✈️ Chapter II — The Lost of Heaven

"The sky rejected them. The earth kept them. And the marsh awaited them."

There were only two of them.

Elias Thorn, the man of secrets, bearer of the eternal lantern, whose light never flickered, even in the darkest winds.

And Maëra Lys, intrepid cartographer, lucid dreamer, whose nights were populated by shifting roots and murmuring water. Together, they formed an unlikely duo: he, guided by an ancient obsession; she, by a thirst for geographical and spiritual truth. Aboard the Obsidian, their old twin-engine plane with its dark sides, they crossed the Broken Spine Mountains, a rocky range reputed to be impassable, guided by an incomplete, hand-scrawled map and a legend passed down by forgotten voices: that of the Lost Swamp, the mythical marshland that the ancients said was alive.

But the marsh doesn't let itself be approached.

They had barely flown over the ridges when the sky tore open. An invisible gust, like a breath from below, tore the plane apart. The Obsidian was thrown against the rocky mountainside, just above the stagnant mists of the marsh. The impact was terrible. The fuselage ripped open on the rocks, deformed, twisted, as if the earth itself had tried to hold it back.

Elias and Maëra survived. Bruised, disoriented, but alive. No means of communication. No hope of return. And below, the marsh... silent, as if holding its breath.

They set up camp around the wreck, using the debris to protect themselves from the biting cold of the heights. Every night, the mist rose slowly towards them, like a reverse tide. And in the silence, sounds... lapping, whispers, slow beating... like a heart.

Maëra, despite her injuries, drew. She traced the contours of the marsh from the heights, capturing the movements of the mist, the changing reflections, the shadows that seemed to dance beneath the surface. Elias, however, remained silent. He watched. He listened. His lantern, placed near the wreck, shone with a strange, almost liquid light.

On the third day, they saw the reeds moving without wind. On the fifth, they heard voices. On the seventh, Maëra dreamed of a giant tree whose roots wound around a beating heart.

And Elias understood: the swamp had accepted them.