The wind brought with it something metallic. Pressed itself against the grass, countless blades readily bending as if under the weight of a great scythe. The scythe would have had to be immense, its spectral wielder even larger. But no such elephantine reaper blocked the dim skyline. It was only a wolf, Irineu.

His shuttered face suggested an absence of intention, but there was deliberation in his tread. He looked like a soldier unaware that his theatre of operations had long been destroyed—a soldier left behind from an alternate history, bereft of his comrades, all the same advancing towards the heart of enemy territory, out of a sense of honor, duty, shame, or what?

He crested a hill. The muscles near his stomach heaved with exertion, and he sat on his feet for a moment's respite. His face screwed up, as if in pain, but he only spat a thick glob of saliva to the side, splayed out like an amoeba in the dirt.

A few minutes, or many, passed. He continued his aimless campaign across the moors.