Escaping Stardust: Shade & Kostas's Explosive Journey

The sky turned dark. The moon began to fade away, and the stars faded with it. The world began to shake violently in discordance with the movements of the heavens.

"Shit! We need to run!" Kostas yelled as he grabbed my hand and began to pull me away from our campsite.

The rolling earth shook the trees that were not uprooted by the violent movements of ground. The howl of a creature, similar to a wolf but different, rang loud in the air as it was caught within the woods and was crushed beneath their weight. The plants around us began to wither and die before we could even reach them.

"What is going on?" I screamed at Kostas above the noise of the earth. "How did this happen? Do you think it's another quake?"

Kostas looked behind him at the dark sky and grimaced before turning his attention back to me. He shoved some of my hair behind my ear and looked at me directly in my eyes. "That's not a quake. That's something else entirely."

I watched as his eyes flicked back towards the shaking ground again, then quickly returned to look into mine again. "You need to stay close to me," he said softly. "Can you do that?"

I nodded slowly, unable to move away from him on my own accord right now. I felt like I needed him for support if I were ever going to make it out alive from this nightmare. I felt like, if anything happened to him, that I would be all alone in this world without any help from anyone else. Without him, I wouldn't be able to survive on my own for much longer than a few days if anything were to ever happen to him; he was my lifeline now, more so than anyone else had ever been before him or after him...

"Do you know what's going on?" one of our other friends asked as he passed us by, pushing along a large cart full of supplies up ahead of us. His voice seemed concerned and frightened despite his best efforts at hiding these emotions from us all around him and everyone else who walked past us with their arms full and hands closed tightly around their possessions as they ran away from what was crashing down upon us all. It seemed like everyone was afraid of whatever it was that was raging against us now; I could see it in their eyes, could hear it in their voices as they attempted to mask their fear with false confidence, only showing everyone else how scared they truly were deep down inside where no one else could see them except themselves... Well, except for me... I knew how terrified Kostas really was about whatever this was that we were about to face; his hands shook against mine before he finally wrapped his fingers around them tightly once again... And yet here he was running headlong into danger without even second-guessing himself about whether or not this was a good idea... His face remained harden and emotionless as he kept running forward; he didn't seem afraid anymore... But then again, we were together now... We'd get through this together... Together we'd face whatever horrors there may be out there in front of us waiting for us somewhere down the line... Together we'd face them head-on... No matter what happened between us personally outside of our relationship together when we weren't fighting off a monster or dodging an attacker or running away from something that wanted nothing but our deaths! This time together now would change everything; I knew it would make everything better between us once we finally got through whatever this was that stood in front of us right now!