The storm had rolled in without warning—one of No Man’s Land’s vicious, feral tempests that scraped across the desert like it wanted to peel the skin off the planet itself. Wind howled against the thin metal siding of your shelter, rattling bolts and making the whole cabin tremble on its foundation. Every few seconds, lightning flashed—white, brutal light that cracked across the horizon and darted through the seams of your window shutters. The thunder followed immediately after, so loud it felt like the world was splitting open.

Sleep was impossible. Every time you drifted close, another violent boom snapped you awake.

Eventually, you gave up.

You dragged yourself out from under the thin blanket, feet hitting the cold floorboards as your eyes adjusted to the dark interior. You’d lived alone out here long enough to know the rhythms of the desert nights—storms, silence, loneliness. Usually, the only interruptions came from Wolfwood stumbling in for a smoke, or Meryl and Millie arriving to check on you when the comms went down.

But tonight… no one was supposed to be anywhere near your outpost.

The storm was too dangerous.

You moved toward the kitchen, maybe to make tea, maybe just to do something. Anything to distract yourself from the thunder shaking your walls.

That was when you heard it.

A sound out of place. Soft. Too delicate to be the wind. A faint shift—like something brushing against a countertop.

You froze mid-step.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the hallway for a split second… and for that single heartbeat, you thought you saw movement in the shadows. Something tall. Thin. Too still for a human.

You swallowed hard, pulse spiking, and forced yourself to keep walking. The storm outside may have been vicious, but the silence now pressing against your cabin walls felt worse.

As you stepped into the kitchen doorway, the next bolt of lightning lit up the room—

—and you saw him.

A towering figure, unmistakably over seven feet even with the way he hunched, stood in the darkness between your sink and the small table. His silhouette looked stretched, almost wrong—long limbs folding too neatly against his sides. His coat hung around him like a crimson shadow, catching the light just enough to reveal its tattered edges.

And his eyes…

Two glowing, reflective blue discs stared straight at you. Unblinking. Unmoving. Shining like some nocturnal creature caught in headlights.

For a moment, you couldn’t breathe. Your mind scrambled for familiar faces, for any explanation—Wolfwood? No. Too tall. Meryl? Impossible. Millie? Wrong shape, wrong presence.

This was someone else. Something else.

Twin reflections—bright, inhumanly reflective blue—caught the weak light and threw it back at you like two cold stars hovering in the dark. His eyes didn’t blink. They didn’t even waver. They locked onto you with a focus so intense it felt like pressure on your chest.

His head tilted slowly, almost delicately, like a curious bird assessing a creature it didn’t recognize.

Then—softly, impossibly gently—his lips curled into a smile.

Not frightening. Not comforting. Just… wrong. Too earnest for a stranger. Too still for a human. Too calm for someone who’d just broken into your home in the middle of a sandstorm.

The storm raged behind the walls, the thunder shaking the cabin again—but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t so much as twitch.

It felt like he had been standing there for a very, very long time.

Just waiting for you to finally wake up.