The sky did not feel empty at night.
It pressed downward—not with weight, but with absence. Without walls to return sound or light, the darkness spread until it touched everything at once.
He stopped before dusk fully settled, choosing a shallow depression where rock broke the wind but did not hide the horizon. The choice was deliberate. Shelter, but not concealment.
He needed to see.
The Blood Sigil warmed faintly as temperature dropped. It adjusted nothing else.
He gathered dry stems and brittle twigs from the basin edge, snapping them carefully, listening to how far the sound traveled. Each crack seemed too loud, too final, but nothing answered.
He lit a small fire.
The flame was cautious, low and contained. It did not climb. It did not announce itself. Smoke thinned quickly under the open sky.
Still, the light felt exposed.
In the cave, fire had been a companion—warmth pressed close, shadows controlled by stone. Here, it created a circle that defined him instead of the world.
Inside the ring, he existed.
Outside it, anything could.
He sat with his back to a rock and ate sparingly. The berries were unpleasant but steady. Hunger eased without satisfaction. He drank from his remaining water and marked the level with his thumb.
The sky deepened from blue to black.
Stars appeared gradually, not as a pattern he recognized, but as points that refused alignment. There were too many. No ceiling to order them.
His breath shortened.
Not panic.
Disorientation.
Without edges, his sense of position loosened. He shifted his weight, grounding himself against the stone. The fire crackled softly, sending brief sparks upward before they vanished.
The Blood Sigil warmed slightly.
Not to suppress the sensation.
To remind him he was still here.
He lay back briefly, eyes on the sky, then sat up again. Vulnerability felt different when it came from above.
Inside, danger approached from sides and corners.
Outside, it could descend.
He did not sleep immediately.
Every sound carried—wind passing through grass, insects moving close to the ground, a distant call that might have been an animal or something else entirely. Each noise arrived unfiltered, demanding interpretation.
He learned their cadence slowly.
Wind returned in cycles. Insects followed rhythm. The distant sound did not repeat.
He adjusted the fire lower and let the night settle around him without retreating.
Fatigue came not as collapse, but as permission.
When sleep finally arrived, it was shallow and segmented. He woke often, checking the fire, the sky, the land beyond the circle of light.
Nothing crossed it.
Near dawn, clouds moved in, thinning the stars and dulling the openness. The change brought relief he did not question.
He slept a little deeper then.
When he woke, the fire was cold. Ash scattered by wind marked the ground. The sky was pale, clouded, less demanding.
He stood and stretched, feeling stiffness settle into his limbs. Fatigue remained, but it had not accumulated into dread.
He had survived the night.
Not because he was protected.
Because he had chosen a place and endured it.
As he packed to move on, he looked once more at the open sky. It no longer pressed as heavily.
He understood something quietly:
The openness would not close around him.
He would have to learn to carry it.