The wind howled through the colossal archways like a beast trapped between worlds. From where I stood, the Gates rose out of the barren earth like the rib bones of some ancient titan, each one shimmering faintly with a light that pulsed as if alive. Around them sprawled the waiting grounds—a patchwork of tents, cracked stone pillars, and flickering lanterns where travelers gathered in restless silence.
I had stumbled into this realm by accident—or perhaps by design, though whose design I could not guess. The air carried the weight of countless stories, voices tangled like threads from a thousand realities. Here, no one belonged. Everyone was passing through.
It was there, among the scattered fires and drifting smoke, that I first saw the Gatefront Wanderers.
They moved with the precision of those who had seen too many dangers to waste a single gesture. Cloaked in dust-colored garments, weapons strapped to their backs, they looked like fragments of forgotten wars. Their leader, a woman with eyes the color of old iron, studied me without a word before motioning for me to follow.
We spoke little as they led me through the maze of tents. I learned only this: they were survivors, scavengers of the in-between, living on the edge of the Gates where reality thinned like old parchment. They hunted, traded, fought when they had to.
And yet, something about them unsettled me. Perhaps it was the way they watched the Gates as if expecting them to open at any moment—or the way one of them kept glancing at me, as though measuring me against some memory.
I did not know then that this glance would unravel everything I thought I understood about my son.
