Yan‑Lum sat on a roughly carved stool made from a dried root in front of his hut, chewing on a stalk of yellow grass that tasted like dust and sunlight. With half‑closed eyes he watched the hot air shimmer above the cracked, reddish stone plain. The daytime pair blazed in the sky, heavy and relentless — two suns that never argued, yet whose combined strength beat down on the land with almost visible intensity. Not a hint of wind, only suffocating silence. Not even the shadow of a cloud to offer a moment’s relief. The air was so thick with heat that every breath felt like swallowing dry sand.
Across the ground, the Shadowwings moved in a slow, jerky crawl — creatures with lizard‑like bodies covered in blue and green scales, and wings like butterflies, translucent as opal. In this midday furnace they did not fly; the heat drained their strength. They only dragged themselves forward, their tiny claws scraping weakly against the burning stone. They searched for the slightest patch of shade, spreading their enormous, fragile wings to catch a coolness that wasn’t there. From time to time they stopped, their wings vibrating in a quick, flickering burst that produced a soft buzzing sound — a sound that seemed loud in the stillness — and then they continued their slow, futile journey, as if their entire existence were an endless search for shelter and rest.
Yan‑Lum watched, but did not truly see. To him, it was only a backdrop — a wide, slow‑moving panorama of an endless day, as familiar as the pair in the sky. The light was everywhere, yet the details dissolved in the wavering heat. Nothing in this unchanging, sun‑scorched world suggested that anything might happen. Danger here did not arrive suddenly; it crept in, like a desert fever that slowly drained one’s strength.