The prairie wind howled like a choir of ghosts, slipping between the tall grass like fingers through hair, and Britt Johnson—Rico, really, beneath the skin—stood motionless beneath the sprawling dusk sky. The horizon blazed gold and violet, a twilight so wide and untamed it seemed the heavens were bleeding. He clutched the reins of Midnight, his horse, while his other hand rested instinctively on the butt of his revolver. Somewhere behind him, a hawk shrieked. Somewhere ahead, he knew, Comanches watched. It had been three days since he’d returned to 1864, thrown violently back into the simulation, and yet it felt longer—like time didn’t pass here; it unraveled. Since then, he'd tracked horseshoe signs, blood drops dried like rust, and the scent of tanned leather on the wind. He was close now. Close to them. Close to something else.

  “Halal,” he muttered aloud, his voice barely above the whisper of the grass, “you feel that?”

  The presence stirred inside him like a coiled serpent waking from slumber.

  “Yes,” Halal’s voice murmured. “The veil is thinning.”

  Britt swallowed hard. “Between what?”

  “Everything.”

  They came for him just before nightfall. Four mounted warriors, their faces painted in ochre and bone-white lines, emerged from the tree line like wraiths. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to. Their arrows were nocked, but not drawn.

  Britt raised his hands, slowly, deliberately. “I’m not here to fight,” he said. “Just to find what was taken.”

  The largest of them, a man with one eye clouded white like frozen milk, studied him in silence.

  “Black man walks deep,” the elder said. “Deeper than most white men dare. Why?”

  “Because my wife and daughters were taken,” Britt replied. “And my son was killed. That makes me walk far.”

  The Comanche regarded him for a moment longer. Then, slowly, he nodded. They didn’t kill him. That was the start. They led him to their camp—two ridgelines over and hidden beneath a canopy of twisted cottonwoods. There was no welcome, only curiosity. A few of the younger warriors hissed in Comanche behind cupped hands. One woman—older, scarred along her jaw—watched him like a hawk that’d seen prey too clever to die easy. Still, they let him eat. Let him drink.

  “You seek the family taken during the raid at Elm Creek,” said the white-eyed elder, later that night. “You track well for one who has not hunted our land.”

  Britt bowed his head. “I wasn’t raised free, but I learned to move like one who is.”

  The elder nodded slowly. “You carry pain like smoke.”

  Britt exhaled, the firelight catching the tension in his jaw. “It chokes me sometimes.”

  That night, they gathered. The Comanche were not celebrating—they were remembering. Britt had expected a feast, maybe a ceremony. Instead, it was quieter. Introspective. The elder who spoke to him before—the one they called Red Owl—prepared a circle near the central fire. He placed four stones at the cardinal points, wrapped in feathers and tied with strands of sinew.

  “He will walk,” Red Owl said, nodding at Britt. “If the spirits allow him, he will see.”

  Britt watched as a peyote button was ground into a clay bowl, mixed with water, and passed to him without words.

  He hesitated.

  “You afraid?” asked a young warrior with tattoos spiraling his arms.

  “No,” Britt said. “Just respectful.”

  He drank.

  The stars blinked open like ancient eyes. The fire cracked and hissed. Smoke curled upward like a serpent rising from a dream. Britt’s heart slowed. The air thickened. The drums began—slow at first, a beat like the earth’s own pulse. Then came the howl. Somewhere, out beyond the camp, a coyote sang into the sky. Halal stirred.

  “This is not memory,” the symbiote said, his voice sharpened. “This is something else. A calling.”

  And then the stars moved. No—they pulsed. Like lungs. Like they were breathing in time with the chant. And Britt… cracked. His knees buckled. The world swayed. The fire became a whirlpool of light. He saw faces in the smoke—his own, but not. His grandfather. His father. His sister. Then Unterra. Then the ruins. Then darkness. Britt fell face-first into the dust, the peyote roaring like a storm inside his mind, and the world fell away as his body collapsed beside the fire. He was no longer in the circle. He stood alone in a desolate landscape, the ruins of Unterra stretching out before him.

  The fire crackled, casting flickering shadows on the faces gathered around it. Britt sat among the Comanche warriors, the scent of burning sage and cedar filling the air. The peyote ceremony was about to begin, a sacred ritual that would take them on a journey beyond the physical realm. As the elder began to chant, the rhythmic beat of the drum resonated through Britt's chest. He felt a warmth spreading from his core, the effects of the peyote taking hold. The stars above seemed to dance, their light weaving patterns in the night sky. Suddenly, Britt's vision blurred, and he was no longer in the circle. He stood alone in a desolate landscape, the ruins of Unterra stretching out before him. The air was thick with sorrow, the remnants of a once-great civilization crumbling around him. A voice echoed in his mind, filled with despair and longing.

  "Nothing is ever as it seems, for I am the Nasu, and I long to be one with life, to live amongst the people. Yet since I've lost my way, I've lost my will. I've been slain and can only come back through symbiosis. There's no love for me. There's no life for me. There's only unification and learning."

  Britt fell to his knees, the weight of the words pressing down on him. He felt the pain of the Nasu, a being stripped of his title, his name, his throne. Thrown into a valley of disparity and dust, given nothing but torture and pain.

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  "For I live lost, and it's Lethe that has taken away my soul, my mind, my… my spirit."

  The vision shifted, and Britt saw the Nasu's body lying in the shadows, a reminder of what once was. Weary travelers of spirit, those who had been slain and sent to this darkness, all came to see him, to face him, to know the Nasu.

  "Once a Morningstar, now I'm only death, it seems. Death. No light, nothing between. Once, I was life and death, light and dark. Now, I'm nothing."

  Britt gasped, the vision fading as he returned to the circle. The fire still burned, the chants continuing. But he knew something had changed. He had glimpsed the pain of the Nasu, felt the weight of his despair. And he knew that his journey was far from over. The fire's glow dimmed as Britt's consciousness clawed its way back from the abyss. The rhythmic chants of the Comanche ceremony faded into a distant echo, replaced by the soft murmurs and laughter of the warriors around him. He blinked, the world swimming into focus, revealing concerned yet amused faces.

  "Welcome back, dream walker," one of the younger warriors chuckled, offering a hand to help him up.

  Britt grasped it, his limbs trembling as he stood. The earth beneath him felt both solid and ephemeral, as if he were straddling two worlds. The peyote's grip still lingered, its tendrils weaving reality and vision into a tapestry of confusion.

  Red Owl approached, his gaze piercing. "The spirits have spoken to you. They do not choose lightly."

  Britt nodded slowly, the weight of the Nasu's despair still pressing upon his soul. "I saw... darkness. A being lost in pain, stripped of everything."

  The elder placed a reassuring hand on Britt's shoulder. "Come, rest. The journey of the spirit is taxing."

  They guided him to a nearby teepee, its entrance adorned with feathers and symbols. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of burning sage. Britt settled onto a bed of furs, the warmth enveloping him. As his eyes closed, the world around him began to shimmer. The walls of the teepee wavered, the symbols dancing in the flickering light. A low hum resonated in his ears, growing louder, more insistent.

  Suddenly, the ground beneath him vanished. Britt found himself standing in a vast, desolate landscape. The sky above was a swirling maelstrom of colors, the ground cracked and barren. In the distance, towering ruins loomed, remnants of a once-great civilization. A figure emerged from the shadows—a woman, her form ethereal, her eyes filled with sorrow. Chains bound her wrists, their links glowing with a malevolent light.

  "She talks about the pain and the torment," a voice echoed around him. "She wishes she was free."

  Britt turned to see another figure—Halal, his form more defined than before, his eyes reflecting a deep sadness.

  "The time we spent in the world we lived became more and more painful, distorted," Halal continued. "She was kept as a slave, not given a chance, an opportunity to speak her freedom, speak her will."

  The vision shifted, revealing scenes of Wafu's imprisonment, her silent defiance, her longing for liberation.

  "Her father's gift for his loyalty. A loyalty that would become her damnation," Halal's voice trembled. "She didn't believe that she would be able to survive, to breathe, to live, but she found solace, the hope that she had, the fear that she gained. One day she would break through these chains."

  Britt watched as Wafu's spirit flickered, her strength waning.

  "And as she grew older, she began to contemplate ways that she can make it through, for it seemed that light would never come," Halal whispered. "It seemed that will that she had was being crushed by the darkness of the cells within her chambers."

  Suddenly, Wafu's eyes met Britt's, a silent plea for help.

  "One day, a voice spoke to her," Halal said. "And I said, be free."

  The chains shattered, and Wafu's form began to glow, her spirit reignited.

  "But it wasn't until the ritual of summoning failed," Halal admitted. "I reached into the dimensions and I attempted to pull us back from this dreary and desolate land. Each time I failed, each time I pulled another new soul into our world, and she was one of those souls."

  Britt felt a surge of determination. "Her fight was burning out, and as I looked to her, I knew that I could only free her by slaying the one enemy I needed to keep."

  The vision shifted again, revealing a fierce battle between Halal and a shadowy figure.

  "For he was leading the people that I failed to lead," Halal confessed. "He was maintaining the lands that I had no need for. I had no need for food. I have no need for water. No needs. I just feed on flesh and death, but her life, her life awakened something in me."

  Britt watched as Halal's form transformed, light piercing through the darkness.

  "And it was for her that I wanted these chains broken," Halal declared. "So I sent Nosfermos to give him a quest, to watch him fold, but as I said, it wasn't until my brother arrived."

  A new figure appeared—Pantu, his presence commanding.

  "My guardian, my shield, my protector, my blood from long ago," Halal said with reverence. "Part of my bloodline, part of my soul was ripped apart from me. And as I reached into the dimensions, he reached out to me."

  The scene shifted to a confrontation between Pantu and the shadowy figure.

  "Pantu never came, but his friend did. Jim," Halal recounted. "And yet he took rule, or I allowed him to. They needed someone to lead them. But he was that reason that brought Pantu back there."

  Britt felt the weight of the choices made, the sacrifices endured.

  "Years later, Pantu summoned the circle. He summoned me, and upon that moment, he crossed the veil into Unterra," Halal continued. "His friend Jim told them stories and things that he would do, but I can see, I could feel from Pantu that he did not agree with the ways of his friend."

  The vision intensified, revealing the torment Wafu endured.

  "He didn't agree with the slavery. He didn't agree with the torture. He didn't agree with how he was treating her," Halal said. "You see, it was her that awakened both of us, to defend what was right, that brought us both to change the tide."

  Britt watched as Pantu fought valiantly, risking everything.

  "And it was then, it was then that I watched him fight his friend and almost die," Halal said with emotion. "Pantu saved her with all his might."

  The vision culminated in a radiant light, Wafu and Halal united.

  "Had he not, I would've never found the love I needed, the heart that became part of mine," Halal confessed. "Nor that I claim her, she claimed me. The Warrior Goddess Wafu, my beloved."

  Britt felt a warmth envelop him, a sense of purpose rekindled.

  "And although I am the Dark Prince, she lit the light back into my soul," Halal concluded. "Lifting me from darkness and casting me back into the light. For it is Wafu who I fight for. It is Wafu who I defend. It is Wafu who I search for. For she is the queen of our clan. And although I am king, I am nothing without my queen."

  The vision faded, leaving Britt alone in the vast expanse.

  "And so I bow down to one knee, sending praises to the universe, begging and pleading and asking that the path I take to find her," Halal's voice echoed. "The shadows I ride will lead me back to the dreams I have inside. For I am the Nasu, destined to be alone, unless through Wafu I can build a home."

  Britt's eyes snapped open, the teepee's interior spinning around him. The fire had died down, casting long shadows on the walls. He sat up, the weight of the vision pressing upon him. Outside, the first light of dawn broke over the horizon, painting the sky in hues of gold and crimson. The camp stirred, the Comanche warriors preparing for the day. Britt stepped out, the cool morning air invigorating. Red Owl approached, a knowing look in his eyes.

  "You have seen much," the elder said.

  Britt nodded. "And I have much to do."

  Red Owl placed a hand on his shoulder. "Then go, with the blessings of the spirits."