Just like Gus, and Willow and Raine and Lilith and…and just like Eda.'

'We can't lose hope, Luz,' insisted Hunter. 'I'm telling you…this is it. We have a –'

'You don't have a chance and neither do I!' she exclaimed in a hushed tone. 'Why do you keep going on like this? Everything we knew…everyone we loved…it's all gone! And you barely even cried…'

'We thought that once before, you know.' Luz looked up at him as he spoke. 'When we were trapped in the Earth Realm, you started to think all was lost. That we'd never make it back. But then we did.'

'We aren't kids anymore, Hunter,' she reminded him. 'There's no dreaming. Only watching. Why can't we just be happy with the time we have left, instead of risking it all in the chance you might be right?'

'Because! We can't just give up!' he cried. 'Eda wouldn't want us to lie over and die. She'd want us to keep fighting. So that's what we're gonna do.'

Luz sighed loudly. She was too drained of energy to argue. She gave him a dirty look and shifted back into her bedroll. One thing she should've understood about Hunter by now was that he was beyond stubborn. If his mind was set on something, there was little she could do to stop him.

She shut her eyes gently. Her ears fixated on the distant fluttering of wings that had since become commonplace in the Boiling Isles; the distant crack of wind swiped through the air like the Titan's claws themselves.

Wisps of phosphenes skated and danced across her closed eyes. She still dreamt about the Human Realm sometimes. Only when she was in the deepest depths of sleep could she immerse herself in that world. Ironic: the Demon Realm was something like a dreamland, or at least it used to be, but now it was the furthest thing from her mind.

If she closed her eyes and let her mind wander, just for a moment, she could feel like she was still there. Back home, with her wonderful mother and her amazing father – two of the greatest people in the world to her – and neither ripped from this mortal coil. Sometimes she imagined herself in Gravesfield, and sometimes she imagined the more idealistic life before that, in Woodbury, before her father developed cancer. Sometimes she imagined Amity was there, and Eda, and Willow, Gus, Lilith, Raine and almost everyone. Her finger twitched on the rim of her wedding ring.

The image of King came to mind, and she always had to banish it away before it brought her to tears.

Every once in a while, if her heart was in the right place, Luz could find the peace of mind to picture his face for longer than a few seconds.

The anniversary of her dad's passing was last week. Hunter had wanted to give her flowers, but he couldn't find any. Not that there was anywhere to put it anyway. The two of them opted to sit together as midnight passed, with Hunter whispering quiet assurances in his ear. Once upon a time, she liked to think that perhaps her dad was listening, or at some higher power that could pass the message on.

Nobody was listening. She'd abandoned that idea long ago. If a god actually existed out there, Luz was firm in her belief that it was some vindictive bastard playing games with their lives.

There was no hope. Only the swarms of creatures that tore the sky in half. Never in her life did Luz think Hunter would be the only persistent theme in her life, even after the First Cataclysm.

"Remember…always remember –"

Maybe it was a kindness that Eda would see so little of what the world would become. She didn't have to watch everything become dust and grime underneath her shoe.

The Golden Age, the Rise of the Nextworld, the Dawn of the Midnight Sun, the Faction Parallax. Eda saw through them all and really only suffered towards the end. With the First Cataclysm came the Horde of Tragedies, and the slow heat death of magic as they knew it. Luz's only wish is that Eda didn't have to see what happened to King – or, more accurately, what he became.

"None of you understand…none of you. So leave. Me. ALONE!"

Should have seen it coming. She should have stopped it. But she didn't. She didn't – or couldn't – stop the Faction from kidnapping him. She couldn't move as they snatched him in the alleyways of Bonesborough. She didn't stop the cruel experimentation that the Faction Parallax had subjected him to.

She didn't stop him as those creatures came pouring out of his mind. Creations of a dark and tortured mind. The Horde of Tragedies.

As Luz slowly felt her mind lay to rest, the thought occurred to her that the only difference between sleeping and dying was waking up. She wasn't ashamed to admit she thought about it more than once. What it felt like to die. To be engulfed in a deafening silence, in an absence of existence until the end of time. Some what could it hell; some would call it peaceful. Luz didn't know what she would call it apart from lonely.

Or a conclusion to an endless pursuit of solace.

Early that morning, Hunter shook Luz awake. She whined unhappily and rolled over. She stirred awake soon after and saw Hunter looking down at her. The slash in his clothes had been sewn back up, something he probably did whilst keeping watch all night.

Luz slowly got onto her feet. Hunter handed her a bowl of heated ghoulflakes he had been boiling. She gave him a small nod of thanks. Even then, she ate very little of it.

'Luz. You need to eat.'

Luz groaned. 'I'm not hungry.'

'You will be.'

'Are you gonna police every little thing I do?' she snapped. Hunter looked back guiltily. Luz ruthlessly dismissed his remorseful gaze and dumped the rest of the ghoulflakes back into the cauldron he had been using to cook it.

Hunter sighed. 'I'm just trying to keep you safe, Luz.'

'I know. I don't care. I can look after myself.'

'I know,' he said, despondent, 'but I made a promise. So we have to stick together.'

Luz glared at him for a moment. Ultimately, she let out a thin breath of air and took back some the ghoulflakes. Hunter offered her an appreciative smile as she ate the bland shit he had concocted. She said nothing as Hunter outlined his plan; the start to their "big break" from this hell. She reluctantly ate her meal, filling her empty stomach with emptiness, as Hunter explained how Willow's old theories led him to believe that calcified magic that "grew" in the old veins of the Titan were protected from Arcanomorphs, and could possibly used to repel them. Or even kill them.

Nobody had ever seen an Arcanomorph die.

In fact, Luz had only seen Eda actually manage to dent their metallic-like exoskeleton. She supposed the issue with that was because using magical force on creatures that could absorb magic was problematic. Hunter had suggested that Eda managed to hurt one because she produced more magic than they could absorb at once, temporarily overwhelming them.

Luz didn't care. It wasn't like any of them had the magic available to accomplish that anyway. Hunter had Flash Step, but using it was far too risky. Not after last time.

"There's too many of them!"

"I'm coming, Gus!" … "Dammit! GUS!"

Once the pair of them finished their meal, they were on the move almost instantly.

They weren't far from the mineshaft that gave access to Eclipse Lake. Hunter led the way, as he so often did, citing the obvious fact that he'd been here before, and she hadn't. She recalled having the Common Mold the first time Eclipse Lake was relevant, and she never had any reason to come back in the twenty or so years that followed.

Now, they stood before the entrance to the mineshaft. Only, it was a little different to what Hunter recalled. Stonemeyers seeped through the walls, breaking apart the sediment and rock with thick veins of stone. Neither had a ritual touchstone to placate the creatures, only shadowballs on hand, so the two opted to carefully manoeuvre around it.

Hunter guided her through the tunnel. He seemed to know where he was going, but he wasn't willing to hear her own suggestions. They reached a fork in the road, and Hunter was insistent on the way to go.

'We go right,' he stated, as if it had already happened. He was gesturing to a clearer passage, less overgrown with weed and stonemeyers, but it was far tighter and more claustrophobic.

'Why not left?' she asked, frowning. 'It's a lot wider.'

'And infested with shadowswarms,' he replied, 'so unless you want to get ripped apart by shadows, we're sticking to the right.'

Luz groaned in discontent. Nevertheless, she followed after him through the Titan veins that formed mineshaft tunnels. She noticed Hunter's uneven gait. She wasn't entirely sure when he started walking like that, but none of their witch-hazel and health potions had managed to heal him.

'About last night…'

She rolled her eyes when she heard him say that. 'There's nothing to say, Hunter. You're not gonna change your mind, and neither am I.'

'But you're still here.'

'Because you won't leave me alone,' she said reluctantly. 'So if you won't leave me alone, I might as well stick close.'

Hunter's voice was quiet and still as he spoke. The notes of his cadence were so fragile that a light gust of wind could knock him over.

'You want me to leave you alone?'

'Ugh.' She was letting her old sympathetic nature creep into her thoughts. 'I dunno. Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know anymore, Hunter!'

'Luz, we're all that's left,' he replied, as he stepped over a small crevice. 'Azura didn't give up.'

'Azura was a character in a fantasy novel!' she exclaimed, as she jumped over the same crevice. 'We're not living in a fantasy world, Hunter. Those books were always good vs evil, and good always won because that's how satisfying storytelling works. But we're not heroes in a story. There's no happy ending for us. It's over. We lost. You just can't accept that.'

'I promised Amity I would keep you safe!' he cried, both their voices echoing through the mineshaft. 'She wouldn't want us to give up.'

Luz stopped in her tracks.

'AMITY IS DEAD!'

Hunter stopped and stared back at her.

'The dead don't want anything from us!' she screamed. 'They're gone. Forever! Gus. Willow. Eda. Lilith. Hooty. Raine. Dead.' Tears welled in her eyes. 'It's just us now! So please just let me REST!'

He shook his head in shock. 'I can't do that, Luz! I lost everyone too; I can't lose you too!'

'AMITY IS DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!'

Hunter's eyes widened. He stepped away from her, his legs wobbling on a loose bit of rock. Luz herself could admit to being a little surprised by her own words, but she hid the shadow of surprise that flashed in her eyes. She replaced it with a stern glare.

'I could have helped her,' she uttered. 'We both could! We could have done something! But no. YOU! You pulled me away! Made us run away…like…like COWARDS!'

'If we stayed we would've died,' he insisted, a layer of distinct depression in his voice. 'Amity didn't want that for us. She was the only reason we escaped. If that makes me a coward, then so be it.'

'I wanted to grow old with her, dammit!' scorned Luz. 'I wanted to die with her by my side…peacefully. With the thought that I'd finally accomplished something in my life. And now she's dead. Because you tore me away from her! Now…now you won't even let me die in peace!'

'I CAN'T LOSE ANYONE ELSE, LUZ!' he shouted. 'Are you even thinking of anyone but yourself? Are you just gonna leave me on my own like this?! Is that what Luz Noceda does for her friends?!'

Luz let the most intrusive of her deep thoughts finally bubble to the surface, as she kicked away a lump of detritomould. 'Yeah, because you've suffered so much already, huh? You didn't cry, Hunter! Amity died and you didn't even manage a tear!'

'BECAUSE I CAN'T!'

Luz blinked at his outburst. The meaning of his words started to press into her skull like a tumour. Hunter looked away, avoiding her gaze for fear of how judgemental it could be. He trudged onwards, and it took a few seconds before it processed in her mind that he was moving. She hurried on after him.

'What…what do you mean, you can't?' Luz asked him, unsure how her own tone sounded. Hunter didn't look her in the eye.

'Just like…damn near everything else about me, my tear ducts were artificial,' he whispered. 'They stopped working years ago. After Willow…I think I used up all the tears I have left.'

'Why didn't you tell me?'

'Because I don't want you worrying about me like that.' His eyes again ducked hers with shame. 'We have to keep moving. And right now…I guess I'm the only one with hope. So I don't want you to see that. Like I'm some…broken toy, that needs to be thrown out.'

'Hunter…I'd…I'd never –'

'You would,' he cut off. 'You're already willing to leave me like this. End your own life, when you know I can't. Titan…I don't know if even those Arcanomorph things can kill me. So I have to keep going because I can't do anything else.'

'We could just try to live our best life, until the end.'

'There is no end, not for me,' groaned Hunter. 'I'm not just gonna lay down and die. No way. There's something here we can use, I just know it.'

He stormed off down the mineshaft, through a narrower bit of Titan vein. A sharp bit rock scraped his sides, drawing blood, but he neither reacted nor made the effort to conceal it. Luz looked down despondently, before she let out a sigh of frustration and followed after him.

She caught up to him later, though by then a silence had already fallen between them. In truth, she wasn't sure how much of what she said was what she meant. These days, when the only other person with whom to speak was a softer-spoken Grimwalker with a penchant for carving things, it was only natural they became a soundboard for every negative feeling she had felt since the start of the First Cataclysm.

Saying those things always seemed to be easier in her head than out loud. She couldn't feel the weight of her own words pressing down on her when they were just intrusive thoughts. And she didn't have to deal with the unbearable weight of the pained look in his eye as he heard them.

Maybe it was too easy to blame him like that. But she'd been keeping those thoughts inside her for so long that it was clawing its way out of her throat.

"Always remember –"

If memories could listen, Luz could be yelling at them to shut up. Nevertheless, she only had the real world. She angrily kicked the side of the Titan vein, dislodging some detritomould.

Hunter said nothing. His eyes briefly glanced to his peripheral vision, before turning back in front of them.

'There.'

Luz blinked. Hunter was pointing in front of them. A makeshift set of girders and scaffolding had been set up, no doubt after Eda and King inadvertently caused part of the cave entrance to collapse. This was it. The passage to Eclipse Lake.

'Stick close,' warned Hunter. 'Not sure how stable this area is. The supports are, like, twenty years old.'

She nodded mutely, following his path along the wooden scaffolding. He cautiously placed his foot on an old wooden panel. Luz followed. Hunter grimaced when his leg shuddered. She said nothing.

Hunter raised his arms for support as he gently crossed over a dilapidated piece of wood. Luz did not. Her arms stayed at her side as she followed behind him.

An apathetic gaze went to the empty pit down below. Blue and turquoise walls gave way to a deep, black abyss, populated with the odd decaying plant. Parts of the darkness moved, shifted, reaching up towards them like a pair of hands. Even with an arm outstretched, it could not reach them. Old cries and screams from decades prior echoed through the darkness.

Parts of the old support had been overgrown with stonemeyers. In some parts, the stone reinforced it by pushing up against it, but others worked in opposition, pulling on the wood.

Luz put her foot down too hard.

The wooden support gave way to the stonemeyer pulling on it. She yelped in surprise as her leg fell straight through. Her hands landed on the wood with a loud thud.

Hunter spun around and ran over to her, forsaking the danger of the supports. He reached down to help her up. As he helped back up onto the scaffolding, Luz yanked her arm out of his grip.

'I'm fine,' she said, before he could even speak. She hated how his eyes always hummed with such delicate sympathy. As if one careless manoeuvre would shatter her into a million pieces.

'Luz –'

'I said I'm fine.'

As the two of them crossed over into a wider vein of the Titan, Hunter dared not ask her about her wellbeing again. Meanwhile, Luz was still wondering why she was still here, why she was still bothering with this despite her obvious contention with it. Yet, the question was stupid in concept; she already knew the answer. Hunter was her friend.

'Luz.' She looked up, immediately willing to spit back a ferocious reply, but she stopped herself. 'We're here.'

Luz had never seen it in person before.

Stonemeyers had long since penetrated the ancient cavern that held Eclipse Lake, worming their way through with the patience of Mother Nature. Old broken trees grew from the deadened soil, their roots like tentacles as they snaked towards the edges of the lake. Not that it could really be called a lake at all: it was more like a shallow crater carved into the ground by magic, barren and empty. In the recent decades, noted Hunter, the walls of the crater had started to wear away, exposing veins of crystal and rock that had been hidden away for thousands of years.

Hunter shuffled forward. Luz frowned for a moment, before following him. He took a step down into the crater of Eclipse Lake. His foot dug into the old dirt at the bottom, which had long since dried out.

'What are you looking for then, Hunter?' asked Luz, in a single apathetic breath.

'I told you. These crystals.' He gestured to the veins of crystal sticking out the ground. He reached into his backpack and produced a small metal excavation tool to pry off the crystal pieces. 'Calcified magical energy. The one thing those things can't absorb.'

Luz let out a thin sigh. 'Alright.'

She stood there, just at the end of the crater, as Hunter hacked away at the crystal rock with all his diminishing might. She watched him, slaving over and over, with reckless abandon. He didn't seem to tire, and the thought occurred to her that Grimwalkers possibly didn't get tired. He didn't need to eat, or sleep, or exercise, not since he had reached his physical peak, at which point his biology practically froze.

All those times he had eyebags under his eyes, was that real, or just a phantom – an imitation of how a living being was supposed to live? An imitation that expired when he reached the end of the life that Belos had expected for him?

Luz didn't know, and right now, she didn't have the energy to care. She didn't have the energy to care much about anything anymore. Whilst Hunter carried himself with an air of assiduousness that eclipsed her capacity to think, she followed him around with uncertainty as her legs started to feel as though they were rotting.

'You always keep going, don't you?'

Hunter paused. He didn't seem to register her words at first, and when he did, he sat back with the chunks of cracked crystal around him.

'Have to,' he whispered back. 'I know that you think going near and far, travelling place to place, is a pointless venture, but I don't see it that way. There's always another cog to turn. You taught me that. All these years, when we've had to deal with so much – Belos, the Collector, the Titanhunters, Argus Pilagi, the Demon Plague, the Faction Parallax – we've always pulled through in the end. Hell, back during the Plague, I thought I was done for when I came down with it, and you pulled me back! And now you expect me to give up? Not happening. We never give up, Luz. We keep moving forward, until we found the light at the end of the tunnel.'

Luz almost gasped when she heard the end of that sentence. She frowned for a moment, surprised at his long speech. A part of her absentmindedly wondered if he'd been thinking of that since their argument last night.

She choked back a tear. Hunter went back to excavating the crystal, as she stared on for a few moments.

After a while, she joined him. She sat down next to him, her legs unsteady.

'How do I use this?' asked Luz, picking up a spare piece of equipment. Hunter glanced at her, and moved aside to show her what he was doing.

'What you need is a good support to start off. Once you get the chisel in there, it won't matter, but you need a good start. And you need to make sure you got a good angle, or else it's gonna fly out and hit you.'

Luz nodded in understanding. She followed his lead and silently began chipping away at the mineral vein. It was a lot harder than she thought, and she didn't have the upper body strength that Hunter did, but it was serviceable.

As she hacked off a piece, she picked it up the inspect it. There was a faint, glowing aura of magic hidden behind the outer crystal cage. This particular one was a deep, sapphire blue, but the vein had variations of emerald, crimson, purple and orange. If not for the current state of things, and her tiredness, she might have acknowledged its beauty.

It was different from the stuff Hunter had been looking for at the Gateway. Both were calcified, or affected by some other way of solidification, but at the top of the Knee, he had been searching for the solid Titan blood hanging off the sides. This seemed less dangerous to extract.

Why hadn't they gone here first? If it was so damp and secluded and confined and so very not what the Arcanomorphs preferred, why did they go the Gateway? It was so exposed.

Maybe if they had, Amity wouldn't have –

'Because Titan blood is far more potent.'

Luz blinked. She turned to her right. Hunter was staring at her, a hurt expression on his face. She was starting to get used to seeing that.

She held her arm with her other hand. 'Did I…say all that out loud?'

'Yup,' he replied, curtly, before resuming his work. 'And also, I was worried about getting here. Wasn't sure how stable the scaffolding would be. Going to the top of the Knee seemed like a good idea, and if I remember correctly, you agreed with me.'

'I just…I would have liked to have known there was another option.'

'Sorry. It's just…coming here was supposed to be the last resort. I didn't think…'

His voice trailed off, but Luz understood his meaning. She was ready to come at him with some hurtful snarl, but she remembered their earlier conversation and let her grief subside. She exhaled pensively through her nostrils.

'I guess we both didn't think,' she admitted, as she hacked off a bit of purple crystal. Hunter nodded in acceptance of the truth behind her words.

'Just this last piece,' said Hunter, after a long period of silence between them. He had managed to excavate a significant portion of the crystal vein, which now rested in his other bag. He offered her only a fleeting glance of the amberized bloodglass before he threw it in with the others.

Hunter stood up. His hand raised for a moment, to offer her help to stand up, but he tentatively relinquished it. Luz nodded and stood up, too.

'Let's go,' he decided, and Luz was willing to accept the decision had already been made.

The two of them climbed up the side of the crater and back to the part of the cavern where they had entered. Hauling these rocks over her back was going to get difficult if they travelled for long, but Hunter had yet to determine where they were going yet.

'I think…if we wanna experiment on this, we'll have to go to –'

He froze. Luz frowned. From her point of view, he stopped talking for seemingly no apparent reason. However, as he turned around and looked up at the enormously high ceiling of the cavern, Luz started to understand.

A boom echoed through the cavern. She stared upwards as showers of rock came tumbling down onto Eclipse Lake. Another tremor shook the expanse of the cavern, and more debris crashed down upon them.

Eventually, the banging became strong enough to rip apart the ceiling. Bright light, miles above the large crevice that had now formed, shone into Eclipse Lake. Hunter gritted his teeth.

There was only one at first.

Its silhouette was marked with the glint of its metal armour. Two fluttering pairs of translucent wings descended into the cavern. Snapping mandibles, followed by constant buzzing, echoed across the vast, sleepy hollow.

'We need to get the hell out of here,' whispered Hunter, putting his hand on Luz's shoulder. She was frozen. Just…staring. 'Luz!'

More of them flew down into the cavern.

Each one was an enlarging black dot, dipped in silver paint. A swarm of them seeped inside, invading the last bit of freedom without concern for anything other than their own selfish desires. Luz watched in horror as they shot through the air in a blur. They formed a spiral formation as they let out an ear-piercing siren from their artificial vocal cords.

'LUZ!' screamed Hunter. She couldn't say anything. She saw those things, and she just…shut down.

Those things killed Eda.

Those things killed Gus.

Those things killed Willow, and Raine, and Amity, and so many others she couldn't even count.

And now these things will kill her, too.

Hunter groaned, weighing his options in what little time he had left before the creatures crossed the cave and devoured them. Using magic was almost taboo at this point, but they'd already been caught. They had no other chance.

In a shot of bright yellow light, Hunter grabbed Luz and moved her out as far as he could. Over the years, he'd honed the Flash Step ability to move miles at a time. But so much of his mana had deteriorated.

Hunter arrived in a nearby vein of the Titan, directly adjacent to the mineshaft. He set Luz down against the wall.

'Luz, listen to me!' he insisted. 'You need to wake up. Focus. If you don't, then we're both going to die! Do you hear me?! We're going to die!'

But Luz was unresponsive. Her eyes had dilated; her thoughts unfocused and dissociated. It was as though her very soul had been diluted.

BRRRR! BRRRR! BRRRR! BRRRR! BRRRR!

Hunter looked up. They were coming. He could hear the buzzing, their flapping of wings, and the horrible snapping and munching of their sharp mandibles. He raised his hands.

A yellow forcefield formed in front of him. It blocked the passage behind them, stretching wall to wall across the vein. It was going to do much. And as the creatures surged through the tunnel, they smashed their oval-shaped heads against it. Others bit into it, slowly drawing out the magic and rendering it weaker.

Hunter didn't have much time. He grabbed Luz by the shoulders.

'Luz. I know you blame me for what happened…and you're right. It was my fault they died. And I have to keep that with me. For as long as I live. But I'm not gonna fail another person. So get up. Please.'

Luz blinked. Her lip trembled. Her fingers twitched. Yet her eyes remained lost. Like a ghost, haunting her features. She failed to move. Like fate had already been decided for her, as if her mind had been snatched from her body. Hunter gritted his teeth. It was like Luz's soul was taken out of time.

The Arcanomorphs slammed and bit against the forcefield. Hunter bit his lip and cursed under his breath.

Hunter reached under Luz's legs with one arm and around her back with other. Without another word, he lifted her up and bolted away. The razorfly creatures smashed through his forcefield a second after.

He sprinted down the mineshaft at the fastest speed he could muster. His failing mana lent very little to his speed. His Flash Step was only partially active, boosting his movements just enough to stay ahead of the Arcanomorphs. Their blitzing speed cut through the air.

Mandibles snapped behind him. He dared not look back. Luz remained totally still, grief and agony burnt into her open eyes.

Hunter leapt across a gap.

'LUZ! Please…you need to wake up! I know y–'

Hunter felt a powerful force slam into his back. He went flying, crashing into the rock walls. Luz was ripped from his grip. She tumbled onto the ground, her back resting against the rock.

Silvery grey dots shot past her. They ignored her, disinterested in her apparent lack of magic, and raced after the Grimwalker at breakneck speeds. Hunter's eyes flashed with alarm as he saw her, frozen against the wall.

Hunter couldn't just leave her. He knew that. But there was no way he could get through them. There was only one option. Lure the Arcanomorphs away and double back to get her.

The split-second decision was made. He prayed he would succeed, so that Luz's last memory of him wouldn't be thinking that he was leaving her to die. The cave echoed with hisses, buzzes and flapping of wings, each one like an ominous prophecy.

He still wasn't sure if those things could kill him, but he didn't want to find out. They wanted him for his Galdorstone. He'd known that all along.

As Hunter bolted down the mineshaft, much lighter on his feet now, he let some of his darker thoughts creep in. Maybe Luz was better off without him. He wasn't stupid. He knew those things didn't hunt her. They couldn't even see her. They saw him.

What he never wanted to admit to himself was how right Luz was. But he had to. If he was going to die, he was going to be honest about it.

Amity was dead because of him.

Not just her, but everyone else too. His Galdorstone breathed and bled magic, pure and potent. He was the paradigm of a perfect meal for those things. That was why they always found them. Because they could sense him, faintly, from hundreds of miles away.

So long as he lived, nobody around him would ever be safe.

He took some relief in his honesty, before the guilt set in. Imprinted onto his soul, he prayed for some satisfaction in the cold world of the Boiling Isles.

Something grabbed onto his back. He pulled forward, and his shirt ripped in half. And the top layer of skin of a part of his back went with it. Hunter screamed in pain. A pair of mandibles snapped up the skin and clothing and spat it out. He skipped out the way in a flash of golden light.

Luz was trapped. The ground was like quicksand, drawing her in and refusing her an escape. Her tight breaths pounded against her chest, as though it were made of glass.

Too much pressure and she would shatter.

"We can stop them! We just need to fight!"

"No! They absorb everything you throw at 'em, Willow! We need to run! That's what Eda said! 'Keep running'!"

"Run?! Then what?! Nothing's gonna happen unless we FIGHT!"

"Willow –"

"Eda never stopped fighting, and neither will I!"

Another lamb to the slaughter. That's what this was, wasn't it? All just a game to them. To those things. They were like cattle in a maze. With no way out.

"Always remember –"

Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

"Listen to me for once –"

Just shut up!

"NO! HUNTER! GET OFF! AMITY! AMITYYYY! NO!"

"Hey, Luz? Calm down for a sec, okay? I just wanna tell you something. I love you. And I always will. Don't you forget that. Just because I'm not here, doesn't mean I'm not with you. Because I'll always be with you. I promise."

"AMITYYYYY!"

Luz choked back a tear. She slammed the ground in front of her. Hunter was out there. No doubt he was trying to lead those things away to save her. And she was, sitting like a sack of batatas, doing nothing.

She could almost see Eda's tearful gaze as she laid her eyes on her for the very last time. As she was prepared to go toe-to-toe with dozens of those horrible creatures. Her amber eyes humming with acceptance. Tear streaming from Eda's eyes, as she made one final sacrifice with nothing but a smile on her face.

"Luz…hey, listen to me for once, okay? Remember…always remember. In the darkest times, you can see the brightest lights. It's always there. At the end of every dark and dingy tunnel."

Luz coughed for air. She had to focus. Hunter was right. Eda wouldn't want this, and neither would Amity.

Hunter took the passage back to the end of the mineshaft. He'd managed to make some distance between himself and the creatures, but he didn't expect that to last. Those things were on his tail, and his stamina was rapidly depleting. He wasn't sure how long he could keep running. He needed a plan.

But when it came to weaknesses of these creatures, few were known. He wasn't carrying the shadowballs, Luz was. And she was stuck in the cave. Something else. Sometimes they could be distracted if there was a bigger fish to fry.

Except Hunter was the bigger fish. Or more accurately, his Galdorstone heart was. Maybe that was how this was meant to go.

He was the bait so Luz could live. That's why he made it this far. To die at the right moment. Again assuming that he even could die. He still wasn't sure about that.

Now was the best time to find out.

Hunter leapt over some rocks and onto the mine tracks. The bright sunlight of the late morning shone through the entrance to the cave. He was almost blinded by it.

He stood still. The cracking of wings echoed across the cave walls. They droned and hissed like a thousand cicadas. Hunter stared down the mineshaft. Their silhouettes flickered off the shiny rock walls.

Hunter took a deep breath. If he occupied the creatures for long enough…there might be a chance.

As the razorflies dashed towards him, the piranhas of the air, the lone Grimwalker took a breath and closed his eyes. His moment of solace had finally come. Ripped to shreds. Had King seen this future when he created these…these things?

No use debating it now. It was over. The King they once knew was long dead. That much was clear when the cataclysm started.

One last breath.

He was so tired. His mind could rest. Maybe this was it. He could feel it. Those wings. Flapping closer. Their compound eyes glowing. Their voices screeching, like blaring sirens. Closer. And closer.

Just one second.

Now.

Or now?

Hunter waited, and he waited a second more. No heroic death, nothing. Nervously, he opened his eyes.

Luz stood in front of him, a dozen or so Darkness glyphs in one hand, and several shadowballs in the other. She threw down more shadowballs, and the creatures snapped them up. Their compound eyes dulled and blackened, and the things scrambled, blinded.

Hunter blinked in surprise. Luz grabbed him by the hand and tore him away from the sight.

'Come on!' she exclaimed, snapping him out of it. 'We've gotta go!'

'It won't last long,' he warned, referring to the shadowball effect. The two of them stumbled their way towards the exit. The two of them stumbled out into the forest, moving as quickly as they could.

Hunter raised his hands and let out a small wave of magical energy. He knew the Arcanomorphs might sense it, but the vast majority of them were busy feeding on the Right Arm of the Titan. The rocks hanging over the mineshaft entrance splintered. The debris fell, blocking the entrance.

Hunter looked back towards Luz. She was standing brighter, more fiercely than he remembered. 'Luz…you…what made you…?'

'You were right.' Luz's determined eyes met his. 'We don't give up. No matter what. We keep fighting. That's what Eda always said. When she told us to keep running, she didn't mean to run away…she meant run towards. Run towards them and keep fighting.'

Hunter smiled a little.

There was just that little spark. That little spark of the old Luz. The Luz he loved like a sister.

'Let's –'

A huge explosion knocked them off their feet and sent them tumbling down the gentle decline. Hunter leapt to his feet, helping up Luz. A dozen Arcanomorphs spewed out of the now-unobstructed cave entrance. Hunter stared. Luz fumbled for her Darkness glyphs.

'We need to get out of here,' she declared.

Hunter blinked. 'Right. Yes. But the Darkness magic…won't they just follow?'

'Yeah, but if we go far enough way it won't matter!'

The overgrown arthropods raced toward them. They pursued them with frightening coordination, funnelled into strict lanes as they flew through the air. Hunter nodded and Luz shoved down three Darkness glyphs.

The paper dissolved into blackness instantly. It pooled from the nearby shadows and grew. The effect was near-instantaneous: a dark shadowy portal formed in front of them.

The creatures were seconds from reaching them.

'GO!' screamed Luz. Hunter shook his head and leapt through the portal. As soon he did, Luz followed, jumping in after. An Arcanomorph caught up to her a second before she did, but she disappeared.

The portal snapped shut instantly. Swarms of razorfly Arcanomorphs tore through the land, running right past where the portal had been, but failing to follow after them.

High up in one of the Left Hand of the Titan, the snowy tundra of the Isles, a pitch-black portal opened up in the middle of a blizzard. Two people emerged from it, possibly the only two humanoids left in the Demon Realm, stumbling across the thick snow. The sun hung high in the sky, but from where they were, the clouds obscured most of it. The sky was almost pale white, aside from a hint of dreamy blue.

Hunter stopped to catch his breath. His lungs wheezed from the exhaustion, and his Galdorstone started humming faster to replenish the energy that he had expended.

'Thank you,' he uttered, turning to face her. She was bent over, no doubt catching her breath too. 'If you hadn't done that…well, I dunno. Even if I wouldn't be dead, I'd be in a lotta pain.'

Luz didn't respond. She remained hunched, her hand clutching her side. She wasn't breathing that hard, in fact she was eerily still. Hunter frowned.

'Luz?' He hesitantly approached. She looked up at him, and he saw something terrible in her eyes. Guilt. He put a comforting hand against her back. 'Are you…alright?'

She shakily took out the hand that was covering her sides. Hunter looked down. His eyes widened. It was covered in blood. Her blood.

'No…no…no…' whispered Hunter, stepping back. Deep cuts stretched across her waist and sides, steeped in dark red blood. Luz looked at him and smiled guiltily.

'One of them got me,' she wheezed, letting out a watery cough. 'Those damn wings. Sharp as hell.'

Hunter immediately went to rummaging through his bag. 'We…we still got some health potions!' He snatched some red vials out of it and ripped off the cap, pouring it over the wounds. The bleeding lessened, but it didn't stop. 'Come on! Work, dammit! COME ON!'

'Hunter –'

He didn't listen; he clawed at the edges of the bag. 'There's gotta be some stronger stuff in here!'

'Hunter, stop!' she yelled, silencing him. She grimaced in pain. 'There's…there's no point. You can't…can't heal this. You know you can't. It's…it's the end for me.'

'No. NO! Not you! Not another one!' he shouted. Luz tilted uncontrollably, subtly leaning over until she slumped to the ground. Hunter shot forward and caught her before she could hit the snow.

The white snow was stained with dark red blood. It seeped across the ground, onto his hands, onto his clothes, onto everything. Luz looked up at him. She was smiling.

'Listen to me for once, okay?' she murmured, her voice growing weak and frail. Remember. Always remember. There's a light at the end of every dark tunnel. You just…gotta…find it.'

A lone tear ran down his cheek. Luz reached up and smiled.

'A tear, Hunter? See…you can cry…but don't…don't cry for me. Live for me. Where there's life, there's…'

Her voice trailed off before she could finish. Her hand faltered and fell to the ground. It hit the blood red snow with a thud. Her eyes, once brown and jovial, looked pale and weak.

But not lost.

As she willed her eyes to shut, her final act in life, Hunter could see in those pupils a certain headstrong determination that reminded him of the old days.

Hunter shed his last tear. A tear he didn't even know existed until now. Luz's lifeless body lay in front of him. He set her down, gently.

He wouldn't have long before the Arcanomorphs found him. They became more active as the day progressed.

He picked out a shovel from his backpack. It was a small one, one that extended out in segments. Hunter knew there wasn't much time left, so he started digging.

It was only after a long night of solace, had he finally shed his last tear.

Thanks for reading!

I'm not sure what compelled me to make a prequel to my previous oneshot, but I suddenly felt like it yesterday. So here it is. I obviously wanted to keep the mystery of the original, while still expanding on this apocalyptic world.

This story takes place around 5-6 years after the First Cataclysm. The characters depicted here are in their mid-to-late thirties.

I suppose a depressing note is that, if you've read the other story, you'd know that the calcified crystals that Hunter searches for in this story in the end do not prove useful. Or at least not permanently, since he doesn't have it in 'The Silent Stars Go By'. I do recommend you read the other one, obviously, but you don't have to.

It's a sad story, but I guess I have a penchant for writing this stuff. Hope you enjoyed. Feel free to leave a comment, or a kudo, or bookmark, or any other way showing support.