Dust Will Tell

Chapter One: Noonlight

The sun had already climbed too high by the time Ellis Marr crested the last ridge.

From the saddle, the basin spread out beneath him like a hammered sheet of brass—flat, hot, and unforgiving. No breeze. No trees. Just dust in every direction, breathing heat up from below like the earth itself was exhaling.

He pulled the brim of his hat lower and checked his compass again. The needle ticked. Wobbled. Then spun once before settling south-southwest.

He’d stopped trusting it two days back but kept checking anyway—habit more than hope.

There were no markers out here. No wagon ruts. No fence lines. Even the hills behind him had vanished into shimmer. All he had was a pencil-drawn map and the words his father left behind—words scratched into a final letter, delivered years too late.

There’s a place they won’t mark on any map. Not because they forgot it. Because they meant to.

The first strange thing—though he didn’t notice it right away—was that he cast no shadow.

He slowed the horse and dismounted. Looked around. Still no shadow. Only light, and the pale distortion of the air around him.

He opened his journal and wrote:

June 3rd. Noonlight. No landmarks. Compass unreliable. Terrain dry, flat, crusted with mineral haze. Windless. Silence feels… heavy.

He capped the pen and looked out across the basin again.

Somewhere out there—if his father’s map held any truth—was what was left of a forgotten settlement. A town removed from history by something more than time. Something deliberate.

The horse shifted beneath him.

Ellis nudged it forward.

There was still no shadow.

Just the sound of dust being crushed under boots, moving forward into nothing.

This is the opening chapter of Dust Will Tell.