Chapter 1: The Dance Before the Fall
The warmth was liquid, a thick amniotic embrace that held no shape and demanded no breath. Gustave drifted in it. Murmurs, not quite voices, threaded through the dark—echoes of laughter around a campfire, the crackle of resinous wood, the soft sigh of a body settling against his in the deep night. He dreamed, because the dead could do little else.
He remembered the cold first. The real, biting cold of the day his girlfriend stopped breathing in his arms, her skin going grey and still as the Gomnage took her from the inside out. He’d buried her at dawn, dirt freezing under his nails, and by noon he was checking supply lists for Expedition 33. What else was there to do? Stop moving? He’d fall apart.
Then the painted world. The violence of their arrival was a blur of screaming color and splintering stone. Renoir’s first attack nearly wiped them all out. When the silence returned, bloody and ringing, it was just him and three others: Sciel, sharp and furious; Lune, steady and watchful; Maelle, just a kid trying not to cry. He became something for them. A dad, a friend, the guy who made bad jokes while rationing their last packet of coffee.
At night, he’d take the longest watch. The others slept, huddled together for warmth in the hollows of ruined buildings or under the skeletal ribs of petrified trees. He’d feed the fire, write in his journal—if we don’t make it, at least let someone find this—and feel the vast, humming loneliness of the place press in on him.
That’s when the stranger started coming.
A shape would resolve itself from the shadows beyond the firelight, trembling, always trembling. Dressed in layers of dark fur and worn leather, face half-hidden by a hood. A low, melodic voice, strained with cold and something like fear.
“Pardon. I… I saw your fire. May I share its warmth for a moment?”
The first time, Gustave had his knife in his hand before the sentence was finished. But the man just stood there, hands visible, empty. His eyes, when the fire caught them, were the colour of a winter sky just before snowfall. Sorrowful. Beautiful.
“Yeah. Sure. Come on, you’re shaking apart.”
He’d shuffle closer, shedding his heavy outer gloves, then his coat. Slowly, as if performing a ritual. Underneath, he was… different. Softer. The practical expedition gear gave way to a simple, worn tunic that draped over the gentle swell of hips, the curve of a full chest. He wasn’t trying to hide it here, in this stolen circle of light.
“I’m Verso,” he’d said that third night, finally offering a name.
“Gustave.”
They danced. There was no music, just the pulse of the strange world—a low thrum from the glowing blue fungi in the petrified trees, the drip of water in the black pools. Gustave would stand, offer a hand, and Verso would fit himself against him as if they’d practiced the move a thousand times. His head tucked under Gustave’s chin, his body pliant and warm through the thin fabric. They’d sway, a slow shuffle of boots on moss and stone.
They talked in hushed tones, the words mixing with the smoke.
“I lost someone,” Gustave found himself saying one night, his cheek resting on Verso’s hair. It smelled of frost and damp earth. “Today. The same day I left for this godforsaken trip. The Gommage. It just… ate her from the inside. I held her and I couldn’t do a damn thing.”
Verso’s arms tightened around his back. “I am so sorry.”
“Why are you out here alone?” Gustave asked another time.
A long pause. Verso’s breath hitched. “My father. He is… a frightening man. His cruelty is a language he speaks fluently. I ran from him. My family, they brought me here from Rome, thinking it would be an adventure. They didn’t know… about him. About this place.” He swallowed audibly. “I think they are gone now.”
Gustave held him tighter, a protective fury burning in his chest. “You’re safe here. With us. I won’t let anything happen to you.” The promise felt hollow even as he said it—he couldn’t even protect his own girlfriend—but he needed to say it.
“Tell me about your journal,” Verso whispered, changing the subject. He loved hearing about the journal. “What did you write today?”
“Oh, boring stuff. ‘Day seven. Ate stale bread. Sciel found a weird beetle. Miss coffee.’ The thrilling chronicles of Gustave.”
Verso laughed, a soft, breathy sound that warmed Gustave more than the fire. “It is not boring. It is life. It is proof you were here. That you are here. That you… feel things.”
The conversations unraveled them both. Gustave shared his fears—the gnawing doubt that he’d get them all killed, the crushing weight of responsibility. He shared his stupid hopes—opening a café back home, seeing Maelle grow up, finding a place that felt like peace. Verso listened, enraptured, as if Gustave were recounting epic poetry, not just the scattered worries of a tired man.
And slowly, inexorably, Gustave fell in love.
It was in the way Verso’s icy eyes would soften when he arrived, how his shoulders unhitched from his ears. It was in the secret, shared smiles across the flames. It was in the way their quiet dances began to end with Verso’s forehead resting against his, their breaths mingling, the world narrowing to the space between their mouths.
One night, Verso was crying. Silently, the tears just tracking through the grime on his pale cheeks. Gustave wiped them away with his thumb. “Hey. What is it?”
“You are too kind,” Verso choked out. “You are alive, and warm, and you care for your people so fiercely. You have no idea what it does to me.”
Gustave didn’t ask what he meant. He just leaned in and brushed his lips against Verso’s, a question. The answer was immediate. Verso kissed him back with a desperate, aching hunger, his hands fisting in Gustave’s shirt. It tasted of salt and smoke and something sweet, inexplicable. It felt like falling into a warm lake, like coming home to a place he’d never known.
They parted, breathless. Verso’s lips were reddened, his eyes wide.
“You should go,” Gustave whispered, his voice rough. “Before the others stir.”
Verso nodded, hurriedly gathering his furs. At the edge of the light, he looked back, his expression so full of naked longing it stole Gustave’s breath. Then he was gone, swallowed by the pre-dawn gloom.
The next day, as they packed up camp, Maelle asked, “You were up late talking again, non? To who?”
“My friend,” Gustave said, a silly smile on his face. “Verso.”
Sciel paused, rolling up a length of rope. “Gustave. There’s no one out here. We’re the only living things for miles. Renoir saw to that.”
“He’s shy. He comes at night.”
Lune and Sciel exchanged a glance. Maelle just looked worried.
“Did you actually see him?” Lune asked gently.
“Of course I saw him! We talked. We danced. I kissed him last night, for God’s sake.” The confession burst out of him, eager and bright.
The silence that followed was heavier than their packs. Sciel walked over and put a hand on his forehead. “You’re not feverish. You’re just exhausted. You’re dreaming him up. It’s the stress, the grief. It happens.”
“I’m not dreaming,” Gustave insisted, but the doubt, once seeded, began to twist its roots inside him. He had the memories, the sensation of Verso’s body against his, the taste of his mouth. They were too vivid, too real. Weren’t they?
But as the days wore on and his team continued to gently humour him, then gently avoid the subject, a chilling thought took hold. What if they were right? What if the beautiful, lonely omega with the sorrowful eyes and the soft, welcoming body was just a phantom his shattered heart had painted in the dark?
The warm, liquid womb of death hugged Gustave tighter. In the darkness, the memory of that doubt was the coldest thing of all.