Elias blinked. He was standing on the edge of the cliff in Oakhaven. The sun had fully risen, dissolving the Veil into nothing but morning dew. His boots were damp, and his lungs felt clearer than they had in years.
As he moved further from the cliff, the world grew impossibly quiet. The sound of his own heartbeat became a rhythmic drum. Then, the clouds began to change. They didn't just swirl; they sculpted. A Walk In The Clouds
Clara turned, her eyes bright with the light of a thousand suns. "You have more stones to lay, Papa. But now you know where the path leads when the work is done." She blew a breath of mist into his face. Elias blinked
Elias tried to speak, but his throat was full of the heavy, cold mist. He reached out a calloused hand, his fingers trembling. As he touched her shoulder, the cloud beneath them began to thin. The weight of the world—the gravity he had lived by for fifty years—started to pull at his boots. "I can't stay, can I?" he managed to whisper. His boots were damp, and his lungs felt
Finally, he reached a clearing in the vapor. Standing there was a small figure, her back to him, staring out at a horizon where the sun was beginning to burn through the haze, turning the white world into a sea of liquid gold.